Here is my new song and new music video. This video is a collaboration with Juliana Payson, who supplied the original video footage of her swimming, dancing underwater, experimenting with synchronized swimming skills and doing other kinds of workout routines. Through her YouTube channel (www.youtube.com/user/Onnaloves), Juliana has been documenting and sharing recovery methods and fitness training after having hip-replacement surgery.
This instrumental, entitled Buoyant, is the 36th song in my free background music series. It is an upbeat instrumental track that combines elements of EDM (Electronic Dance Music), pop and folk. As with the other songs in the series, this song may be used for free for non-commercial purposes in your videos, presentations or outer multimedia projects; you only need to provide a credit: music by longzijun. You can also use the music for free in monetized YouTube videos (that are otherwise non-commercial in nature). The download links are:
Download MP3 (320 kbps, 48 khz) from Boxnet: https://app.box.com/s/q6xrbbdfpmakuojmcl8lwqipf93zfpgd
Download WAV: www.dropbox.com/s/0i7rzc22t0kie17/buoyant-by-longzijun.wav?dl=0
Click on the icon with three dots at the top right of the screen, to open the download link (Dropbox has a daily bandwidth limit, so the file may not be available).
You might also like to listen to other songs in the free background music series: Free Background Music Songs 24-35: Preview & Download
You can refer to the detailed terms of use here: longzijun.wordpress.com/music/free-background-music-series-terms-of-use/
Credits
Music composition, performance and production and video editing: longzijun
Video footage: Juliana Payson
About Juliana
“I’m 39 years old with a hip replacement, and use my play with water for restorative healing. I am a bionic ballerina, sometimes when I have reached my limit of activity the only way to continue spending my energy without further impact irritation is underwater. I’ve since discovered that we all have the potential to train our affinity with water further, though I have not yet taken it to it’s full potential. I’m very comfortable just playing with my freedom of movement and spiritual relaxation underwater.
I am also a synesthete. In my particular case I can “feel” sound. It’s sort of like an aberration of the senses that processes multiple sources of sound information and creates the feeling. I can walk in the dark without bumping into furniture for example, feeling the density of sound emanating from my footsteps. Underwater, the environment takes over these feelings, I can feel the size of the pool, which direction the deep end is, all from the sound feeling. I have a pretty good sense of seeing where I’m going underwater, though my eyesight is not that great.
These skills are not unusual they are untrained in most of us, and many are probably not even aware. But getting more comfortable in the water is definitely one way of coming into contact with these senses if you have them. I have heard as many as 5% of us process our senses a little differently, we are just conformed to thinking within the box. Listen to the music, let go and explore….”
Video Editing
The footage was edited using Adobe Premiere Pro.
As a musician, it is always a struggle to find appropriate video footage for my YouTube music videos . One problem my channel faces is that because a lot of my views come from people looking for free background music for their videos, they will just sample each video for a short time. This creates a rather unimpressive view-length profile. Therefore, I have been looking for ways to make the videos more attractive. I recently collaborated with a dancer, Lee Chan, on a couple of videos, and I think such collaborations may be the best way to take my channel forward.
Music Recording
The song was recorded using Sonar Home Studio. Loops were used for many of the rhythm parts (e.g., the drums, main bass line and funk guitar riffs). To create most of the melodies, counter-melodies, arpeggios, other bass lines and harmony parts, I played a Korg M50 synthesizer. Although the structure of the song is simple, there are many different parts and added effects. In the end, I used more than 50 tracks, which really put a strain on my software and hardware!
This is a song I have been working on for a while. It started off as an EDM (Electronic Dance Music piece) but morphed into something else during the recording process. Though my piano compositions fit comfortably within the new-age genre, my electronic works tend to pull in influences from all over the place and are much more difficult to categorize.
The song is built around the idea of contrast. For example, sparse textures are set against very busy parts with multiple melodic lines vying for attention. At one point, there is a melody shared by three synth sounds layered over top of two complex arpeggio patterns and a few lines of whole-note chords and individual notes.
Another kind of contrast is in the rhythm, with the regular quarter note thump of the kick drum and steady eighth-note tick of the hi-hat giving way entirely to more complex beats.
The song was originally around eight minutes long and was structured more like a traditional pop song, with four verses, two choruses and a bridge. During the process, I started stripping away most of the the repeated verses and choruses and ended up with something more like an ABA format.
Working on instrumentals like this, I have a lot more freedom to set aside conventional pop music structures. The final song lacks a feeling of unity and there is no memorable melody, but it is packed full of little sonic surprises and it flows along nicely. Even after repeated listens, you should be able to pick out some parts you hadn’t noticed (However, this means, as background music it is not really suitable for background music for v-logs or other videos with conversations—it will simply be too distracting. For v-logs, I would recommend Chillvolution, Song 23 in my free background music collection).
I hope you enjoyed the song and video.
