When evaluating my work during this project on the whole, weather that was simply me making an opinion of my tracks, to writing an in depth critique of work done, I have been using the ‘Boude Reflective triangle’ which looks like this:
Essentially whenever I did a piece of work, I would think about how it has gone and if it was up to a good enough level.
I used this reflective model in particular as it is simple to understand, easy to use, and quick to use.
Overview:
Proposal:
While I do feel as though I made my point clear in my propsal, I do feel as though this was the biggest downfall I had during this project.
Upon presenting my proposal, I clearly realised that the original concept fo rmy project simply wasn’t going to fit within our timescale. I had ideas of doing much more extra work whithout taking into consideration how long these tasks would take.
On a positive note, after looking at my presentation’s feedback and evaluating it, I managed to realise just how much work was actually achieveable, and re-thought my idea so that it became more manageable and focused.
Overall, I feel as though my proposal was too excentric regrding the work load, and that this let it down. However beacause of this being so, I learned from it and ultimatley came up with a plan of action that was going to be achieveable, and still the same EP idea that I wanted to do.
Practical work:
This project for me has been hugely successful and rewarding, although still being really stressful at times. All of the practical work completed has gone superbly well. Performance and recording were definitely me strongest points.
All of my recording work went really well, beyond my expectation in fact. The tracks were all recorded in such a short timescale, and were still sounding really professional after they had reached full completion. I maintained a good work rate thanks to evaluating my work and progress often, and realising what changes needed to be made when continuing my work.
The final performance went spectacularly well, with plenty of praise being passed onto me from the audience. It’s rare that I perform solo, and this was a really enjoyable and fitting experience to bring my project to a conclusion. I had no stage errors while playing and I really feel as though I gave my best to this performance, really showcasing myself and what I can do.
If I had to change anything regarding my practical work, I would try to open up myself to the idea of unconventional guitar tunings and keys, as I feel as this was what was lacking from my work. I would also experiment with the idea of using alternate chords to the classic power-chord to give my music a new and fuller feel. And finally, I would go for spending much more time producing a full album; This would obviously require a much larger time scale, and is more of an idea to try in future work.
Documentation:
This is where I lacked most in this project. Most of the documentation I had were simple notes in my planner as a quick way to keep the flow of work going. I did not really take the time to sit down and go as in depth as I could have with my notes; This was partly due to the time scale I was on, but partly because my focus has been elsewhere at the time.
I did however get everything documented in much more depth on my portfolio, and gave in depth analysis where necessary.
I feel as though I could have tried to use more images to make points clearer, however with many of the screenshots I had taken, none of them really needed explaining in any depth as I have already covered this in my video evidence.
Another thing is that I feel as though I should have let my influence me work a bit more than it actually did.
Final product:
My finished EP turned out as a huge success. The three songs that are on it I really like to listen to, and to play. Stylistically, the genre Heavy Metal is what suits my playing style the best, and is what gives me the most enjoyment to play. This is easily noticeable in the final tracks, and from my performance.
The whole theme of conflict that I was going for with this EP I feel definitely was apparent not just through my songs, but also the cover art. I had to produce my own cover artwork for this EP as the graphic design students had let me down. Despite this though I had my backup cover ready and I really am happy with its look.
To listen to, my three tracks have a good variety of techniques and an overall feeling of professionalism. My personal favorite of the trio is the final track, ‘Ricochet.’ The reason for this is that the song itself makes use of multiple guitar sounds, has an bass solo unlike the other two, and makes use of a wah pedal during the solo.
I feel as though each of the songs on my EP did contrast with each other, but all remained in the smae genre, and this was a huge success for me as it showcases my playing style in a lot of different fashions, which is something that I was hoping to achieve on this project.
Overview:
Ultimately, I am beyond happy with how this has turned out. I feel as if this has ingnighted a spark within myself to begin writing more music of my own. My biggest fear for this project was that I was not going to be able to write anything creative, however I have surprised myself and am now really excited to take this newfound skill further into the future.
The feedback I was given regarding the finished EP from everyone who had viewed it was overwhelming with positive comments, and this instantly made this the most rewarding task I have undertaken in my music career so far. I definately will be doing something like this in future, possibly even a full album one day, and this project will be a good source of information to look back on.
If I could do this entire project again, I would definalty put much more thought into my proposal. After finishing this project I have realised just how long the process of tasks such a songwriting takes, and If I knew this before hand my proposal would have looked very different.
Although my proposal I feel let my project down a bit, I think that this was a good opportunity to reflect upon my idea, and ultimatly led me to refining my idea, and making the whole thing achieveable.
Overall my project went much better than I expected. I couldn’t really be much happier with how the EP was recived by my audience. While It did have its downsides at times, I feel like these were redeemed when I evaluated how and why they didn’t go so well, and had a responce to improve upon these points as best as I could.
To conclude, I am really happy with this project, and it remained an enjoyable experience throughout (although stressful at times). I would be happy to do something simmilar to this in future, and this project will help me to learn from past mistakes.