On Tuesday the 29th of November we all performed our music showcase to the rest of the class, meaning we had to teach everyone in our college group how to make a song as if they have never had experience with it before. The aim of this session was be able to run through the workshop at college and recognise weaknesses that needed to be improved before the official workshop is run. While we was running through our workshop out Tutor was writing down live feedback on the session, such as what went well and what needs to be improved. In order for us to run through our workshop we needed to be confident with the structure of our session as well as the topic of song writing we are going to be teaching. Lack of knowledge on even one of these elements can lead to losing the plot of the workshop and overall lack of professionalism in the community workshop. Written down below is the feedback that was written about our workshop by our Tutor, I will read all of this feedback and reflect upon it to ensure the best workshop possible is delivered. Each statement from the feedback will be displayed as a header on the page, below this header will be reflection on the feedback and how I will improve the session for next time.
Lewis B. – Workshop Feedback and Solutions
Start was unclear, need to introduce yourselves clearly, what is the project you are doing and why?
Solution- To make the start of the session more clear we will introduce what we will be teaching in our session, which is song writing. We will also talk about our goal of the workshop, which is to make sure everyone has written a short piece of music before the workshop concludes. One positive thing we did in the introduction was state our names so that everyone can get to know us a bit more before we begin the session.
Students were a bit unfocused, need to focus students using silence to ensure attention.
Solution– There where points in the workshop when everyone got loud and was not listening as much, in an environment where the people in the workshop don’t know about music this can lead to them not knowing what to do. Therefore we will try and quieten the workshop next time by raising our voice and politely asking for everyones attention, it is important to not shout as it can seem rude and even aggressive.
Game 1 – Should start the clapping before entering. Game was ok but because students knew each other wasn’t as effective. Tia set the last game with two leaders which worked well, she managed to get the students to listen to her effectively.
Solution-In the first round of the game the leader had not started clapping before the detective entered the room again, this does not go by the rules of the game as it means the detective may spot the leader beginning the clap, making the game very easy. To fix this problem next time we will make sure we tell the leader to begin clapping before the detective is brought back into the room. The game section of this mock workshop did not work as well because we knew everyone as friends from our college course, this lead to everyone joking around which also included me. Joking around and being silly in a workshop is not professional, therefore we must make sure we maintain a professional attitude in our next workshop. In the final youth workshop everyone we will be teaching will be strangers, therefore we will not joke around with them as much as we did with our college buddies in the mock run through, this is because with strangers we automatically feel less confident to joke around.
Important to make sure all the students are listening before progressing.
Solution- In the workshop the group often talked and got out of control in the intervals between sections, for example in the transition from the rhythm section to the harmony section everyone began to talk and could not hear us trying to get there attention. The majority of people began to quieten down before we began running the next section of the workshop, however while we where explaining some people where on their phones and talking while Tia was explaining harmony. If people are not listening to an explanation they are not familiar with they won’t be able to understand the subject, when this happened in our session we carried on with the session as normal. In the final workshop if this issue is to arise we must ask politely for people to stop there conversations until we are done talking and to put their phones away for now. This will hopefully cause them to listen and should help us avoid future issues like this for the remainder of the workshop.
Make sure each student has an iPad and sets up a new project.
Solution- At the beginning of the session we handed out the Ipads to each student in the room so that they could use Garageband, however it turned out we where one Ipad short meaning one student did not have an Ipad. To solve this issue Adam gave his Ipad he was meant to be using to the student and came up with a rhythm on Tia’s Ipad. To avoid this issue in the future we should make sure we know how many students are going to be at the session so that we know how many Ipads to bring, we should also bring spare devices in the scenario that one does not work or run out of charge. Once everyone was on Garageband we explained how to make navigate around the software, however we forgot to mention to make sure it was a new project. It is important everyone is on a new project over wise they be able to make their own music in the workshop as it will be someone else’s. Therefore in the next workshop we must teach everyone how to create a new project, in case someone misses the instruction or clicks on an old project we will go around the room and look at everyone’s Ipads to make sure everyone get’s to a new project.
Adam, it was really unclear what you were asking them to do, what does each instrument mean and how does it work, what is the bass drum, show some examples of different beats. Talk about placement of kick on beat 1 and 3, snare 2 and 4 for rock, kick 1234 for dance and 1 and the +beat of three for hip-hop/drum and bass. How do you pause the song etc. introduce these important parts of the software. Also talk about the tempo and genre, what type of music do they want to create? Whats the expected tempo (roughly for that, e.g. house 120, D&B 180).
Solution– To improve the rhythm section of workshop Adam must research different genres of drum beats such as; funk, dance, rock and pop. Explaining these different styles of drum beats will give each student more creative freedom when making their own music. Adam should demonstrate these drum beats on the drum pad instrument on Garageband and make adjustments to the drum beat in live so that everyone can see the changes being made. Adam did not explain all of the features in the software such as the pause button and tempo, many people within the group may want to make changes without the drum beat repeating. Therefore they must be taught how to pause the drum beat before we begin working on it. Everyone in the group will also have different visions of what they want their music to sound like, this will include changing the tempo. Therefore Adam must also explain how to slow down or speed up the tempo, and also talk about why someone might want to change the tempo. Giving the students context on why we do specific things in music may inspire them to shape their music into something that sounds very professional.
Adam, Why aren’t the students listening, you need to ask them for attention rather then expect them to listen, especially when they are making music. Tia and Isaac could walk round helping the group, assisting the students to create the beat. You don’t need to rush through this section of the session.
Solution- One thing we could improve on within the workshop was leadership and control over the class. As on many occasions people were not listening or where talking over us, therefore we must assert control by raising our voice however asking them politely to stop talking. This will allow us to help others and also explain elements of music to the workshop. This part of the session could have also lasted longer as Adam did not fully explain different styles of drum beat nor the different controls over the drum pad such as the stop button. We could have also helped students work on their drum beats more as they only had around 9 minutes of working on it, meaning we could have spent more time talking to everyone and trying to make their drum beats sound more interesting by rearranging the drums if needed.
Not sure what the white board was being used for? Very negative to highlight bad behaviour, praise is ok but didn’t really seem appropriate to this session.
Solution- In this session we used a whiteboard to highlight positive and negative behaviour in the session, this was unprofessional as saying someone has done a bad job in the session can be harmful to people’s feelings. This whiteboard also lead to silliness between us and the students as we are friends with each other, in a new environment I don’t believe we would have used a whiteboard. Therefore we did not conduct ourselves as professionally as we should have in this mock as should have also been more conscious of people’s feeling when writing on the whiteboard. Instead of writing names of the whiteboard from positive behaviour we should instead praise everyone on there strengths after listening to their music.
Getting the students to share their tracks was good, you could have discussed what was good about them.
Solution- At the end of the session we listened to what music everyone had made, however this part of the session was rushed as we were running out of time in the workshop, this is because the next group also had to demonstrate their workshop to us. Next time in the real workshop we should also give students positive feedback on what is good about their music, we will not touch on any negative feedback as we want everyone to feel the best about the music they had made.
Tia was helping students during the session but Isaac and Adam were preoccupied by the white board rather than helping students. You need to walk round, ask they how they are doing, listen to their tracks and give advice.
Solution- During this session we used the whiteboard to write down the names of those who have behaved well and badly in the session, looking back on this it was a very bad idea which can make people feel shameful or inferior to other class members. Therefore we will never use this again, writing peoples names on the board also distracted us from the session on occasions which disrupted the flow of the session and wasted time. Instead of writing of the board we should have been helping students out and listening to their music to fix issues and problems with it.
Isaac, was clear in delivery, What is a melody? You might need to know the answer to this or at least a good answer! Good example of playing a melody, but you could provide more examples of how they might come up with ideas, rising melodies, descending, alternating, space of note and rests. You could relate it to what they might sing.
Solution- One weakness I have shown in this workshop was defining what a melody is, as when I was explaining melody I realised I struggled to explain what it exactly is which lead to saying false information. One false statement I said in the workshop is saying that melody compliments the harmony, which is not necessarily true. Therefore before the final workshop commences I must have researched a good definition that I could use in the class. To show an example of a melody I played one on the piano plug in on Garageband, this was helpful and gave the group a good example of melody. However after that I sent them off to make a melody and left them to their own devices, to make the workshop easier for the participants I should show different examples of ascending and descending melodies so that they understand different variations of melody. After hearing more examples they can then decide which style they want to use in their music, therefore it will help guide them more to create a great melody for their music. I could also talk about rests between notes in melody and how important rhythm is to melody, without mentioning this many people may just play notes in random off beat rhythms. Therefore I must take the time to explain how rests between notes work in melody.
You could suggest some people to add vocals but some could add noises/beat boxing or something with sampling so they can all add something in.
Solution- At the end of the workshop we decided to give people the choice to add a fourth instrument or layer the track with vocals, this is a great idea as it gives people more freedom when creating their tracks. However this section could be improved by asking people if they want to the sampler on Garageband, but first explain what a sampler is and how it works to help them make their decision. Once everyone has made their decision we will help them add their instrument of choice into the music wether it be vocals, another instrument or a sampler. Me, Adam and Tia will then try our hardest to make sure everyone knows how to get onto each instrument and how to record it over their track. Giving everyone the choice to add any instrument into the music will be fun for everyone and will give them more creative freedom over the final result of their music. This section of the workshop could have also been improved if we helped people write down lyrics for their music, we could do this by suggesting a theme to them which they could then base their lyrics around. Because in this session we just let them improvise their lyrics with no guidance which is unprofessional, therefore in the official workshop if anyone does note have lyrics we will help them write them by suggesting a theme to them.
You all got better at the vocal session, you walked around asking to listen and giving advice to the students.
Solution- The vocal section of the workshop worked a lot better than previous sections as we all acted more professional towards the group and helped everyone add in vocals by talking to everyone individually and asking if they needed help. We also listened to their tracks and gave them positive feedback on their music, this is important as we want everyone in the session to feel proud of their music to inspire them to make more in the future. In other parts of the workshop we was a bit silly and did not act very professional therefore this part of the workshop was much better.
Try and be more polite, Adam, “please come and join the circle”, rather than demand.
Solution- At the end of the session we tried to group everyone back into a circle in order to conclude the session, Adam asked everyone to join the circle in a abrupt manor which may seem insulting to more vulnerable and sensitive people, therefore we must be careful and polite to everyone to avoid making anyone feel sad or hurt from the way we speak to them. Therefore we must talk to everyone in a polite manor to make everyone feel happy when leaving the workshop.