Experimenting with Music Creation Rationale

 For the music creation rationale, I chose Tobu (styled as 7bou)’s Candlyand. Tobu, an electronic music producer from Latvia, creates EDM songs with addictive melodies, and always exerts positive energy to his listeners. His music prominently features bubbly and melodic synths, and usually minimal drums, allowing his melodies to remain the defining feature of his song. He usually uses major keys to write his music, hence the “catchy” nature of his songs. In Candyland, and with many other songs of his I listened to, he usually uses 110+ BPM, so most of his songs are uptempo.  I usually do not listen to electronic dance music—I listen to a lot of different music genres, but electronic dance music is not a genre I am familiar with at all. I enjoyed his songs quite a bit, and his version of “feel good” music is one I would listen to in the background while working. Although the music originates from Latvia, it was surprising to see the global reach Tobu has, since his biggest singles, Candyland and Cloud 9, were released on No Copyright Sounds (NCR), a record label that does not copyright songs—not very intuitive, but songs released usually reach an American audience. Given the relatively undeveloped Latvitan EDM scene, it makes sense that Tobu would use this approach instead—according to my research, there are hardly any notable Latvitan EDM groups. However, 7obu clearly was influenced by some old school Latvitan EDM songs. For example, Jumprava’s Ziemelmeita (Youtube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZM5g8kxTCY) features some synth melodies reminiscent of Tobu’s, although it uses vocal melodies versus Tobu’s purely digital approach. One other band I found in my research, the Gas of Latvia, has some similarities to Tobu, with the same catchy melodic structure dominating the song. 


All in all, I cannot wait to use Tobu’s Candyland as a stimulus for my experimenting with music composition—it is not only a great song to listen to, but also will be a great piece to base a composition off of.


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