Mixing & Matching: The artform of Mashups

Yesterday morning ZeumMasters had a special presentation by DJ Earworm ...and dont worry its not an ear bug. DJ Earworm creates what are known as "mashups." A mashup is a combination of differents songs lyrics and background music. For example, you would put MIM'S "this is why im hot" lyrics and add them to Rihanna's "Umbrella" music. And its not just like the mix songs you hear on the radio, they're 2 different things.

While the mixing we hear on the radio starts out as one song and then gradually you hear a second song fading in, a mashup uses the same song beat and takes out the lyrics from a different song and gets added to the beat. Its like a new song. You can download an acapella version of a song and and instrumental version of another song and mash them together( hint the term "mash-up")

I don't consider myself a really "technically connected" person, meaning it may take me a while to pick up on things on the computer. But when DJ Earworm was explaining everything to us and showing us how we could create mashups, i was really following along. I love music. Its a huge part of my like.

Music does so much; it gives people something to move to, and it can change peoples moods too. Its a form of expression. I could really connect to the concept of mashups because when i listen to songs on the radio i think to myself "that would be cool if i could put these words with that beat". I was really into the workshop because it gave me a chance to see that i can do stuff like that. He explained that mashups work when you choses songs whose key and tempo are the same, and my mind was thinking of so many songs that would sound good together.It was neat to hear it from someone who got into doing it by accident. I think it also opened up a lot of people mind's by showing them different things and forms that they can do with music. Being able to have the opportunity to hear from and have this presentation done by DJ Earworm was also influencial to Zeum because it gave us different ideas about how we could maybe incorporate mashups into the Zeum environment, such as MPL.

DJ Earworm showed us some examples of mashups he didnt like, and he showed us one of his more popular one's named " United State of Pop," which is shown below;

All in all the presentation was really fun and opened my mind. It gave me a chance to think about music and the different things that i can do with it.

Trip to Youth Speaks Poetry Slam!

On Friday May, 16th, 2008 Zeum took a field trip to Youth Speaks Poetry Slam. It was amazing, they talked about real life issues like the War In Iraq, Abortions, Violence among youth and so much more. One thing that surprised me is that young folks care about issues that you wouldn't think young folks would care about like Education Budget Cuts, War In Iraq, Global Warming, God, Violence, Abortion/Parents not wanting you and so much more.

Most of topics I could relate to like Abortions/Parents not wanting you because a few of my friends had abortions which is sad because abortion is a real serious issue. I also agree strongly with what one person said about War In Iraq should end and the budget cuts should not go through.

I give the people who went up alot of respect because they shared personal stories about their life and their feelings about major issues in the world teens wouldn't be caught dead talking about because its uncool, geeky etc... I would not be able to get up there and share my personal stories.

This poetry slam relates to zeum alot. like the poetry slam where youth can express their feelings, youth can do that here by making claymation, news broadcast, music videos. No one can judge you because of your contents in your expression.

I got this picture from the youth speaks website : youthspeaks.org

What's Going On Here

When I first started working as a ZeumMaster I really didn't know what to do and how to be friendly and communicate with visitors. For the first month, I was basically like a sponge, absorbing a lot of new information from technical stuff to dealing with challenging visitors, and observing other ZeumMasters ...how they handled challenging situations such as a when a visitor injures themselves, or how they greet customers. Now, it has been 40 weeks since and I feel like I'm a PRO! Having said, I am able to greet visitors and handle all problems professionally.

Want to know what's going on right now? First round of mentor group is about to end, and round two is about to start, how exciting can that be! Throught out the twelve weeks as a group, I gained skills to operate the software iMovie, effectively operate Macintosh computers, and confidently greeted visitors. What I loved getting to announce the Best Of Show to everyone at Zeum andI enjoyed answering their questions. I remembered the day when we as a group voted on what project we should do as a group and we all voted to do the best of show. It was nice to see that we as a group shared a common interest.

One thing that didn't work well was the day when we were setting up for the event because we were kind of in a rush and we really didnt have a large bowl to put the popcorn in but we managed to do everything on time. What I hope to do for round two mentor group is have people from outside of zeum work on a project with us. I really look forward to meeting new people and hope that we get to do something like this.

I'm also excited about camps this summer! I hope I get to work with Perry's Little Voices Camp. Most of the summer camps this year have to do with the 2008 Election year.

Paul