Project Ideas
In this tab I will be exploring a range of different project that I could undertake in my final project. I will look at balancing out the pros and cons of each in order to work out which would work the best for me and which project I would be able to develop the best with my current skill set as well as potential difficulties I could face.
Leading A Jazz Band
Leading a Jazz band is what I chose to do in my final project last year and it is something that I hold a strong interest in exploring further and continuing as a profession. My Jazz piano skills have somewhat developed over the past year, therefore I would hopefully be able to choose a range of more difficult Jazz standards and compositions with the view of creating a 90 minute set. Although a 90 minute set would be a challenging task to undertake, this is the professional standard for most bands and my level of repertoire knowledge is on the way towards being able to achieve this.
I’m unsure currently on how large my band size would be for this Jazz band as I have performed within a range of ensemble sizes before. Although I do really enjoy performing with a singer, I would probably narrow it down to either a trio or a quartet with a horn instrument. However due to the lack of people I know who play Jazz horn, it would more likely be a trio featuring a drummer and a bassist. Although I have performed with talented musicians on each of these instruments previously, I would have to assess who would suit these positions the best depending on the route of Jazz I would want to go down and therefore this would be an area that I would definitely need to establish early on. There is always the potential that one of us could sing on particular tracks as well as performing.
Here is a really nice Jazz recording that I discovered the other day that really encompasses the sound I’d be looking to create.
Pros –
This project would be a very exciting task to undertake as it would focus on the areas of music that I love the most which are Jazz Piano and Performance. It would offer me huge amounts of flexibility as I could incorporate composition, producing a music video, promotion, event management as well as aspects of academic writing to do with history and politics and theory analysis. I could also potentially record a concert live, which if done correctly could give me as good or better quality of recording compared to doing it in a studio. This would give me an opportunity to develop my career as a performing musician for the future as I would have a well developed repertoire as well as potential networking contacts that I would be able to rely on in the future.
Cons –
It could be too much to take on overall and I might have problems finding band musicians who were willing to rehearse and perform with me. I probably wouldn’t make much money on this project as Classic Jazz isn’t a mainstream genre anymore, therefore I might struggle to sell tickets and promote it to audiences outside of my friendship group.
Composition
Composition is an area that I have long been interested in, however until recently I haven’t had the confidence as a pianist to feel that any of my ideas are anywhere near a professional level. My current practice routine as strengthened a lot of areas that I needed to address and overall boosted both my ability and confidence levels. I therefore have recently started to experiment with different harmonic structures and chord progressions and have come up with some interesting results. This would be a really fun area to pursue in a project, however I would need to work out whether my compositions followed a theme so as to perform them or record them or if they are more suited to accompanying film and dance projects.
Pros – Would develop my portfolio as composer and potentially align me with contacts for future composition projects as well as give me the skills needed to undertake many areas of composition. Could lead to some paid work.
Cons – Might struggle with the recording process as well as finding potential clients or people to work with.
Jazz Hip Hop
Jazz has always been a relevant genre of music and is constantly changing , most recently with a rebirth back into the popular light through the genre of Jazz Hip Hop. There are currently artists mashing up the uses of technology, Jazz , Hip Hop , R and B and Soul to create some really interesting and inspiring music. Some of these artists include Tom Misch, Loyle Carner, Jorja Smith , FKJ and Masego. Here are two great examples of songs from this genre.
In this video FKJ and Masego use various layers of looping and instruments to create a masterpiece of a song. It is ridiculously funky and has racked up 82 million views at the time of writing, which is crazy numbers for a song like this. It really shows that this is the current trend in the market and what people are really enjoying. A big surprise for myself in this is that most of this song is instrumental and yet is still a massive hit online. It would be amazing to try to write a couple of songs like this and layer them up for a couple of youtube videos in order to promote myself. Another successful youtube musician who uses this technique is Tash Sultana who has over 33 million views on her song Jungle which is recorded in her bedroom and which involves a sequence of looped layers on guitar and vocals. As I can play piano and sax to a decent level , this project idea would mainly rest on how quickly and if I had the ability to gather and use the technology for this project.
Alternatively, with this project I could put together a Jazz Hip Hop ensemble with me either on keys or Saxophone and Rapping. Rapping isn’t something I have a lot of experience in however, I used to do a fair bit of it a couple of years ago and recently got back into it. I am not the most confident in my voice however, therefore I would also need a singer and a strong back line , looking at about 6 musicians in total.
Pros – This project would allow me to explore a really exciting current music genre as well as multiple different writing techniques. I could have a lot of fun with production and technology ideas as well as create some amazing music videos for these songs.
Cons – I don’t have much experience in using technology in music and it would have to be something I learn very intensively. I would have to put together a large band and get everyone to commit to the the project which could be very hard to do.
Community Music Project
Community music is an area that I am really interested in and would love to be more involved in in the future. Unfortunately with our community music project in project 2 , we didn’t get the opportunity to present it to people outside of the college as we were supposed to do. Music workshops can enhance a huge amount of people’s lives as I explored in that project and therefore it would be great to be able to give something back to society through the skill that I have learnt and love to do. I think that my view on community music contains a slightly bigger vision than what would be possible to achieve on this project and that it would be a bit more scaled back, however I could still learn a lot of useful skills for a future project or career in this field.
Pros – This project would allow me to develop my interaction skills using music as well as give me a good insight into wether teaching would be a favourable career path for me in the future. I could also potentially make some money out of doing workshops.
Cons – I could potentially struggle to specialise this area and I might not be able to find many places to do my workshop as well as lack the equipment needed.
Music Journalism And Essay Writing
Music Journalism isn’t something that I have ever really looked into, however I thought that this could be an area that would potentially be very interesting to research. I love learning about the way that music works with and reacts to different parts of society and journalism would be a really good way to look at this in more detail over the course of a few essay’s or articles. It would give me a really good base in academic writing for the future and I could also look into the runnings of a music magazine.
Pros – This project would be a challenging one to undertake, however I could learn so much about the academic processes of music as well as over areas of academic thought that I am passionate about including politics, history, philosophy and sociology.
Cons – This project could lack a lot of practical areas in music which is a major part of why I love it so much, therefore I’m not sure if I could develop a project idea around this topic that would keep me interested for over 8 weeks.
Session Pianist And Accompanist
Playing piano is one of my favourite things to do and this project would allow me to strongly focus on developing my technique and style on the piano. As an accompanist I could work with a number of singers and musicians and develop my skills over a range of genres which would hugely develop my piano playing for the future. These projects could also lead to a number of performances as well as the opportunity to arrange music and record.
Pros – This would be a very practical project and give me the support of working under the directions of or collaborating with a number of artists. I would be able to look into a large number of styles and try to implement them in my playing which could really benefit me in future projects and develop my confidence on the piano.
Cons – I might struggle to find projects to collaborate with and collaborations could be within genres of music that I find less favourable to others.