Sharpay’s Redemption

more staff members to come in at the last minute. Bad preparation on his part, but it works out for the plot.

Having arrived at the club, the students now face a new struggle after realizing they have to actually work for their money. Not having expected this, they spend a whole scene complaining until Troy convinces them they can ‘Work This Out’. After damaging the pots and pans for another musical sequence, they finally get to work – until about five minutes later, when Troy and Gabriella realize that ‘You Are the Music in Me’ and sing about it at the piano. And yes, in this movie Zac Efron actually IS singing, in case you were wondering.

Sharpay realizes that the Wildcats won’t be going away easily and has a new plan: getting them fired. She makes sure that Troy and Gabriella get caught by Mr. Fulton while having a picnic and swimming in the pool, highly illegal things for staff members. She also recruited her brother, Ryan. He, in the meantime, is sad about not being invited to the staff baseball game, although this makes perfect sense since he is a rich guest. He joins anyway and listens to Chad sing about how ‘I Don’t Dance’, but my Chad Dancing Counter (5 times throughout this movie alone) says otherwise. The second part of Sharpay’s plan is the evilest of all: helping Troy get a basketball scholarship and introducing him to some famous basketball players. This leads to Troy forgetting dates with Gabriella, getting promoted and his friends being upset about him not showing up to the baseball game from before. In return, Sharpay asks Troy to sing with her at the annual talent show. Why this club has a talent show, we’ll never know, but it’s here and it has a theme: Redemption, fitting in with our last column.

Sharpay steals the love song from before and sings about how ‘You Are the Music in Me’ with Troy – if this is the music she feels within, I think she needs some help, because it’s uncomfortable to listen to and has way too much going on in the background.

After being neglected for the entire summer, Gabriella decides she’s ‘Gotta Go My Own Way’ and breaks up with Troy. Their employment at the club is almost over at this point, so I would’ve just stayed to get paid, but maybe Gabriella’s ‘own way’ includes massive student debt. We’ve all been there.

Troy asks himself whether he is the type of guy who means what he says, saying we can ‘Bet On It’. I highly doubt this, since he’s been blowing off his friends and girlfriend for the entire movie, but if Chad can lie about his dancing, then Troy can do the same about his personality, right?

With his friends and girlfriend being upset, Troy is left with just Sharpay, while Ryan teams up with the Wildcats. On the night of the talent show, Ryan tells Troy to prepare a different song. Sharpay knows nothing about this and is unable to perform. Then, while Troy is on stage, Gabriella shows up to sing with him about ‘Everyday’ of their lives. That’s a big promise, but hopefully, we can bet on it that they’ll keep it this time.

Sharpay, being the queen that she is, gives the talent show award to Ryan, who didn’t even perform, but who cares! Redemption indeed. The cast then celebrates being done with work by singing how it’s ‘All For One’ and that the best summer has just begun. Hopefully, they’ll finally stop complaining about everything.

All in all, HSM2 is a great watch. Since it has some plot holes and lies about dancing and betting, however, we can’t give it a better review than The Shawshank Redemption, and therefore we give it a

4.9/7

- An Interview With SMLY FCE -

Can you tell us something about yourself?

My name is Laurens Schepers, or as some would call me SMLY FCE people as the Treasurer of Flow, but my big passion is music production and this is some thing I spend a lot of time on! I started producing music at 15 years old. Since I have more than a decade of experience, I thought I would teach the readers something about their favorite summer hits!

How did you start out in the music industry & Who was/is your inspiration?

How does music production work/what’s important?

Basically, like I tell everyone, music production can be considered as building blocks that perfectly align with each other. If building the blocks is done, you should have a track. In

You start off with creating sounds in a so-called ‘Pattern’

As you see, a lot of things might be happening already. The box which displays ‘Kick’, ‘Clap’, etcetera (and has a beautiful circle) is the Pattern. The tiny blocks of which some are bright and some are not are basically the notes in this case. The person that has made the Pattern

Once you are done with everything and created the amazing melody that you think will rule the world, you are going to pick out sounds or create them yourselves. There are multiple ways to get the sounds that you have in your mind, which all depends on the genre you have in your mind. For summer tracks you can go into multiple ways, looking at acoustic instru ments (such as a piano, guitar, or saxophone). Once you have everything, you need to think about the general construction of the full song.

Well, basically a lot of colors, blocks and lines. All of the shorter blocks are the patterns you have just created. The longer blocks with one line in them are so-called ‘Automation , which give you the possibility to rule one specific aspect of a sound. Do you want to gently let a sound fade in? Then you put an Automation clip on the volume. Here you can also put in samples of different sounds. If you record a vocal sung in by someone, you get a sample that you simply copy and paste in here. There is really nothing much to say about it, rather that the song should have a clear construction and should be align with what you want! And when you even think about being done after the construction is done: No you are not! Then the most important thing comes into place, which is mixing. Mixing is making sure that every sound that you use, even every layer for a melody, sounds clean and nice. Clean basically means that the sound should not have any unnecessary frequencies in there, when needed might already be sidechained or does not play too loud. The explanation that I personally have received is that whenever a track is not mixed, every sound will have some form of a competition with each other to see who’s the loudest. A bass sound might play on a higher sound level then a lead sound (melody). That makes mixing so important. Whenever a mix sounds bad your track sounds bad. There are, in my opinion, three mixing aspects that are most important.

• Sidechain: A sidechain cuts away a millisecond of a sound so that a kickdrum can be heard. Also, it gives the sound a bit more of a groove to it. Without this, the kickdrum might not be heard to its fullest extent, which is very important in Dance music.

• Equalizing: This tool gives you the possibility to lower specific frequencies, put more emphasis on specific frequencies, or cut away some frequencies. This tool is mainly used to clean up the sound for unnecessary frequencies, and make sure that every sound has a specific frequency to operate in. For instance, a bass sound should have a lower frequency in contrast to a sound used for the melody.

• Compression: This tool allows you to control the sounds and gives sounds a specific level that they are not allowed to pass over. It cuts away wherever you put the line. Also, it gives the effect that whenever you use layering, sounds are being glued together. There is even a program for compression called ‘The Glue’!

These are basic mixing methods. Underneath, some effects are explained by using a circle, in which the circle is the sound. Note that the sound goes from left to right, and up and down should display the volume of the sound. I hope you understand this, otherwise you simply have circles (good luck):

And then the final part: Mastering. Mastering is mainly done so that your track can be played among several sound systems. This also includes enhancing the stereo mix (making a track sound wider).

And then you listen to your song, think it is cool, release it and approximately ten people listen to it over one year. This is how music is produced!

What are some typical traits of summer music?

For some songs, the language is very important. For example, Spanish is used for a lot of summer hits. This is because a lot of people associate a language like Spanish with the hot sand of the beach, the sun on their face and a cocktail in their hand! Another important trait of summer music is that, a lot of the time, it’s very simple easy palatable melodies, repetitive yet nice lyrics that people can really jam out to. Summer hits also have to different goals, one being to make people happy and another to get people to relax and make them chill out. Some great examples are Salsa Tequila by Anders Nilsen which is a song in major key, which are usually used to make people in a happy mood. On the other hand you have a song like Hot Skin by Sam Feldt and Kav Verhouzer which is played in minor key, which are used to make people more emotionally relaxed.

Still not sure if you are able to write a Summer Jam yourself?

Don’t worry, the InFlow Committee has got you covered! We have created the Ultimate Summer Playlist for you to listen to this summer, so scan the code below and enjoy!