So while it may appear obvious to others, it turns out you can use video editing software to create music mashups. I had noticed the similarity between certain tunes and wanted to give this a try, but couldn’t bring myself to navigate the learning curve required to learn music editing software. So I took some time “between jobs” to take a stab at doing what some folks might consider a complete waste of time – creating a music mashup – but using video editing software. Specifically, Premiere Elements in this case. But most should work.
I started out thinking about how Richie Valens’ “La Bamba” and the Beatles’ “Twist and Shout” are really kinda the same song. Then for some reason, Trio’s “Da Da Da” popped into mind. And then as I started to realize “Twist and Shout” wouldn’t really work (for reasons I’ll explain) I was reminded of Grandmaster Flash’s “White Lines”. You could probably do something similar with Bowie’s “Let’s Dance”.
The easiest way to get the music is to download the video from YouTube. Although copyright isn’t as big an issue as you’d expect, the format can sometimes prevent working with the file. I used YouTube Downloader to download the files in flash, then converted them to avi format with the same program.
This is the beauty of using video editing software – you can then simply import the files, delete the video, and start cutting, just as you would with video. You’ll want to use the view where you can “see” the music beats, etc – to make lining things up a bit easier.
The first problem I ran into was that while a couple of the songs were in exactly the same pitch, they ran at slightly different speeds. So I lined them up 2 at a time and experimented with the speed and pitch effects until the beats matched up perfectly, AND they were in tune. This is where I discovered that both Richie Valens and the Beatles would present a problem. It seems that drummers, in both cases, varied the speed of their drumming just enough to make matching the beats impossible. So I tried Los Lobos, who did much better. And of course the little toy keyboard Trio used in “Da Da Da” meant their beat was spot-on throughout. So that was what I matched everything else to. This is where I tossed out “Twist and Shout” and brought in “White Lines” instead. But when you play around with speeds, you want to adjust everything just a bit so that the original remains recognizable.
Next, the songs are structured a bit differently, so you have to play around with different parts of the song so that the sections that “match” line up. I ended up cutting “Da Da Da” to pieces because I felt that La Bamba’s continuity needed to be preserved. I just moved the bits around like video files, making sure the beat ran continuously. The one problem I noticed with Premiere Elements is that the volume sometimes jumps up on the first beat after a cut. I tried to remedy this by fine-tuning the volume, but never really managed to completely fix it. If you listen closely you will still hear it from time to time.
Here’s what I ended up with: Ladadada Bamba
I also went back and tried to fit part of Twist and Shout in; I don’t like this version as much: Ladadada Bamba (with Twist and Shout)
So then what? Of course now I wanted to make a video with it. I had no idea what to do with it, so after consulting my 13-year-old, I decided to try a “chin daddy” idea I’d seen somewhere, and make use of the really poor “beard” I was trying to grow after having retired from the Army. Add some random imagery here and there, and I guess I ended up with a video mashup, of sorts, of an audio mashup. And no, you don’t have to actually film yourself upside down – you can flip the video itself – although, with the googly eyes, it might not be a bad idea. And here’s what I ended up with on that:
And finally, as I said, a few words about copyright. I heard a talk some time ago by Pat Aufderheide from American University’s Center for Social Media, who champions the use of “fair use” in appropriate circumstances. She said something along the lines of “the purpose of copyright is to facilitate creativity”, which I found to be a surprising, but intriguing statement. But according to the Center’s “Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Online Video”, there are six “categories” of cases in which one can legitimately claim “fair use” when “borrowing” other material. And in a case like this video, one can, in my opinion, claim case six, which is “Quoting in order to recombine elements to make a new work that depends for its meaning on (often unlikely) relationships between the elements.” Like the “Bush Blair Endless Love” video, though by no means as cool, I believe this applies in the case of my work. So far, YouTube hasn’t flagged my video, but we’ll see.
