Was my research sufficient and relevant?
My research in jazz consisted of a case study on music therapy and some jazz theory based on the songs we covered, as well as a general community music page. I feel like this is fine, but I could have done more on the community music page and left more time to do it since it was a last-minute idea.
The work placement was purely a research project for me and I feel like I went into quite a lot of detail with this, so I’m happy with this.
The research I did for professional development was fine, I think I could have structured it in a way that would make it easier for me to complete.
What else could I have researched?
For the jazz performance, I could have looked at the history behind some of our songs and studied the content of the songs prior to rehearsing them as I think it would have helped understand them more.
My professional development research couldn’t have really had much more to it, I think. Maybe I could have done some research into CVs and what makes an attractive CV instead of completely focusing on the university side of things, especially since I’m looking at working for a year during a gap year before university.
I don’t think I could have done much more for the work placement part of the project. I felt pretty burnt out by the time I finished with it and I truly can’t think of anything else that I could cover.
Do I think I have done anything better this project in comparison to the last project?
I feel as though my evaluation has been more consistent and thorough this term, which is good as it’s the only area that I didn’t achieve an excellent grade for. Additionally, my time management has been reasonable considering the various things the project has consisted of and I have spent more time outside of college working. I think I did more work outside of college this term than I did inside of college, but I found I work better when I have someone around me doing something else that doesn’t require me to respond or react to.
Did I enjoy this project?
I enjoyed the idea of being able to clearly document university application progress and what information I need for each university, so the professional development part of the project was beneficial in my opinion. The community music jazz performance was really good for my own progression as I feel I have learnt a lot during this part of the project. Plus, it was nice to perform in a different setting than a full stage and in a different genre than I’m used to.
The work placement was not great for me. It felt like more of a research project than a work placement, which would be fine if the content of the research was something that interested me.
Have I gained any ideas for the future through this project?
Since having it be mentioned as such a big and meaningful thing for Bradford’s music scene in the work placement part of this project, I have signed up to be part of Bradford 2025’s youth panel to hopefully have some kind of positive impact on the current music scene.
Besides that, I don’t think I’ll be looking at using anything from this project other than jazz instrument progression in the near-future.
Do I have any plans for future skill development based on this project?
Since I found I progressed a lot in my confidence on guitar this project, I decided I want to look more into jazz during my instrumental lessons and focus on theory through learning jazz. I feel this will be a comfortable genre to explore improvisation too, which is something I have always had little confidence in.
At the same time, I want to work towards my grade 8 guitar for the end of this year and look at doing non-formally graded bass. Most universities I am looking at want an instrumental grade of 7 or higher, so ideally a grade 8 in guitar and 7/8 in bass would set me up nicely for university progression.