Saturn Days

I don’t know if it was just me, but I remember waking up on Monday mornings to a gloomy atmosphere, grey clouds, chilly winds and no sight of the golden flaming ball in the sky, a dreadful reminder that I was going into to another week of hell AKA school.

But for some reason on Saturdays, I rushed downstairs to the kitchen to pour a bowl of Reese Puff and then quickly tip-toed to the living room to tune into the CW’s morning programming.

The CW’s programming aired shows like Cubix, Sonic X, Dragon Ball Z and Kai, Digimon
Fusion and Yu-Gi-Oh from as early as 7am to about Noon. SIMPLY AWESOME.

Saturday mornings were something to look forward to, the day was bound to be good because  you stayed indoors doing nothing but watching awesome cartoons and lazing around the house all day.

But that era is now over….

 

 

Change from cable networks to internet television, you can simply watch shows whenever you want, so what are Saturdays for now? What’s there to look forward to?

 

It’s quite sad, but  Keep  Calm, Press Play and Keep On Reading.

Earphones or Good Speakers Please

It was the beginning of march; the morning sun was shining through the broken blinds. The boy woke up. He woke up to the sound of his 2 favorite chords A Major followed by the C Major playing in a melodic loop on a Muted Rhodes.

The lush chords eased into the boy’s ears as his eyes adapted to the bright cream room. As his eyes slowly adapted to his room he reached for his glasses and set his eyes on the poster on the wall.

The poster was made up of a man in the middle meditating, while his background was a contrast of the spirits of day and night, on the night side the beings were gathering to the party, while the day included the beings gathering to stare at nature. In the foreground, there was symbolism of life and death symbolized by a skull and a fetus still in the womb.

The poster was rather inspiring to the boy. He grabbed his laptop and began to add to the looping melody.

It was a Saturday morning, and the boy felt relaxed, a strange sense of relief. The previous weeks he had busy with school and also working on designs for a clothing line, (Design maybe fun but it’s so tasking) but this morning he finally could reside in his solitude to create and express relief.

He added a D Major and E Major and continuously looped that for an hour.He laid still while nothing moved but the thoughts in his head.The Rhodes spoke to him, taking him back to memories of the time he spent with Rai during the hot summer months before traveling to London for summer.5 minutes can’t go without her crossing his mind, so that’s about 132 time or something like that…..

The boy never intended for vocals when decorating silence, but from the rhodes it simply sounded like a song drake could sing over, honestly.

The boy was inspired by Noah James Shebib, AKA 40… Drakes producer so He was amazed at the fact that he could hear such vocals on the beat. In order to keep the beat simple rather than going overboard, he decided to look at the samples of live sounding drums, hoping to use the feel of the live drums to create a realistic sounding atmosphere.

The boy couldn’t play any instruments. As a kid, he disliked music class due to his middle school teacher’s style of teaching. No disrespect to Bethoven, but he wasn’t just into classical music back then. He was taught as a kid if you couldn’t play the piano like classic musicians you couldn’t play the piano or even make music but over time thanks to advancements in technology and YouTube thats changed.

SHOUT OUT TO BUSY WORKS BEATS

The boy learned the fundamentals to building melodies, how to use major or minor scales to create varied atmospheres (Major Scales are usually happier while Minors tend to be sad, but this is not a strict rule) and most importantly to trust in his ears, if you can hear it, sound it out, till you create it, you either come up with what you were going for or something that sounds better.

The boy stuck to a simple drum pattern soft Kick, loud Snare, soft Kick, loud snare, and lightly closed hi-hats in between, he wanted to keep it simple. He added the live drums to the Rhodes and boo ,blow, he had magic.

The boy had created a classic ! Some neo-soul tyoe of vibes, songs like

Certainly Flipped by Erykah Badu

Urn by Childish Gambino

Treehome96 – Tyler, The Creator’s

He aspired to compose music as beautiful as these artists but he knew the only way to do that is to be genuine his own style and not copy theres.

The boy took himself out of the mind frame of comparing himself, to stay unique to his craft, He listened to the beat closely through his black skull candy in earbuds. In-ear buds are the only way to get the SOUND IN AND KEEP THEM IN.

The boy was physically on earth, but his mind was elsewhere.

He was oblivious to his surroundings

 

He was in his head where he could imagine warm pink clouds, and fields of daisy’s, he also imagined care bears while birds snag, the beat was an ode to the chill Saturday morning, it was almost Nostalgic. It was like getting up to watch Saturday morning cartoons all over again, his room got brighter as the sun positioned itself higher in the sky, as noon approached.

 

 

 

No longer knowing what to add he took a break from producing to search YouTube for RNB vocals. If he couldn’t get an Angelic voice on the beat, he was just going to have sample one.

PLEASE DON’ T SUE, IT’S ALL FOR NONPROFIT USE

As long as he didn’t profit of the beat, sampling wasn’t hurting anyone, the boy disliked how copyright limited creativity at times, but thanks to people like Lawrence Lessing we have Creative Commons (CC) which is devoted to expanding creative works, CC promotes creative culture.

The boy searched YouTube for Classic RnB tracks, but he wasn’t looking for just any vocal, he was looking for an Angelic voice. As each track passed, the boys stumbled his ears upon the voice of an Angel. Aaliyah in rock the boat and he knew this match was made in heaven. He searched for an Acapella version of the song and found a download link for the song immediately.

The boy added Aaliyah’s vocals to the song, he looped the chords over Aaliyah’s vocals… the hairs on his arm and at the back of his neck stood, as he felt cold chills. The boy listened to the beat closely, in order to identify his favorite lyrics, he found himself singing along to the hook “rock the boat, rock the boat”, while his mind drifted back to slow intimate moments with Rai. He slowed down the vocals to match the tempo of the beat.

 

Nothing Beats Slow Smooth Songs

 

The boy set out the patterns on the playlist and began to arrange the beat into an order he would like, by adding the various elements the boy had created a song that felt nostalgic. It took him to mornings when he would wake up beside Rai and stay in bed all day. He missed their relationship, but the music got him through the loneliness he was feeling. For some reason, although he felt lonely he was content with it, he was not sad that he was lonely, he accepted it, he embraced the moment because it was only temporary, the boy knew to live in the moment and leave your troubles and worries to the universe.

He laid on his bed and listened to the finished song loop countless amount of times, he lived in the moment, this time, appreciating the blissful solitude that Saturday had to offer.

What do you do on Saturdays if their are no Saturday Morning Cartoons, share your answers in the comments below