Final Semester!

This week I've begun the final semester at the University of Utah! Part of me is excited to be finished with school, but part of me is sad. I've had some great classes, and I've had interesting electives, but there's other electives I'd like to take that I won't have a chance to, such as Natural Language Processing, Compilers, Advanced Algorithms, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, etc... I've contemplated pursuing my Master's Degree and taking these courses. I know that I'll probably get exposure to these topics in my professional career, and I don't have to be enrolled in the University to learn any particular subject!
While I am infected with the infamous "senior-itis", I chose a particularly difficult final semester. Thus far in my schooling career, I've taken electives that focus on application building. I enjoy developing software. When I started this major, I wanted to know how to make websites, desktop applications, and mobile apps. For the first year and a half, I felt like I didn't know how build anything that would be useful in the real world. I was unsatisfied. Then I started taking electives that bridged the abstract programming skills I learned into creating real world applications. In my Databases class, I created a robust website to manage a bookstore. In my Web Software Architecture course, we learned how to create complex websites from scratch. I designed and implemented my own multi-user Android App, that utilized a REST API that I created myself. It was a great feeling, knowing that I could create applications that could be useful and help people!
Our Undergraduate Adviser discouraged people from taking courses that I just described. He said that all you learned from those courses was how to program, and you can learn how to program at any job. Ironically he's the instructor for the Web Software Architecture course. He emphasized the need to take classes that were more low-level, and more involved with math. He said that that was the difference between a mere programmer, and a computer scientist. I don't agree 100% but, now that I feel comfortable in the different facets of software development, the more inclined I find myself towards wanting to learn more about the low-level layers, and math based stuff.
I've chosen to take Data-Mining and Computer Vision to finish up my schooling career. They're both heavily involved with Linear Algebra, Discrete Math, Probability, Statistics and 3D Calculus. It's going to be a challenge, but I want to step outside my comfort zone and learn more about these topics. I feel like data-mining is essential in the world of big data. I don't see the amount of generated data decreasing any time soon. Also image recognition is going to be very important as the world immerses itself deeper and deeper into a digital era.

Go Utes!

Quarter Note Triplet vs. 16th Note Music Pattern

Introduction

While recording at the studio this week, I was discussing with the producers about two common drum patterns, that people often get mixed up. It's a very subtle difference, but they challenged me to go home and to look at it more thoroughly, so I did. I created each drum pattern in MIDI and compared them.  I also wrote out the beat in sheet music to help me see the difference. In this article, I included an mp3 track of 4 measures of each drum pattern so you can listen to the difference.

1. 16th Note Music Pattern

Notice that each of the notes are eighth notes, and are aligned on a 16th note grid. Very simple beat.

2.  Quarter Note Triplet Pattern

The most interesting part of this is the kick drum in the first two beats, so I cut out the last two beats. Notice that the grid is locked on triplets.

3. Comparison of Beats on a 16th Note Grid

So I lay the two on each tracks next to each other to compare them. Lo and behold, they're different.

The top beat in green is the triplet quarter notes. Notice how the notes don't line up at all on the 16th note grid? The 16th note pattern is in red.

4. Comparison of Beats on a Triplet Grid

This is similar to the graphic above, except this is on a triplet grid. Surprisingly, the red 16th note pattern lines up within the lines.

5. Sheet Music Notation Comparison

I used TuxGuitar guitar tab notation to write this sheet music. It allows me to tab drum beats.

6. Conclusion

I love music and since I've started college, I haven't had many opportunities to nerd out and analyze small music details like this. I wanted to document what I learned, and specifically share this with my band, because one of our songs has a beat like this. We've been guilty of playing both of the beats in the same run through of the song. So hopefully this will help us pick one, and stick with it. I personally like the 16th note pattern better. I feel like it's heavier.