Notable Music Projects

Some notable (musical) projects.

Stan Dup (March 2021)

Stan Dup was a rather large project for a school arts night (the Montgomery Blair HS STEM Arts Night, or STAN, for short). I had performed a hip-hop song in it before with a separate group of 4.

Because it was virtual this year (due to COVID-19), more possibilities were open. Previously, I felt limited to hip-hop, since hip-hop allowed the group to always do something on the stage, rather than standing around awkwardly during an instrumental break. (Also, I didn’t know anyone who could sing at the time.)

Through the video medium, my music choices felt a lot more broad, given that any potential visual problem or break could simply be covered by good editing choices. (I also got to know a vocalist.) I had always wanted to bring something more production-heavy to the show, and in mid-February, I realized that with the current conditions, that dream could become a reality.

The only problem was that I had two weeks before auditions were due (and four weeks before the actual show).

I still felt a drive to achieve my goals, so I quickly made a high-level plan as to how such a project would be accomplished. I called up Jocelyn Hao (singer) and Alan Chen (editor) to see if they were interested. In addition, as I fleshed out the details, I realized that we might want some dancing parts, so I also asked Joanna Ge (choreographer). All three were willing, but slightly doubtful that we would be able to finish in time.

After a few meetings, we developed a lower-level plan and outlined the whole project. I completed the rough sketch of the instrumental after 5 days, as planned. The next step was to write lyrics and record them. In hindsight, I didn’t allot enough time for that step. Though I finished my rap portion on time, Jocelyn had a hard time writing her part. Working together, we were able to finish the lyrics and vocal melodies two or three days after our set deadline.

The initial plan. Pretty rushed.

Thankfully, the coordinators were fine with us submitting audio instead of video, which allowed us to shift the deadlines back around a few days to a week.

Jocelyn and I recorded our parts, and I mixed the song afterward. (Mixing is a process/stage in music production where you make everything fit together with various effects and filters and balance all the elements of the song using volume changes.) We then submitted the completed audio portion of the song.

After their selection process, which lasted about four to five days, they informed us that we got in!

I immediately organized a meeting to discuss the video situation and to accommodate Alan’s editing needs. We came up with a suitable schedule that went pretty smoothly. We left the details (like what shots to take) up to Alan, since he was in charge of the visuals and had the best sense of what looked good and what didn’t.

We submitted the .mp4 file with some time to spare (a few days), and we were slated as the closer of the event.

All in all, the whole project was a success, and felt like a good exercise in management and organization. I learned crucial lessons like the importance of taking the initiative as a leader and enforcing deadlines, while reinforcing previous ones in effective planning and communication. Most importantly, the experience highlighted the idea that no one can do everything by themselves. I could not have completed such a feat without the help of my teammates, who each brought their own individual strengths to the table.

Without Jocelyn’s beautiful singing, Alan’s spectacular editing, and Joanna’s creative choreography, Stan Dup would not have been possible.

Note: At the time, I was a senior at MBHS, Jocelyn was a junior at MBHS, Alan was a senior at MBHS, and Joanna was a senior at RMHS.

Lay’s Chips (June 2020)

This was a project for the linear algebra class at my high school, during the spring of my junior year. I worked with a group of three people: me, Alan Chen, and Chad Yu. The lyrics, which we wrote together, vaguely introduced linear algebra concepts. I produced the instrumental and mixed the audio.

Note: We called ourselves \(\mathbb R^3\) because there were three people in the group (and after the vector space). The title came from the textbook author David C. Lay, as well as the famous potato chip brand, Lay’s.

Zero to Infinity (November 2019)

There isn’t that much backstory behind this one. I made the song for a Analysis 1 (Calculus) creative project, called Captain Zero vs Infinitus. While teaching the class L’Hôpital’s rule, the instructor compared it to a super-hero fight between two heros: Captain Zero and Infinitus (constant terms were considered “mortals”). The project simply required us to have some connection to the fight between zero and infinity, which I vaguely fulfilled.

The song itself is only 1.5 minutes long, since the second half would be more or less a repeat of the first (also because I was running slightly out of time). Because there were not strict criteria requiring explanations of course content, I didn’t feel obliged to write many lyrics, and so I decided to go for a more EDM (electronic dance music) style. The voice at the beginning was generated by an online text-to-speech generator and sent through a band-pass filter and reverb unit to fit in with the rest of the audio.

Note: The “BAM BAM” in the drop (high energy middle section) was an inside joke referring to the fact that our instructor would always yell “BAM!” whenever applying L’Hôpital’s rule.

Sort // Sort 2 (October & November 2018)

These were the first songs I made. In my sophomore year, I was taking an Analysis and Data Structures class (ADS: B), where we were first tasked to make a video about the bubble, selection, and insertion sorts (Sort). Later, the instructor assigned another video assignment, but for the quick and merge sorts (Sort 2).

Alan Chen (a classmate) and I worked together for both projects. We made two hip-hop songs, where I coordinated the audio and he coordinated the video portions.

Sort (1)

Sort 2