Cerejeira Paulistana
By jegasus on September 1, 2024 11:49 pm
WELCOME WELCOME WELCOME, COME RIGHT IN!!!
Ah, it's wonderful to have you here! Wait, when was the last time I interacted with a human? Never mind, what matters is that there's a tasty one in front of me right now. Did I say tasty? I meant friendly! Boy, all this seclusion has really done a number on me, hasn't it, Harold? Hahahaha... Harold? Oh, sorry, pardon Harold, he's a bit shy. He doesn't like to come out and meet folks - he prefers to wait until his meal is cooked. And of course, those two things are completely disconnected.
My song? What do you mean? Oh of course, my Weekly Beats song! Yes, yes, let me tell you all about it!
Yesterday, I was watching this video, which talks mainly about how Nintendo makes music sound particularly Japanese. A LOT of the video went straight over my head, because I am very ignorant in music theory, especially when it comes to discussing chord specifics.
However, one thing I did pick up from the video is that Pentatonic scales are kind of a must. So I booted up the M8, forced a random pentatonic scale and started playing around to see what I could get. I ended up using Pentatonic F#, which I found out later is pretty cool because it uses only the black keys on the keyboard/piano. Anyways, I started off with a "pitched noise" instrument and immediately got something that sounded somewhat Japanese. I couldn't believe it and asked myself "Is this really the true power of the pentatonic scale???" I fiddled around some more and created some fun sounding synth instruments, added a heavily distorted Taiko drum and a wood block clack and went to town.
As a young kid, throughout my teens and early adulthood I was a huge weeb: I studied Japanese for a while, went to art class specifically to learn how to draw in Manga/Anime style and just had this massive infatuation with all things Japan. The city I lived in for most of my life, São Paulo, also happens to be the home to one of the largest Japanese enclaves (outside of Japan, obviously), so I also spent many, many weekends going to the shops in Liberdade, the neighborhood that's famous for its Asian (mainly Japanese) stores.
Given all this history, I thought it was appropriate to name this song after my Brazilian/Japanese experience. "Cerejeira" is the Portuguese word for "cherry tree" and "Paulistana" means "from the city of São Paulo" (the ending in "a" is because "cerejeira" is a feminine word in Portuguese, so the adjective needs to flex accordingly).
The levels in this are all wonky. It clips in a lot of places, it's WAY too loud overall, but still, I really liked how it came out. As always, a bit repetitive, but I guess that's just my style, hahahaha...
This was, as usual, all done on the M8 Tracker. And I worked just under two hours in total to get this song to where it is now (the new time stats feature on tye M8 are pretty cool).
Looking forward to listening to y'all's stuff!!!!
Peace!!!!
Audio works licensed by author under:
CC Attribution Noncommercial Share Alike (BY-NC-SA)
Awesome backstory and title and love the addition of the taiko rhythm to play off the main melody. Well done!