Overall, this project has been a huge learning curve for me, as I have discovered so many different aspects of music, worked on new instruments, with new people, and different pathways and jobs music has to offer. Being able to experience these things was great and has opened my eyes a lot more as a musician. I have really enjoyed learning about community music as this is something I had never explored or learnt about before. Being able to deliver something new that wasn’t a performance to a physical group and not online was amazing too. I think this project could have been better in some areas, but overall I am really happy with the final outcomes of both the ensemble performance and the workshop.
Playing guitar in groups is definitely something I want to pursue further in the future, and I might start guitar lessons to further excel my skills in this. As I am used to playing the drums, being at the forefront of the group during performances and having a role in the melody is new to me, but I loved doing it. Playing guitar for my final project is something that interests me, whether live or in recordings. Being able to play more than one instrument is important in the music industry as it gives you a better understanding of theory and allows you to be versatile in band situations.
Strengths
From this whole project, I think that the community workshop unit had the best outcome and was the most interesting for me as I had never done anything like this before. Everyone in our group was confident and we all delivered our different parts well. One of these reasons as to why it went so well was the fact we had planned the whole workshop in detail, did a short mock workshop for our peers, and made sure we were fully prepared on the day. Overall, the session had a great response and the students seemed to really enjoy and understand it, which is a main factor for it being a success or not. As well as this, the workshop felt relaxed and was quite informal, which is what we wanted as being pressured and developing skills in an uncomfortable environment does not improve learning at all.
Another huge jump for me as a musician would be the fact I have been improving on my guitar skills and actually played acoustic guitar in a live performance at the end of the project, and also played regularly in the cafe with Lucy and Ellis to peers, other students and teachers. This built my confidence as a guitar player and got me used to the songs quicker as I was playing them in a much more pressured environment. I have seen improvements in my strumming technique mostly, and have been using different voicings for chords, such as using open chords up the fretboard or moving away from simple triad major and minor chords, using power chords and learning fingerpicking patterns.
A part of my time during this project was focussed on enrichment activities; managing the live wire concert. I managed to do this whilst working on other parts of project, such as the ensemble performance, community workshop and keeping up with written work. I worked, often by myself, to sell and promote tickets, create logos, flyers, posters and content for social media. Lucy helped me make the programme, which unfortunately we didn’t end up using as the show had to be put online. Because of this, I was also given the task of making the video for youtube. This included sequencing the videos together with transitions, syncing the mixed audio up to the videos and making finishing touches to the video by editing the exposure, saturation etc. I already knew how to use premiere pro so it didn’t take too long to make, and then I upload the video onto youtube and set it to premiere, then sent the link out for everyone to watch when it starts. Juggling this and the rest of the project proved a challenge for me but I think I managed my workload well.
This project, as I was knew to a lot of the things we were learning about, i did a lot more context and research on community music. I looked at what community music is and some examples of where it can be used in the form of case studies. I also researched how to use GarageBand as I had never used this software before and had to learn for our workshop idea. I also looked at why listening and playing music is so important, especially for our workshop’s target audience. I then created a workshop idea out of my research in the form of a presentation. All of this really helped me during the practical side of the unit as without knowing these i would struggle to understand the point of community music and how it can have an effect on certain groups in society.
Improvements
To improve on my work, I think I could have done more regular evaluations for the ensemble piece and in general. I did more work than shown here and should have documented this more, but with this project’s workload, it would have been a lot to get through. We could have taken more videos, such as how we were planning the workshop or during ensemble rehearsals to show our development as a band. This footage is important to show our progress and how we overcame issues during practices. I could have also taken videos of me practicing the songs at home or by myself in a practice room as these are great ways to show how I am getting on without the other band members working with me. Taking these videos would have allowed me to make more in detail evaluations and more often.
To further improve our ensemble work, I think I could have done some work and research into backing vocals so I could do this for the ensemble performance. I could have practiced this with the group during our rehearsals more seriously instead of harmonising with Lucy for fun, as it sounded good and I could have definitely pursued this further. I find that I can naturally find the harmony of a melody, so I dont think this would have taken too long but would have added a lot of thickness and character to the songs. It would have also improved my confidence to sing in the future in performances, either as a backing vocalist in bands or working towards being a full vocalist.
Targets For The Final Project
-Implement me playing guitar into the final project.
-Keep a record of what we get done each week, including videos, so I can evaluate more regularly.
-Work on backing vocals if this is something that would work well in the final project.