I hope that by now, you have identified some pieces of academic research as sources - remember that you found 3 when we did the class about planning research and using MyBib! If you are struggling to find any, try https://westkingmusicacademic.blogspot.com/ or ask me if still stuck. A top tip is looking at the bottom of a Wikipedia article to find the original sources.
A literature review should be a reflection upon a smallish piece of writing/source, not a whole book. It could be an academic article, a piece of music journalism, a chapter of a book, a podcast, a web resource...
You should do 5 literature reviews for your EXP and doing them at the start of the project will help you decide what is useful early on. You can then delve further into the sources later.
For each review, please read the source and then reflect using the following:
Where is the source from and what is it about?
Is it primary or secondary? How reliable is it?
What information from the source might be useful for your project (if any)?
Has it given you any further ideas that you might like to investigate/research further?
ADD IT TO MYBIB!!!!!!!!!!!
Please complete at least one of the literature reviews and submit to classroom so I can check you are on the right track and guide you if needs be.
The written elements of your projects are likely to include:
Literature reviews
Case Studies
Progress logs
Evaluation
If you are going to have audio, video or visual elements then you need to think how you will present them.
Some ways to choose from:
A blog - you can create a new blog using your current college blogger account. A blog allows you to organise your work by labels, embed video from YouTube and sound from soundcloud.
A google drive folder - you can keep it all together as documents and individual files. You can organise written working using text types on a google doc and link to other files.
A website - you can create a free one using something like WIX if you want to be more creative with your presentation.
How else might you present it?
Whichever method you choose, you need to be consistent and make sure that you regularly update and allow me to see it in progress so I can help you.
As part of your EXP research, you should produce at least two case studies to help you pace your own work in context, analyse the work of others/techniques/ideas and learn things that will help/inform your own work. You completed case studies last year as part of your Collaborative project and the technique is the same but they need to be more detailed this year.
When approaching a case study, it's is useful to clarify your aims before you start-
Why am I doing this case study? What is the context? What am I looking at specifically? How does it relate to my project?
You then need to decide what you have got from it- What was of particular interest? What have I learnt/taken away from this?
Things you may like to focus on are-
Aesthetic (the sound, look, vibe... of something) ie lofi production sounds, use of panning, branding, sonic identity
Technique (techniques used in performing/creating music) ie looping, collaborative writing online...
Content (lyrics, music, subject matter....) ie poetry in grime lyrics,
Presentation (how something is is presented to the intended audience via performance, video, packaging, merch, digital distribution, visual style...) ie streaming to wide audiences, video styles, bespoke merch...
Your case studies will help you reach criteria such as:
Yr2 EXP
1.1 Use critical and contextual perspectives to initiate a performing and production arts project proposal. (you can analyse critiques of the work you are doing a case study on)
1.2 Use analysis and evaluation to clarify and develop ideas for a performing and production arts project proposal. (your case studies will include analysis)
2.1 Use research to support the development of a performing and production arts project. (your case studies count as research - remember to refer back to them throughout your work)
2.2 Use analytical and evaluative skills to develop creative solutions to realise a performing and production arts project. (Did you learn anything about how other artists have approached their work that can help you?)
5.1 Demonstrate the exploration, adaptation and application of practical methods and skills in the realisation of a performing and production arts project. (Show how your case studies have impacted on your own work)
You should choose to do your case study on something relevant to your own work, perhaps that help place your own work onto a context or that contains some ideas that you are particularly interested in.
Here are some examples of previous work....
EXP - Pass
Case Study #3
This week I've decided to take a look at some other professional podcasts in order to make a comparison of my product to a higher standard product. I took 3 different ones and decided to analyse it.
I am going to split my analysis into categories.
Structure
Heldeep Radio and Hexagon are having an introduction jingles and introduction speech. LVNDSCAPE starts with music playing straight up. My product has intro speech but no intro jingle. I think that I should've make no introduction speech if I have no jingle so comparing to those professional podcasts I think LVNDSCAPE's format would be more appropriate in my case.
All three podcasts including mine are approximately 1 hour long which is considered as a 'golden standard' of the electronic music podcasting.
Technical Aspect
Heldeep radio and Hexagon are well mixed podcast. I listened the whole length 2 times and analysed the mixing part. Because the music in those two podcasts is future house/electro house the transitions feels quite sharp comparing to LVNDSCAPE's podcast because landscape is mixing deep house and that's why it feels more relaxing and smooth. My podcast has poor quality introduction speech comparing to hex and heldeep. My mixing is at the lower level as well although I had some deep house tunes which should've in theory helped me to sound smooth. But practically no.
Visuals/Art
Hexagon radio and heldeep has a similar way they approach their visual content. They both have animated background and visual EQ going. Hexagon has an animated square flashing at the left side but heldeep has a proper eq visuals which I like more. They both have their cover pictures for soundcloud as well. LVNDSCAPE's art for youtube is just a plain picture with no animated visuals. I did just a cover picture so landscape's format is the same as my one.
Copyrights/Commercial
My podcast is uploaded on mixcloud service which gives me no royalties. If I make money out of someone's music without their permission I can get a big trouble. All those professional podcasts that I've picked are having their music sent by other DJ's and producers. So they can make money and use different services like youtube and sc.
EXP- Merit
Case Study 2
Singing With The Enemy Part 1
Bands- K-Tron and Code 5 two who are from opposing musical tribes come together and must write, record and perform a song together while living under the same roof.
K-Tron
•Loud and chaotic
•Experimental
•Sing and write alternative…
•Songs about serial killers
•Reckless
•Recklessly Independent
•Rebel against society and basic code of conduct of the time (2012, London based)
•Lead singer perhaps a strong feminist
•Opinionated
Code 5
•Stereotypical heart throb boy band
•Supported West Life on tour
•Deal with social pressure of the time to look, perform and feel a certain way
•Sing pop songs
•Tommy D is the record producer for the experiment and episode
•Theo (17) the youngest member of K-Tron claims that he is a revolution of the dark sided entertainment
•Chris the youngest of member of Code 5 states that he deals with social pressure of the time to look a certain way and grew up in a neighbourhood that had many negative views towards homosexuals and cross dressing therefor he did not see yew to eye with Theo from K-Tron at first.
•K-Tron feel that Code 5 are not real musicians because they do not write many of their own songs and feel that there is not enough meaning and passion within the songs that they perform and write.
•K-tron were disgusted when they saw the way Code 5’s dance choreographer and manager treated them i.e telling them exactly what to do on and off stage and not giving them freedom as music artists, putting them down when they made small mistakes or couldn't pick up dance choreography despite not being actual dancers.
My main opinions on the experimental TV episode as a whole.
Great social experiment
Eye opener- especially linking to the times and the increase in homophobic views/judgement and behaviour
Helped certain members of Code 5 understand that it is okay to express themselves and be who they wish
There was a great element of introspection that could be learnt from watching this episode
Taught all the musicians about how important and helpful it is to collaborate with other bands/musicians rather than just their band members.
I Believe that this experiment links very well to my own experiment due to the collaboration of young artists who are into all different aspects and genres of music in my band. Watching this TV episode helped me think of the best way to communicate well with my band and showed me some good strategies to use to help us as a team and respect each other as artists.
EXP - Distinction
Case Study #1: Aritst Sam Gellaitry
This case study is about the Scottish producer, musician and DJ Sam Gellaitry. He started posting tracks on myspace and graduated to soundcloud and bandcamp. By 17 he was accumulating hundreds of thousands of listeners all over the world. His genres range from House, stylistic Trap, Jazz, Hip-Hop and even Funk. His music is known for its high quality and colourful sonic presentation.
I had first discovered his music in 2014 through through his song "belonging". At the time his influences were easily recognised because of the way his he sequences his drum patterns and his emphasis on bass and frantic percussion which is similar to the works on LA producer Flying Lotus. Through further inspection of his soundcloud page I had found that his sonic palette stems from everywhere around the world. One massive similarity I had found was with him and Hudson Mohawke another Scottish producer and DJ from Glasgow.
I had just started producing electronic music at the time so I tried studying his music, what software he uses, what his musical background is, what instruments he plays and how to design his sounds. He use the forward thinking software called FL Studio but began with Sony ACID which both have a great emphasis on capturing ideas, sampling, groove sequencing and sound design.
In terms of timbre his sounds design is very basic because the groove/musicality and the mixing of his song speak to his listeners since people naturally pay more attention to their sense of rhythm and how the sound affects. His emphasis on bass in his music is most attractive to his listeners since it sounds solid and is hard hitting often feeling like it is trying to escape out of your headphones and his music works well live since you can feel every frequency of his music envelope your body.
Humans are able to easily discern rhythm in lower frequencies than in higher frequencies (Adam Neely - 2017) and since he is a proficient musician with an advanced grasp of groove he is able to easily communicate feeling through his music that can translate into any genre he makes.
In late 2015 he started his EP series Escapism on XL recordings. Each EP has 5 tracks demonstrating the more majestic side of his music that he often didn't show since he had to present his music to a wider audience than just Soundcloud, which often becomes a hype competition to see who can make the craziest song but in this commercial project context his sound didn't seem to waver it just became more thoughtful and organised like a project should be. Unlike Soundcloud where you are encouraged to keep exploring the massive amount of tracks and be able to skip, Gellaitry focused in on making a more quality listening experience featuring an intro and outro track for the first Escapism project and his tracks also were able to blend into one another instead of just stopping and starting like a work in progress .wav file. His recent music (as of 2017) is more explorative because it sounds like he is weaving together a narrative with relatable genres such as stylistic electronic trap music. Him and his contemporary Tennyson have been highly praised of this such electronic trends tend to become static after a while when too many tracks are created.
This project was also available on more streaming sites to widen his audience but some of his content was limited to a lot of his Soundcloud audience because it was now considered premium content since it was released through a big record company such as XL recordings.
Sam Gellaitry has inspired me to make my music more interesting and to reach the extent of a single technique. I believed this evident in my Hudson Mohawke remix. He opened my ears to including pieces of ANY and ALL aspects of music that I like into my own music instead of just directly emulating an artist I like. An example of this would be having an 80s sounding chord progression on top of a a 2000s rap acapella with a vibe filled trap rhythm all at once. I still don't have a solid grasp on any one style of music but my primary mindset will now be to be thinking about fusing styles together which will eventually lead to me making some interesting music.
For your production practical element of this project, you have been asked to create a protest piece or a soundscape that makes the listener think about the issue. A lot of the techniques learned from composing, band workshops and film project will help you.
You are likely to have a lot of samples already that you created in various classes with me.
Log into soundcloud.com (create an account if you don't have one or want a separate college one).
Upload your track, making it private if you only want those with the link to hear it.
Title it and write a description of how it was made in the description box.
Find the track you want to embed in soundcloud. Click on the title and then click share. You can submit as a private link to classroom.
If you want to embed it to your blog or a website, copy the code and paste it into your post. Make sure your post in in html rather than compose mode. This is how it will look.
Get your headphones and phone. Choose a space where you can be still and undisturbed if possible - ideally outside or near an open window. Other spaces might be in a stairwell, empty room...
With your headphones on/in, record a voice memo. Just listen to what you can hear. Aim to record 2-5 mins of sound. We are listening for unintentional, environmental sounds. How is listening through headphones different?
Send yourself the voice memo and import it to a track in bandlab. Look at the waveform - are there any particular peaks? What are the sounds in the peaks? Is there a general low level noise? What is it?
Listen to the recording at least 3 times, making a note of different levels of sound. Perhaps you can imagine it as a multi track recording - what would the different channels be?
Upload the recording from your phone to classroom. Also upload a short doc listing the sounds you heard if you get time.
When we come back together, we will discuss what we noticed about our environments.
Extension task:
On a piece of paper, try to draw what you hear on a timeline to create a simple graphic score. You can add this to the task if you like so we can compare them - they will all be completely different and will represent how you interpreted a specific moment in a specific location.
Are men and women different? Should any differences mean different opportunities, treatment or reward?
If a man and a woman with exactly the same education and qualifications are doing exactly the same job, should they be paid the same salary? Do you think they are likely to be paid the same salary?
How are women and men portrayed differently in hiphop?
When journalists report about musicians, is there a difference in their focus depending on the gender of the musician?
Amanda Palmer made an excellent response to a tabloid newspaper when they mentioned her body rather than her music in a review of her performance at Glastonbury - http://blog.amandapalmer.net/20130713/
Is there a gap in the way genders are treated in business and the media or is it far more widespread than that?
This is an interesting experiment where a woman re-enacts instances of everyday sexism but as a woman to a man, rather than the other way around.
Women - how familiar is this scenario? Men - how would this have made you feel?
It can be said that we live in a patriarchal society, one that is ruled by men rather than being equal. What do you think would happen if we lived in a matriarchy?
Do you find what happens to the man in this film shocking? What difference does it make that it's a man?
How effective do you think this film is as a protest? How else could you protest about the lack of equal gender rights?
