portfolio
portfolio
about
benji blue is an artist and producer from Chicago, IL. Having put out a mix of singles, EPs, and a debut album over the past year, benji has made a name for himself with his signature sound that blends hip-hop with industrial, experimental production.
Among the many projects that benji blue is working on includes various compositions made for UIC’s Music Technology class—some of these works will be showcased in this portfolio.
productions
group project
For the group project, I worked with fellow students Liz and Christian to remake an instrumental remake of the song “In Da Club” by 50 Cent. Liz did the kicks and strings, Christian did the melody and bass, and I did the shakers and snares. Although the patterns of the shakers and snares are simple, I was proud of my sound selection and how closely it resembled the original song’s instruments, for being from a default Ableton drumkit.
Overall, I thought the project turned out well, but what I took away from it the most was the collaboration aspect. I think that the project flowed extremely smoothly because we could all effectively communicate, and Liz and Christian are both people that I would work with in the future.
lead sheet
The lead sheet assignment was my first time in a long time using MuseScore. I not only rediscovered how to use the program, but also my hatred for it. It felt nearly impossible to place flats or sharps, write in lead-sheet symbols, add ties, and sometimes even add notes. I somehow navigated the nightmare that is the MuseScore UI and scoring mechanics, and made a lead sheet for a 16-bar chord progression that I did.
The chord progression that I used for this assignment was simple in rhythm—I instead focused on the chords that I used, having used a combination of major, minor, diminished, and suspended chords to create an eerie, strange feel. I not only took away newly earned hatred and familiarity of MuseScore, but I also furthered my understanding of making more complex chord progressions.
midterm project
My midterm project was one that I ended up being really proud of. I did a remake of the song “Give It to Me” by Timbaland, featuring Nelly Furtado and Justin Timberlake. I turned the original song from a hard-hitting, club-inspired rap song to a more minimalist, industrial-sounding one. Due to the project’s length requirements, I only covered a section of the original song.
The final result ended up being very rough around the edges due to me waiting until the last minute to finish it. Upon finishing it, however, I ended up really liking its lack of polish, as I feel that it is a great showcase of my music’s rawness and uniqueness in sound. I felt that I took valuable things from this project—as a whole, the song is obviously a cover, but the beat is something that I will most definitely use in the future as the backbone or an original composition.
performance video
I unfortunately was never able to get a proper final rendition of my video performance assignment. This was because I waited until the last minute to do this assignment, which resulted in me not being able to redo the original footage I had after discovering that my piano playing would not sync correctly with the timing of the original track.
One thing I learned from this unfortunate incident was to always be more prepared and more on-time—this assignment would have gone smoothly if I gave myself more time to do it, but also if I considered the need to sync the timing of my piano playing with the timing of the original track. To do this in the future, I will likely listen to the original song I am playing along to in order to ensure that the timing of the track and my playing line up.