For this project, I made a soundtrack to my soon-to-be created video game "As the World Falls Down," which is inspired by the scene in the movie Labyrinth when the main character, Sarah, gets caught inside a crystal bubble ballroom world created by her nemesis, the Goblin King, as a way to stop her from completing her mission through the Labyrinth. The music is based on the song by David Bowie, which was composed for the movie. I used the sheet music from the song, along with sound bites created on Pulseboy.com. I then looped the sounds and composed the song using Soundtrap.com. On Soundtrap, I was able to slow down, speed up and piece together each separate part, to create a 2 minute and 26 second musical number.
Using these technologies to create a soundtrack was easy and fun to do. Programs like Pulseboy and Soundtrap are a great way to augment sound making and recording. I am not a musician, but I was able to use my limited musical knowledge to translate and modify the song into a semi-original piece. I think that this type of composing would be beneficial in a classroom setting, especially among those who have never written a song before. It was kind of like taking building blocks and placing them one at a time to form one larger thing, which was way less intimidating than actually setting out to write a full song all at once. Being able to copy a tune also allowed me to learn more about music writing and composition, which I could use in the future to create a more original song. Although I don't think copying is always the best thing to do, I feel that sometimes it can help teach how things are created by breaking it up into parts and reassembling it.