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+# Early Sunsets Over Monroeville
+
+2023-01-16
+
+One evening, Mom entered my room when I practiced ukulele. She was like
+"you should record smth" so I did.
+
+I went for Early Sunsets Over Monroeville ("Monroeville" hereafter) by My
+Chemical Romance (MCR), for following reasons:
+
+- I happened to be playing that song
+- It's one of the few MCR songs acoustic enough for the ukulele, the only
+  pitched instrument I can play
+- [Billy Cobb made a cover](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVYs4kvBii8)
+  and I enjoyed it immensely
+- There is one more reason but it's complicated so I put it at the end
+
+The work began on 2023-01-12 and ended on 2023-01-15.
+
+## Step 1: Learn song
+
+Monroeville is structured as follows:
+
+- intro
+- verse 1
+- prechorus 1
+- verse 2
+- prechorus 2
+- verses 3, 4, 5 that have more or less the same lyrics but get
+  increasingly emotional
+
+I found [the ukulele
+tab](https://ukutabs.com/m/my-chemical-romance/early-sunsets-over-monroeville/)
+and learned to play the chords. Then I spent a few showers to practice the
+vocals.
+
+## Step 2: DAW
+
+I know this can't be a one-take because I only have one mic, and the uke
+would completely demolish my untrained voice. Also, this song is like
+5 minutes long.
+
+I did try recording and putting together clips in Audacity before, but
+without bars and beats it was a pain to synchronize.
+
+This time however, I installed [Ardour](https://ardour.org/) and gave it
+a whirl. A few hours and ready to go.
+
+## Step 3: Rig
+
+My rig:
+
+- second hand soprano ukulele
+- USB lavalier mic for online lectures
+- overear headphones, never used for six years
+- a laptop
+
+## Step 3: Record strumming
+
+This is like rhythm guitar in the original composition. Chords were not
+too hard, but it took a while to play on tempo. This is me strumming the
+intro:
+
+<audio controls src="../img/early_sunsets_over_monroeville/intro_strum.ogg"></audio>
+
+## Step 4: Improvise
+
+I improvised a riff to imitate the prechorus melody. This was done by
+plucking the G string. I just clipped my nails, so to make it sound
+brighter I used a guitar pick.
+
+<audio controls src="../img/early_sunsets_over_monroeville/prechorus_plucks.ogg"></audio>
+
+## Step 5: Record drums
+
+I recorded some clips of me slapping my thighs but ended up discarding
+them because (a) they sounded off-theme and inconsistent, and (b) it was
+stupid. Also this is an acoustic cover so drumless would be just fine.
+
+![Screenshot of the editor window](img/early_sunsets_over_monroeville/editor.png)
+
+▲ It was this moment that I decided thigh drums didn't go well with
+Monroeville.
+
+## Step 6: Record lead
+
+I found [lead guitar tabs on
+Songsterr](https://www.songsterr.com/a/wsa/my-chemical-romance-early-sunsets-over-monroeville-tab-s22636)
+and transposed some of it for the ukulele. This is the prechorus lead:
+
+<audio controls src="../img/early_sunsets_over_monroeville/prechorus_lead.ogg"></audio>
+
+My fingers were not good at fretting and picking strings on tempo, but in
+a choir of tracks these imperfections were easily concealed. Near the end
+I accidentally rang strings I wasn't supposed to touch, but luckily they
+were somewhat in key.
+
+## Step 7: Record vocals
+
+It took a few tries to place the mic somewhere stable enough, but there's
+still this kind of low-frequency oscillations in the waveform:
+
+![](img/early_sunsets_over_monroeville/mic_oscillations.png)
+
+Good news is it's barely noticeable.
+
+I could not go as hard and emotional as Gerard or Billy in the second half
+because (a) I never trained myself to scream, and (b) I've never had any
+experience with a zombiefied romantic partner. As a result, the second
+half sounds emotionless, which is a tradeoff between that and being
+completely out-of-tune.
+
+## Step 8: Mix
+
+It's just playing with faders, panning the tracks, and dragging some
+automation curves to conceal the noise in the vocal track when I kicked
+over a trash can.
+
+![Screenshot of the mixer window](img/early_sunsets_over_monroeville/mixer.png)
+
+▲ This was the Hackerman moment of the project.
+
+I also added a reverb filter for the vocals.
+
+## Step 9: Export!
+
+Enjoy: Early Sunsets Over Monroeville (ukulele acoustic cover)
+
+<audio controls src="/static/early_sunsets_over_monroeville.flac"></audio>
+
+Ardour gave me this window but I don't know if it's bad or good?
+
+![Peak: -2.7 dBFS, true peak: -2.7 dBTP, integrated loudness: -20.3 LUFS,
+loudness range: 6.4 LU. Below are waveform, spectrogram and
+LUFS-over-time.](img/early_sunsets_over_monroeville/export_analysis.png)
+
+## What's the one last reason I did this?
+
+twenty one pilots did a livestream recently where Tyler shared a few demos
+of theirs tracing back to the Regional at Best era, circa 2010-2012. Here
+we have a clip (MP4, 17.4 MiB):
+
+<video controls>
+    <source src="/static/vessel_stream_trees_demo.mp4" type="video/mp4">
+</video>
+
+Tyler put the gang vocal track on solo where he was like "__HELLO__ e-yeah
+a-yeah a-yeah hello hello hELLO". It was cringe af but the song was
+incomplete without it.
+
+And I, a musically illiterate engineering student, have one more reason to
+justify my own piece of carefully mixed cringe.
diff --git a/docs/music/img/early_sunsets_over_monroeville/editor.png b/docs/music/img/early_sunsets_over_monroeville/editor.png
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+# Music
+
+I was not raised a music person. As a young kid I had near zero exposure
+to formal music education.
+
+In sixth grade I joined a brass band as a percussionist (the conductor
+looked at my teeth and said "nyeh"). For most of my band career I was in
+charge of the bass drum, but I did learn the snare drum, the timpani, and
+the drum kit a lil bit. My favorite performance however was Takarajima,
+where I played the agogo (the soul of this musical number, despite being
+just one bar over and over again).
+
+As a side effect, a disadvantage I had to all the other band kids was that
+I can't really read pitch. I did not know what a Bb minor was.
+
+Fast forward to 2021. The summer I graduated high school, I decided to
+challenge myself to learn ukulele. My father got one secondhand for me. it
+turned out you only need a tiny set of "easy" chords to get started. You
+can sing in other keys with a capo. And if that doesn't work, the song
+probably isn't made for the ukulele anyway.
+
+The uke sounds pretty, sure, but I'm afraid my hands are too fat to press
+adjacent frets, especially bar chords. My setlist effectively stopped
+expanding as of 2022.
+
+So in the winter break, early 2023, I took the other extreme and invested
+in a bass (known in guitar world as long boi). It is a red Ibanez GSR200
+PJ bass, the only model that'll ship in 3 days. The date of arrival is
+2023-02-02.
+
+![Body of a red bass with stickers of Konqi, twenty one pilots, "Blåhaj
+Simp" and "This Machine Kills Homophobes"](img/index/ibanez.jpg)
+
+I learned most of my songs from [Rod
+Nieder](https://www.youtube.com/@rodnieder).
+
+However only less than a week later I found out I was somehow admitted
+into UMich. Afraid that the airline might wreck it, I decided not to take
+it with me across the ocean. Instead, I will buy a Squier that costs about
+the same. (I know it makes no real difference, but I kinda prefer the
+Telecaster-style headstock that has all pegs on one side.)
+
+Sorry about the infodump. Here's the blogposts under this category.
+
+## [Early Sunsets Over Monroeville](early-sunsets-over-monroeville)
+
+![Editor window in Ardour DAW](img/early_sunsets_over_monroeville/editor.png)
+
+I recorded the ukulele, did the vocals, and mixed them in Ardour. Result
+is an acoustic cover of "Early Sunsets Over Monroeville".