Assessment

I confirm that the attached assessment is all my own work and does not include any work completed by anyone other than myself and sources have been appropriately referenced.

I have enjoyed working on this project a lot despite the difficult challenges and learning curves I have had to overcome in the process of my projects development. This has been my first time ever making a musical composition and I believe I have made a very good attempt for making my first piece of music.

Practical skills

I believe that my practical work is at the level of a distinction, this is because I have shown in many cases of creatively solving problems as well as incorporating my knowledge in music production from my research into my music. One example where I incorporated knowledge from my research into my music was around week 5. This is where I merged two of my ideas from my research which were Junkie XL’s eery strings with my research on musical cryptography to create a sweeping effect. I wanted to do this because Mick Gordon used a sweeper effect at the end of the Icon Of Sin fight to naturally end his music, sweepers are usually made up of clusters of notes so I thought it was perfect to spell out ‘DOOM’ in the MIDI channel when composing my sweeper. I used Junkie Xl’s eerie strings for the sweepers because they where very reverberant and sounded almost haunted due to the constant over lapping of tonalities in the instrument. The combination of the musical cryptography and the eery strings created a very interesting and professional sound in my music that was born out my creative skill of problem solving.

In week 5 I was beginning to become very experimental with pushing the boundaries of music in order to communicate a story through my music. Before the second part of the boss fight began I decided I wanted the music to slowly start to become more demonic and horrifying. I decided to create a haunting atmosphere in my music by clashing note together with Junkie XL’s strings, this created a terrifying sound within the music by pushing the usually harmonic elements of music out of the way. The Junkie XL strings I talk about that I used in a lot of my creative problem solving was created with my skills and knowledge on samplers I acquired from my research. To create this haunting sound I inserted one of my string instruments in to a sampler. Using this sampler I used a tool called alternate looping to make the harmonics and tones of the string instrument fold over each other. This sounded subtle put very cool and disturbing. But I realised that putting reverb over the top of this sample would make the sound become even more chaotic as the even more of the tones and harmonics of the sound begin to compile over each other. This haunting sound inspired many of sections in my music and helped me in developing creative solutions in my music.

The biggest point in my project where I have shown problem solving skills was in week 6 when I learnt I had to make a trailer instead of an 8 minuet composition. This situation forced me to quickly adapt to this change in my project and I believe I did a very good job in this. As soon as I encountered this problem I sat down and thought about how I was going to tackle it, I realised that I was going to make a trailer around the theme of the fight for the Icon Of Sin using the music I had already made. One day upon learning this change I had fully developed a trailer for my music using I movie and clips from YouTube. One day after making the trailer I had re-arranged my compositions structure to fit that of the trailer which made me catch up to where I was meant to be in my project in a matter of 2 days. This was my most important solution when it came to problem solving and professional thinking, because if I did not think of a logical solution to this problem quickly I may not have finished my project. These are a few of the reasons why I think my practical skills are on the level of a distinction.

The main things I could have improved upon in my practical work would be time management and instrumental arrangement. This is because I have learnt to think about the mixing stage in my music before you even begin mixing, this is because of an issue I ran into when mixing my music. Initially when composing my track I threw in many low ends instruments such as bass and low end percussive instruments. These instruments end up formulating a mess of low end frequencies in you mix making it sound muddy and hard to listen to, this made my music very challenging to mix as there was too much low end that I had to cut out. In future I know to avoid this problem you must think carefully about how many low end instruments you are including in your music as using too much can muddy up your track. In week I learnt that managing your time is very important when composing as spending too much time one idea that may not even work can waste your time, I have mentioned a lot in my work how I spent too much time developing one idea in week 3 which cost me valuable time of composing music. In future I will manage my time more effectively by spending no longer than 1 hour on developing an idea, if there is no progress in developing the idea within an hour I will move onto developing another Idea.

Research

I believe the research I have completed in this project is worth a level of merit. This is because I have used a variety of relevant sources that link to what I am doing in my work, these sources are from comes from many different online variations such as: websites, videos, live streams and podcast. Every page on research and musical analysis has been very detailed in it’s description and has been very useful to me when developing my practical work. One page that was very important in helping me develop progress in my music was my page on found sounds. This is because it gave me a very deep understanding into how other artists used found sounds in their music and gave me inspiration into how to use found sounds in mine. As a result of this page I used audio samples such as: doors slamming, screams, chains and objects being scraped on the ground to create a scary and aggressive theme in my music, this was inspired by the use of industrial sounds in the origins of found sounds at the beginning of the industrial revolution. One way I would improve my research in this project would be by being more consistent with it throughout the time span of my project. I did a lot of research throughout the project but in the last few weeks of my practical work I directed my full attention to my composition, this resulted in me falling a bit behind on my research pages. This lead to me having to finish off a lot of my work in the final week of college, this lead to a more stressful time environment at the end of my project. Next time I will be more consistent with my research by balancing the time out with the practical work.

I have improved upon my research from last project as I have referenced every individual source I have used on my digital space using Harvard referencing. This was a struggle for me before, but during this project I have found it rather easy therefore showing progress of development. Last project I also had a lack of variation of research sources as all of my information came from YouTube, I have improved upon this weakness from my last project by challenging myself to explore more sources of media for information. In summary I believe my research skills have vastly improved since my previous project and I am very happy with the outcome of my hard work.

Evaluation and Reflection

I believe one of my strongest areas in this project was my evaluation and reflection as I described my creative process behind structuring my music in detail. In my last project my number one weakness was the lack of documentation and reflection on my work, in this project I worked really hard to try and improve upon that by explaining my thought process behind making my work in detail. Each week I have asked myself what I am going to do better within the next week of my project and what my main weaknesses where in my project. I did this through my weekly reflections in detail, once I recognised these weaknesses in my music I decided to act upon it and fix the weak spots. I have used a video log interview reflecting on my project in the form of my viva voce, this went very well and I managed to explain to communicate my thoughts on how I acted within my project very well and I was happy with the outcome. To improve upon my reflections I would do a weekly screencast session on my digital space showcasing the progress I have made within each week, this is because I sometimes had trouble within my weekly evaluations with explaining how I made complex sounds in my music. I believe explaining my actions in the form of video would be much easier to communicate within as you would be able to hear how each individual instrument sounds through your ears instead of my explainations.

Context

I believe the context I have provided within my work has been detailed and helpful with helping people understand why I did certain things in my music and why I researched specific topics. For example I explained on my ‘Glitch music and dub-step’ page that I was studying this genre because Mick Gordon incorporated it into his music in various forms of experimentation, and that I hoped to develop an understanding of the genre so that I could incorporate certain techniques from it into my music like Mick Gordon did. For those who have never heard of DOOM I explained the plot and history of DOOM so people reading my blog had a brief understanding what the game was about, this maybe help listeners of my music understand why I used certain scary and aggressive themes in my music which resemble the original score for DOOM as well as the gameplay.

In summary of my project I believe I have done a good job in all areas of the level 3 grade matrix, of course there are many areas that I can improve upon. This could be by managing my time more effectively when it came to researching topics, or maybe using more sources of documentation such as video. Using video blogs would have been very beneficial for my weekly reflections as it would help me explain my thought process behind the music more effectively, this is what I will do in my next project. I am very happy with the outcome of my project as well as with the skills and knowledge I have developed through my research and mistakes in my work. Below this text will be the grades I think I am working at for each of the level 3 grade areas.