The week back from winter break was rather short as we only had to attend 3 days of school. But this time period was really to refine a lot of details ahead of the Research Showcase coming up next week. I cannot wait to showcase all of my learnings thus far to everyone. Especially because my topic is completely different from what I studied previously, I think it will intrigue a lot of people and have them come to my board. As for my board, I am going with a similar theme to last year. However, I think I will be changing my color scheme. Previously I had stated that my color scheme was like a muted and pastel blues and purple, but I think something more vibrant would be attractive. So, I am going with yellows and reds for my board this year. Essentially, I want my color scheme to match my album cover in the future, so this color scheme may change again.
My digital portfolio is coming along as well. Since the website is more focused on me as the musician and producer, I would like to add more pictures of myself. Maybe sometime this weekend I can go outside and have a family member capture a few pictures for the website. Another thing to discuss would be mentorship. Now, Mr. Goode did mention that in January and February that he would have a more definitive answer towards the mentorship question. As he has not contacted me back yet, I think it would be best to see if he has reached a decision. I am hoping for the best!
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Having an entire two weeks to myself proved to be very beneficial for me in my songwriting preparation. Not only was I free of all the stresses of my other classes and college applications, but it was also towards the end of the year and I was able to reflect a lot on the past. Something I picked up from the artists that I listen to a lot and from my interview with Sarah Sellers is that some songs are more meaningful when the lyrics and music come from the heart. I looked and analyzed many of the lyrics in the songs of Taylor Swift, a queen of lyrics, and saw how she wrote the memories that she pulled from her own experiences.
When thinking of some of experiences I could write about from my own life this past year, I found it kind of difficult to find moments that could be turned into songs. I didn’t “party” that much, or did anything else that could be worthy of writing a song about. It could be my own creative juices not working. Having trouble with the actual songwriting, I decided to brush up on the other aspect of my whole musical journey: the sound. My main instrument is the guitar, and I haven’t been able to play it that much this year due to being loaded with assignments are being exhausted. It was nice to familiarize myself with the guitar again and it reminded of why I chose to learn this instrument. Also, building on music theory was a must this break in order to get ready transcribing my songs. For now, I think it is okay that I don’t know what I can write a song about. If I force it, I’ll never be satisfied with it. Then again, I shouldn’t be too hard on myself as this is my first time writing a song. I’m really looking forward to seeing what I can create. So, I called the person whom I want to be my mentor, and the call was more or less successful. I was not able to get a definitive answer, but at least the person was taking my plausible mentorship (or internship) into consideration. Of course, it would be unreasonable for me to expect a “yes” right from the get go knowing how busy working with other clients to produce music can be. In fact, I am more disappointed in myself. I thought of myself to be a much better communicator now going through ISM last year, but I found myself being hindered by my own nervousness.
One thing very important when proposing something that could possibly face rejection is to be confident in your tone. I felt that during my conversation with the person whom I want to be my mentor, there were times where my words would come out flustered or my tone would be shaky. This does not show professionalism at all. Given the benefit of the doubt, the person did have a concern about the time commitment needed to fulfill a mentorship and the nervousness of that being a factor of me not be able to be mentored by him made me anxious. However, I should be able to control those doubts and have confidence. Building this self confidence is always going to a learning process, and it all starts by putting yourself in situations facing your fears. In the case of the phone call, it was the fear of rejection. I am hoping for a good result as the person’s expertise and passion are traits that I really appreciate about him and would love to have in a mentor. Hopefully, I will hear back from him soon! I have been feeling an internal hesitation to pick up the guitar, so I have been spending most of my time brainstorming of specific ideas and central themes of possible songs I could write the lyrics for. With the added pressures of school and college application deadlines coming up, I have not been able to create a cohesive story with my lyrics as I had hoped I would be able to. I think a bulk of my work for the original work will benefit from the added relaxation and low anxiety environment during my winter break. So, while brainstorming, I have been working on getting in contact with a potential mentor.
I already have an idea with whom I want a mentorship with, but I have not been able to further the communication. As music producers are always busy with working on projects, it creates a difficulty to get in contact with them. When looking for a mentor, they should be very passionate about what they do, and no doubt are people that work in the music industry very passionate about their craft. However, for my specific goals in composing and producing a few songs of my own, I am hoping to have a mentor that is well-versed in both composing and producing. Seen from all of my interviews, there are many types of music producers with their own specialties, so to have a mentorship with someone who can help me improve on both composing and producing will allow me to grow the most as an artist. A highlight of the week would be the research speech. Out of curiosity, I went back to look at my research speech recorded from last year, and there are many presentation skills that I have improved on immensely. For one, my gestures have become much more natural. I feel that I was able to make the research speech this time around much more like a formal conversation between me and the audience. However, there were still a few flaws that I could definitely improve on for the next speech we will be doing. Hopefully, by the original work speech, I will have a much more in depth experience working with music in which I could pull information from and present.
A consistent method to staying on track with my points have always been the notecard, but I felt that it was distracting for the audience for me to look down and take time to collect my thoughts and find the next point I am trying to make. Instead, I thought it would be better to have the points I want to mention throughout my presentation inside the Prezi itself. However, this has caused problems of its own as it was mentioned how constantly looking at the presentation broke the connection with the audience each time and posed as a distraction. Memorizing the slides ahead of time will be the solution to this. Quick glances are much better than constantly looking back at the board. I also, need to solidify the beginning about me. Cutting this section was not done successfully and seemed rather chopping. Being thorough with this part is essential because it is the first impression that will be given to your audience. There were many other things that could some tweaking, but overall, I am happy with where I have come to with my skills in presentation. I have improved immensely since the previous year, and I am excited to see where I will be going from here. As the time to work on my original work is coming up, I have been thinking a lot about what I wanted to do during my original work that would later benefit me making my final product. As discussed, the final product will be a fully composed and produced album, however, after my interview with Josh Goode and learning about the process and the effort that it takes to produce just one song, it may be safe to dwindle the number of songs in an album (it typically ranges from 12 and up) and create perhaps an EP (an extended play ranges from 4 to 7 tracks). I am afraid of the chances of lowering that number even more or only being able to record one song. If I were to record one song, that song should be the best song ever and blow every listener out of the water.
I have begun to brainstorm a few ideas about songs to write. Through my previous interviews, they have discussed how a song is basically a message with a sound backdrop. So, I have taken that into the brainstorming process. The current process created and being used now is like of the central idea, branch out personal experiences, and then write. Lyrics will be the most difficult part of the music making process, in my opinion, because word expression has always been a weakness. However, the skills in ISM builds not only the ability to communicate professionally, but also communicate in casual settings. Granted, song lyrics have more of a poetic twist to the everyday language, but listening to more and more music and taking into consideration the conversations I have with my peers, I will overcome this barrier of lyric writing. Something I had mentioned in my last weekly report as a goal for this week was to focus on making more calls. I feel that this was a success as I was able to go back into the call log and call people that have not responded to my voicemails as well as new people. I was particularly excited to call music producers as I feel that they would give a totally new perspective to the music making aspect as my topic for ISM this year has a duality characteristic with studying composition and music production. My interview with Josh Goode was very impromptu over the phone and shed light on the benefits of an in-person interview as opposed to a phone interview because the service really is defective inside the school, haha. Anyways, I was able to connect much more in this interview because speaking with Josh Goode, I was able to learn more about the place of music producers in the modern music setting as opposed to composition, which takes more of a vital role in classical compositions.
It was interesting to get a new perspective in the music making process, and it encouraged me to see if I could get even more perspectives on the idea of creating a name for oneself in the music industry. As my vision was for me to be the figurehead of my music and performance of the music, perhaps speaking with singer-songwriters based in Dallas would allow me to see how they write their songs and the role they play in the production scene of their music. I did receive one contact of a singer-songwriter, and I researched her music. There was a certain emotion that I particularly loved about her music, and I hope to get in contact with her soon to learn more about being a singer-songwriter and how one defeats the obstacle of stage fright. Although I have performed in front of many people before, the motive to do so were merely to please another party, and it never came out of my own will. There is a certain expectation your peers put on you and the fear of not meeting that has really affected my performance. Nervous ticks and the fear of messing up is something many performers go through, and it is something I hope to defeat in the future with experience. As for now, I need to “just do it” as Josh Goode suggested when I asked about how do I begin pursuing music. Looking back at how I have been practicing music theory, I feel like I have been using much more of a technical method of practicing rather than actually applying what I have learned to something tangible. That is what made me create a good idea I could do for practice exposing my practice runs in music to other people instead of keeping them to myself. One weakness I have found this week while evaluating my progress is the shyness that has been hindering me from showing others what I can do in music. There has been only rare occasions where I would take my chances and perform in front of others, but not without having a rocky start with some blimps in the middle. It is honestly all about practice. The more I show my music to others and the more I perform by myself, the more the “stage fright” will vanish from my system.
One thing that I should be focusing on but have not been able to these past few weeks is making calls. I must make phone calls to professionals starting from this week in order not fall behind like what happened last year. Granted, doctors are very hard to get a hold of, but that does not mean contacting any other professional is easier. They are all very busy, and it is a must to catch up on interviews and calls to I could meet a mentor soon and start on my projects. I am beginning to think that maybe I should take a different route in my studies in music theory. I am putting myself in this situation where I am restricting myself from playing with music until I have grounded skills in music theory. However, this may be a hindrance in the entire process of my musical discovery. The instrument I am most skilled at is guitar, and it is a matter of minutes to play a few chords and see which sound good together. In addition to my theory studies, applying those skills using the guitar serves as a good source of learning and embedding the information until it becomes innate.
I have spoken to the music theory teacher and will be obtaining a few theory books that may help getting a grasp of starting to transcribing music. I would like to applies these skills for the original work. As of now, I have the ambition to take on a few pieces done by other artists and transcribe them with my own twist. I have many options that I am weighing on how to achieve this feat. There are instances where I could use my guitar and create an acoustic rendition of the song with a piano feature. Or, I could create a rendition using Audacity that has more options of instruments and makes transcribing much easier as it will be done on the computer. There are many possibilities, and I am hoping to obtain many resources that will allow me to create music of my own to the utmost quality. Being a short week, there was not much I could accomplish regarding getting in contact with professionals. However, a highlight of this week was in no doubt the business symposium. Coming into the symposium last year as an ISM 1 student, I remember the wonder in my mind. Everything was new and I had gained so much experience throughout this one day. The second round at the symposium required more of practicing and executing the skills gained from last year. Going into the interviews, I could really notice how I was much more comfortable doing these interviews. After doing countless of interviews, it is nice to see how each time the nervous ticks are going away. One nervous tick that continues would be my stutter, but it is nothing that practice would not solve.
I was happy to see a seminar on college admissions. Being a senior, this seminar was very informative and beneficial. The speaker’s presentation also really motivated me. His business was self-made, and with the right networking and resources, his brand got a lot of exposure. I try to apply his tactics to my own branding and networking. As a musician, networking is very important and is something I should always do at any opportunity that may come my way. However, as of right now, I am not sure how to go about my own brand and how to get exposure for myself and my music. Perhaps, this is something I could do research on. Music of your own is more meaningful when you have a decent audience to hear it. |
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