🎵 Checkpoint – Square Breathing

There's a lot to explain, and to get the context I might as well tell you 

The Situation at the Time

Two weeks back then, (as of this post, of course) there was a sudden splurge or content about several important things in our lives going on: mainly the "Black Lives Matter" movement, "#ACAB" (All Cops Are Bastards) or the "#DefundThe Police" movements, and locally: "#JunkTerrorBill" movement. Pride Month just started too. Not to mention the number of cases left ignored by higher-ups.

As a sidenote: I do support all of these movements. I was considering doing a donation drive at some point, but I don't think I'm mentally prepared to do so. I do want to help, but I think I'm not the right person for the job.

Instead, I kind of want to do a safe-haven outside of these stresses, hence the announcement of it in KaieraCafé.

In addition to that, we cannot forget the state of the world as well: the COVID-19 outbreak is still ongoing and at the time. There was actually a case confirmed in the area, so we were on lockdown on two weeks (it just started at the time) and we are not allowed to go out at all.So on top of that, I do have work to do, things to plan, and things to finish. I should not be worrying about these things, and yet I am. It was stressing me out very much.

Checkpoint

Checkpoint was made specifically to calm me down, with the intent of helping others too. It's a song that helps people breathe through a form of square breathing. (Equally breathing in, holding, breathing out, holding and then repeat: to a count of 4 each step.)The song was inspired from Scruffy doing the same thing before me. I thought of doing it too but with a less "creepy" tone from Scruffy and provide an alternative with a piece of peaceful music.If you want some more info about the song itself, I'll explain after the break.O yeah, the song is placed in an album because I wanted to add faster versions of the same song if others have trouble getting pace with slower ones. There's an alternate "original" version of the song if you download it!

As of today, the music is released silently: only announced to those who are subscribed to the mailing list of my bandcamp, and to Patrons!

💽 Download the Album here: (it's free!!) https://fiakaiera.bandcamp.com/album/checkpoint-square-breathing 

(Cause if I want to do private streaming, I need to do get Bandcamp Pro and that's $10/mo. and it's not worth it if you rarely do so. I may look for other alternatives.)

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More info about "Checkpoint"

During the composing process though, I broke. But a certain someone helped me calm down and helped me sleep through the night. (I'm sorry for all the people who saw me break in the #🧡exclusive-behind chat. My apologies.) The name "Checkpoint" comes from two things:

• The "Animal Crossing saving sound" that's found in the song. It plays when you save and end the game in any Animal Crossing game.
• The Internet Checkpoint. It's a random recommended video suddenly suggested to you out of nowhere. You'll know when you see it. I'm not one of them sadly.

That Animal Crossing saving sound was actually not a cut from the game. You can actually thank JonKaGor indirectly for that. He gave me a free VST plugin called "Helm ", a form of FM synthesis software. With experimentation, I accidentally made that sound trying to make a synthesized bell instrument. Actually, all instruments you hear in the song are made with Helm!

The song was supposed to be shorter... (you'll have it provided if you downloaded the album) but on repeated listenings it sounded abrupt in the end. I was thinking of ending around 3 minute 30 seconds, but without changing the BPM I had to make it longer to make it feel natural. With the intention being ending it on an exhale as a sigh of relief.

I feel that is should be longer but I don't think a 6-minute breathing exercise is ideal intended only for 4 minutes.

I think that's everything about the song I can say from the top of my head. Thanks for listening~