Feedback
The first important factor in my presentation, to me personally, was my confidence. Comparing my improvements in conveying my ideas more to an audience and giving ample context is one of the many skills I need to improve upon. Reviewing the footage, I can confidently say that I have improved upon this aspect and have a much more information-packed presentation that didn’t run too long. While I still believe this is miles better than what I produced last year in the Level 3 course, I can still understand one glaring weakness in the way I come across. Much of my talking was improvised, which is a fantastic skill in the music industry. Still, I had to pause a handful of times to process what I wanted to touch on next or answer a question: it is highly prevalent, as I tend to say “um” a lot during my presentation. If I were to do this again, I would work around this by making a small list of topics I want to discuss for each slide and not trying to stray too far away from the subject. Another improv technique I could look into instead of repeating the exact phrase whenever I think would be to say nothing and breathe as I compose my thoughts and answers. Both could be utilized together, and I would have had a more convincing presentation.
The feedback I received was helpful! I figured I would open myself up a lot more to the criticisms of others, and for that, I am incredibly pleased, as without it, I would feel a little lost. One question in particular stood out to me, which was copyright. Since I will be using Nintendo’s IP, Metroid, in my artwork, I will have to be careful of the legalities in copyright and monetization as I publish my tracks. Together, we understood it would be much more helpful to publish the artwork I will create on YouTube and mark the video as a non-profit so that I cannot earn any money. For Spotify, however, I will not be publishing the artwork on the tracks or album cover segment, so I can understand how monetization and earning money work on the most popular streaming site in the world. Perhaps I could make a completely original cover on the side for the Spotify release. That way, I can still give it a vibrant, eye-catching cover that inspires people to listen and, therefore, drags in more listeners and potential fans!
While not inherently a question, one piece of criticism can save me a lot of disappointment later in the project. When I inevitably poll my music against the AI-generated and tool-assisted tracks, one of the audience helped me understand that while my skills are undeniably sharpened, the AI model I intend to use has been trained with far too many tracks and has a deeper library of chord progressions and melodies it could dig for. Instead of asking a general audience which sounds better, I will ask if they can determine what AI is and what is human-created to see if AI-generated music has come as far as people say it has. This and my copyright question were prevalent in helping me understand and expand my knowledge further, and I’m glad that I had such intent listeners who wanted to help me out. I hope to work on my track for the title screen in the coming weeks. In the meantime, I can look into writing more for my portfolio and see what resources I can use, from published books to websites and videos.
Action Items following the presentation
- Rephrase the comparison question to focus on distinguishing AI from human-created tracks.
- Address copyright issues and health and safety considerations in the project presentation.
- Continue research on AI tools and their application in music production.
- Develop promotional materials for Blue Sky and Discord.
- Explore mastering tool features and capabilities.
- Study music composition theory, focusing on modes and scales.
- Create and finalise artwork for the EP.
- Compare tracks to reference music using in-game settings.
I will address these in my work and ensure these are planned in