During today's little gallery walk, I was struck by one certain thing. The fact that people seemed to be bothered by the idea and actions I have taken for my project. There were only two people who were somewhat interested in it, but the only feedback I had gotten from them is that I should get a few other perspectives from other people who have been struggling with depression so that I can get a few more angles on what depression can do to people and not just my point of view.
Since my last blog entry, I have practically restarted. I wanted to keep my intro because it was the best part, but the major time scale screw up that I had done has forced me into a situation where I have to rethink my song. I am still going with the Raising awareness for depression, but it is going to sound a lot better than my first and really rough draft. I have also talked to a college professor about my song and I am still patiently waiting for a bit of feedback. I have faced the major challenge of rewriting my song but still keeping the first line or so. I am in a sort of creative rut, but I am slowly working my way out of it. I am also still struggling with my melody. I have a slight clue about what I want to do for my melody, but I am going to have to talk to my mentor if it is okay because I am using a variation of a melody from the song "Where is my mind" by the Pixies. My next course of action is to meet back up with my mentor and try to see if my melody will work for 3/4 time and if I can even use it. Not only that, but I need to see how I can upload the song to places like sound cloud and I tunes. I also need to start working on digitally editing my cover art so that it will fit on a CD case.
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Since my last blog entry, I have learned that part of my song is way off. What I mean by this is that I have written part of my song in 2/4 and not 3/4. This screwed up everything else and threw off the felling that I had. I have also learned that I am in desperate need of a melody. Something that the audience can take away and remember . Something that leaves an impact on the audience. I will be going through a lot of my notes and try to figure out a little melody for 3/4 time that I can apply to my song. I also will be focusing on the rhythm so that it all makes sense and so that the audience can tell that it is a waltz. Not just any waltz, but a waltz with my depression.
As for what I have done, I have had a meeting with my mentor and I had looked over my 50 measures of song to see what I can improve on. So far, I have gotten tons of feedback. All of which is helpful. I have also learned up to measure 35 of my song. Although, with that, I am having a few troubles with timing and the such. Just regular problems I have with music. Now, when it comes to the cover art for the album, I have done three drafts and have finished it. It is ready to be scanned and used as the cover art. Several things have gone wrong for me. I have made a major mistake with timing within my song. As mentioned earlier, I have written a large chunk of my song in 2/4 and not 3/4 like intended. I also have been struggling to find an appropriate melody to fit into my song. Considering how it is going, I may just end up putting a key-change from F to F minor. I will also be meeting with my mentor to try to brainstorm a few more ideas for the song and straiten things out. As of this point, I have learned a lot about writing music. I now know how to use the program Muse Score 2. At the start of this project, I had absolutely no idea how to even insert a note onto the screen, but as you can see in the picture above, I have really gotten the hang of it. I have also learned a lot about the 3:4 time. I now easily read music within the 3:4 time which I couldn't do before. I had always tried to play it as if it were 4:4. Such a rookie mistake, right?
Now what have I accomplished? I have written the first 25 measures of my song. This was my goal for this week. I had sat down one afternoon with a piano, Muse Score 2, and a little music know how. At the end of that afternoon, I had written 25 measure of the song. Out of those 25, you can see the first 20 in the image above. So far, the things that have gone wrong are that the piano I had been using is out of tune and that the keyboard in the commons is non-functional due to the fact that the power cord is on its last... scratch that. It has no legs to speak of at this point. It doesn't give it any power and renders the poor keyboard useless. I now have to find a keyboard to use while I am not in Aliza's room. My next course of action for this project is to ask if I can move the keyboard in Aliza's to Stephen's. After that, I need to start working on my cover art. I have a few ideas for the cover art, but I can't start working on it until I go out and take a few pictures for reference. By the next update, I shall have the cover art either completed or well on its way to being completed. For this past week, I have only been at school for two days due to me being sick. While I was resting up at home, I had learned that I will have to change my schedule in order for it to work for me. My old schedule just won't work for me now because I have lost a lot of work time, which had thrown everything I had already planned off.
Although I have been sick, I have managed to start on my explanatory passage planned out and found out how long it really needs to be so that it will fit on a jewel disk case. Not only that, but I have started planning my cover art, how large it is going to be, what will be placed on the disks, and last but not least , I have started playing around with several Jazz styles to find the perfect match for my message. But, this has not come as easily as I would have liked it to. It took me three whole days to start planning four things because I have been sick. This would have taken me only about two days if I hadn't been resting and recovering from my illness. At this current point, I believe that my next course of action will be to focus on the music, pick out the sub-genre of Jazz, and to start writing my song so that I at least have 20-25 measures of my song written my the end of next week. I am planning on writing a long piece of music that tells a story. A story about a young man whom struggling with depression and anxiety. A story that expresses the emotional roller coaster forced upon people who struggle with the mental illness. A story that lets people know the real effects depression has on people. A story on how the intervention of medication helped save a life. This story is my story. But this song isn't going to be just telling a story. It is going to help raise awareness of what people with depression and anxiety have to go through day by day.
I will also burn about 20 disks, apply labels, create cover art, and write an explanatory passage for this one piece of music. Because this project isn't student centered learning, it is audience based learning, it gives a major sense of freedom and control over our projects. To be honest, I still felt as if there wasn't as much freedom as we wanted, but I was being closed minded and had my idea set before I had heard everything. After I gave my original idea some more thought with the parameters required for this project I instantly realized that I had tons of option and paths that I could take my project that would effect some sort of audience. I am now really set on continuing this audience-centered learning and can't wait to truly get started. So far, I have righted the wrong within my understandings and also set my original idea to the parameters so that I could still be passionate about this project, and so that I really understand where Stephen is coming from and where he wants us to go with this project. As for what is required for me to do next, I desperately need to start the song and figure out what genre will be the most effective at conveying the message that I desire to convey. I also need to start working on the passage so that I can have a few drafts done in order for me to focus on the song later. |
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