Date of Defense

4-20-2021

Date of Graduation

5-2021

Department

Music

First Advisor

Carter John Rice

Second Advisor

John Campos

Abstract

Objectives For four years, I have been trying to release music under the moniker of Rookie Plenty. Aside from a few songs on Bandcamp, my releases have been few and far between. In addition to releasing music on streaming platforms, MindState: A Capstone Project is an experiment in exploring genre fluidity. Many mainstream musical projects released in the twenty-first century are often genre constrained and demonstrate minimal sonic deviation between songs. This extended-play album is an attempt to exemplify a mastery of genre conventions while branching outward into new musical territory.

Methods To demonstrate an understanding of genres, I focused on those which were most familiar to me. These included the British drum and bass movement, Californian post-hardcore metal, and plunderphonic sample-based music, with artists such as Pogo or C418. With this mesh of influences, I intended to create a coherent extended-play album. After using these sources of inspiration, my focus became creating musical demos. In a typical music production environment, the two dominant parties are the artist and the music producer. Demos communicate the creative intent of the artist to the producer. After the producer views these demos, they can use their expertise to direct the artist in multiple recording sessions. I decided to bypass this process to merge the roles of artist and producer. The recording and mixing process took nine months to complete and required constant revision.

Results On April 20, 2021, the final mixes for the project were completed. The final project has five finished songs and will release on all streaming platforms in the summer of 2021. One song did not make the final cut due to an unforeseen copyright issue with a sample. Overall, the project establishes a foundation and musical identity for Rookie Plenty.

Conclusion Although the project was a success, there are still many areas of improvement. Vocal processing is an area that I will further explore. From a timbre standpoint, a mix of autotune and unprocessed vocal chains are in current consideration. Additionally, creating intuitive presets within a digital audio workstation will be essential to capture similar sonic elements in future songs.

Access Setting

Honors Thesis-Open Access

Additional Files
MindState Petronio Presentation (4-20-21) (1).mp4 (432577 kB)
MindState
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