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Thanks for your criticism! With @Bowlerhat's live flute, there will be enough variety to make it sound more interesting and less, "Okay, I dig this groove, but what's hot here?" Glad you enjoy it!

I like the idea, not sure that this would fly with OCR though??? I couldn't tell ya.

Since we're exploring music education, I want to say nowadays, music education on the university level outside of schools like Berklee, Julliard, NEC, what have you... in my experience, it's a complete joke. I'm going to Endicott College, and it's a great school. I went in as Computer Science major, realized it wasn't for me, and I switched to Liberal Studies with a concentration in Music. Now I did this because what I really want to study is music (we don't have enough money to go to music school, ok how can I make this work). Well... it's not working. It's a complete joke. I have private instruction... he doesn't have me do anything. He just kinda stands there. In jazz band (frustrating for me because this is something I really want to look forward to), our instructor hardly makes them work hard not only to play right, but to play tight. Every section is very weak. I had some music classes with the same professor who does my private instruction, hey guess what, we didn't do anything in those classes and I got an A just because. At the end of the day, I'm switching majors. And this is a college; we hosted an intercollegiate jazz fest with other schools in the area, Ipswich High and Beverly High played, then us and Gordon College followed by Boston University. It goes without saying we were terrible compared to the other universities, but even the high schools were miles better than us. Maybe I'm just a kid who's wishing he was going to music school, but this level of education is less than mediocre.

Is it possible for me to agree on both sides? I'd like to do that.

I have to say, for me, this is probably the saddest. While I have contended that pop does not equal less musicianship, I will agree I'm not a fan of the kind of music that plays on today's radio stations. I've tried playing music that I enjoy in the car with my peers, which is usually jazz or R&B, and they usually ask "What the fuck is this?" Then they put on Post Malone or Drake. I've asked them too why they don't like my music taste, and their response was, "Because we can't get lit to it." I'm sure people were getting lit to Bill Evans in 1963.

I can't speak for anyone who's gonna judge, but I love seeing mixes blown outta the water in a whole new direction. I like this a lot!

I'll take Animal Crossing with K.K. Crusin'!

Update: I'm gonna get to editing this again this week! I've done a little bit with this in the past month.

I think it's interesting, from an economic standpoint, that's how it is in America (or let's say in capitalism). Based on class alone, not too many rich and poor people are intermingling. I think it has less to do with any differences of sex and more to do with how a capitalist class system is set up. Ok, bringing it back around! Haha I'm studying liberal arts right now, but I'm not liberal. Is that a problem? But yeah, I agree. We're tied to our biology. And I think this will add to the talk of of the differences of sex side that could be incorporated into the business: https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2017/03/06/chart-the-percentage-women-and-men-each-profession/GBX22YsWl0XaeHghwXfE4H/story.html It seems like a pretty even split in the music business between men and women, roughly.

I just wanna clarify that I said this immediately after: "If you want to be a performer, you had better take every gig you can, and be able to nail everything the arranger or composer needs. People don't get out of college and become these famous musicians, at least, not people like you and me. Performers nowadays? Years and years of nailing gigs and hard work."

Also, working towards being an established composer will make the bank. I mean, look at this amount of money! https://www.celebritynetworth.com/richest-businessmen/producers/john-williams-net-worth/ EDIT: Also, this: https://www.recruiter.com/salaries/music-composers-and-arrangers-salary/

I like the idea of getting experimental. Take this music for example: These aren't electronic musicians per se, but this group Two Steps From Hell uses a lot of electronic effects in their music. Modern film scoring sees plenty of influence from all genres of music, including electronic. Being a dj is a form of performance, as you know, there are plenty of people who do it nowadays, for example deadmau5. He makes all his tracks and performs them with whatever his setup is on stage, but he couldn't play his music on an instrument. I think if you were to get experimental with it, it'd probably be really fun. There's totally a market for electronic/orchestral music (and better yet in one of the more profitable areas of music - film scoring!). EDIT: (The first video is Two Steps From Hell, not the second)

Music isn't a dying business at all. Bands or artists performing live is absolutely huge still. Look at any pop artist nowadays. Rock, jazz, etc. - performance is huge. There's a certain experience seeing favorite bands play their music live that people want to see. If you want to be a performer, you had better take every gig you can, and be able to nail everything the arranger or composer needs. People don't get out of college and become these famous musicians, at least, not people like you and me. Performers nowadays? Years and years of nailing gigs and hard work. And orchestras are not failing. Those aren't session musicians up there, those are people who are paid to be a member of the orchestra. Being a freelance classical musician nowadays without any other job is pretty impossible. But that doesn't mean it's "failing." Music is a business that favors hard work. If you look at anyone who's famous right now, they probably do their work. Maybe, just maybe, there are some artists that arguably are "bad" or "shouldn't be in the spotlight," but pop music is pop music. Pop does not equal less work or musicianship.

Nice. I'm assuming the strings are a plugin? They sound so good!

Oh, now this is nice! Solid all around, did you submit this at all? Because you should!

So, I really care about jazz and hip hop so I'm gonna push this. What direction is this going in? I'm working on my submission for this album right now but I think if you try to make this 10-12 tracks that would be good for an official album. That's what I would shoot for instead of just a side album project. If you could write down everyone who said they've claimed something in the description, that might help. I just don't want this project to go under because of disorganization. Keep updating! I wouldn't mind making more than one mix for this. IN ADDITION, I will provide "live" piano for anyone who needs it. I say "live" because I use Keyscape, because of that though quality isn't an issue at all.

#7 is my favorite. I only have a limited amount of music friends from high school, and only one of them is at least a little interested in the same genre I am, jazz. I'm going to a school for Liberal Studies now (to ensure complete unemployability), and believe me when I tell you there are absolutely no other students at this school that play jazz. So my options are limited, and I don't have anyone better to play around. Being a big fish in small pond isn't that great for me. Being a freshman, I can only hope that I can find incoming students in the next coming years who know how to play, or at least want to learn just as much as I do. But for now, I have no expansions to my circle so I have to work inward. Taking hours and hours a week trying to make the most of Garage Band using Keyscape on my Macbook Air Laptop, and it's a really slow process. But it's all I got, and even if I wanted to go around gigging places, I wouldn't be able to rely on anyone. So I'm trying to push my performance ability and my production ability so that tomorrow, I'll be able to do these things a little better, and that ten years from now, I'll be able to keep a decent flow of income. I can really connect to #7. Hopefully after working this summer I can upgrade my DAW. EDIT: Number 7 from the original post to be exact.

A front page would be awesome. With every new mix I submit, I wanna push the quality even just a little bit more. We'll see what the judges think.

Ok, I'm interested. I would really really enjoy some live flute on this! I know I already submitted, but whatever. PM me with some deets!

I just got a nice pair of headphones, so I might spend some more time with this with making it better and what not.

I'm interested.

Thank you for these kind words! I really went with what was vibing with me that day, and I'll agree, this project is my pinnacle of mixing for sure. The wav is quite large. Here's an m4a, much smaller and not at all too much to ask. I don't mind anyone downloading this stuff. "Hey Saria, There's a Fiesta Down in Kokiri Forest" REDUCED SIZE Stay tuned for updates! It may very well be asked for a resubmit and then I'll have to edit it even more, which means it could have the potential of getting even better.

So, to start I can tell that these are not real instruments, but that's not necessarily a problem. There are some things you can do to make it sound less mechanical. I think there's a lot to work with here. For starters, the guitar seems very touch and go. In this composition, it's doing some arpeggio stuff on each bar, but none of the notes are sustaining. Think about how a guitar works - when you pluck a string it sustains until you mute it with your hand. If you can make it so the guitar sustains more, it'll sound so much more realistic. All the strings are affected too, they just kind of start and then stop - there's just a lot of empty space. Empty space in a piece isn't a bad thing, but you don't want it to sound like everything is just being cut off all at once. With the string samples there is probably a knob to increase the release of the sound. When you turn that knob, you're basically just telling the program how long you want the sound to fade out for, and right now it sounds like the release is at 0. In addition, you can use reverb to give the arrangement some space to it, make it sound more like the instruments are being played in a room. I think there's a lot of potential here, and any of the issues there are is nothing that is unworkable or unfixable, just try learn at least one or two things with each new project and you'll be on your way! Keep playing around with this stuff.

Here's a remix I am working on of the Kokiri Forest theme from Ocarina of Time. I just had an itching for some latin music. I know the arrangement is quite liberal, but I think it flows well enough. Enjoy the mix! ReMix Edit #1: "Hey Saria, There's a Fiesta Down in Kokiri Forest" ReMix Edit #2: "Hey Saria, There's a Fiesta Down in Kokiri Forest 2.0" Remix Edit #3 (MOST RECENT): "Hey Saria, There's a Fiesta Down in Kokiri Forest" Final Bounce???: "Hey Saria, There's a Fiesta Down in Kokiri Forest (Final)" Source Tune: Pleased to say I'm working with @Bowlerhat for some live flute on this track! Gonna be great.

I like, however I think the mix might just be a tad muddy. If you just dial the reverb back a little, turn down the bass, that should make it sound much better. Other than that, I like. Really good sound design and arrangement.