EXP Evaluation
Critical Analysis
My work fits into the music industry as it attempts to provide a clear insight into the differences between Alternative & Contemporary R&B. Furthermore I originally planned for my work to look into how R&B has evolved and what characteristics have changed over generations, I touched on this but as my project went on i ended up changing this slightly to looking into the more musical elements and characteristics that caused the changes in R&B.
Finding already existing work that relates to my project was fairly difficult as I haven't come across people depicting to find the differences between alternative & contemporary R&B however I was able to find work which I briefly covered in my project. The work that I found was similar to my own was about how is masculinity challenged in R&B. The article was written around the time alternative R&B first started to become popular around 2014. The article goes on to say that, "With the emergence of alternative R&B, contemporary R&B and hip hop culture are being confronted with a subgenre that challenges its key characteristics". The articles goes onto say that could alternative R&B is challenging the views that make males more dominant than females in society. I related this to my project as this could be one of the factors that is making alternative R&B rise in popularity.
During my project I struggled with managing my time. I planned my project without taking in factors that we could be doing different work within lessons. Furthermore I also think I spent more time on my projects than research even though I wasn't able to finish all of my tracks. In addition I also struggled with finding research and other sources relating to my project.
If I could change something about my work it would be beginning to research the musical differences between alternative and contemporary R&B earlier along my project, furthermore I would try to look for more work similar to the work questioning hegemonic masculinity in R&B. In addition I would try to look into making more synths for my tracks as whilst I'm proud of the ones I was using, having separate synths for my contemporary tracks and for my alternative tracks may have allowed me to make the differences between the two genres clearer.
If I had the option I would put more time into my research rather than tracks. For my FMP I put more time into my research than tracks and I feel most of my tracks weren't as developed as they could have been so i attempted to do the opposite this year however I feel that following my ways last year could have been the way forward.
Research
My key areas of research were the musical differences between alternative & contemporary R&B, I looked into this as I wanted people looking at my work to understand some of the main differences between the two. This wasn't my plan to begin with as towards the beginning of my project I was more aiming to look into the history of R&B and look into what made R&B split into these two types of genres. Whilst I did still look into this I didn't look into it as much as I had originally planned. This changed because finding reasons why alternative and contemporary R&B split was a lot more difficult to anticipate there was little to no work on the differences so I would have to put sources I found together and come to a conclusion myself. Furthermore I also conducted research on the types of synths used in the two subgenres and decided to create my own synths.
The research methods I applied were mainly secondary forms of research as I didn't interview anyone or conduct surveys. Doing primary forms of research, interviewing especially could have made a positive impact on my project, as not many people have done work of my sort it could help by gathering information on maybe why they prefer alternative or what they think is making it so popular. The secondary forms of research I found were mainly articles and other forms of websites. The articles in particular were helpful to me as it showed me what companies and promoters think their audience thinks about types of music and artists and it allowed me form an opinion and come to conclusion from the information given to me. Furthermore another form of research I conducted was to compare the musical elements between alternative & contemporary R&B this was useful as it allowed me understand clear differences between the sub-genres and create my own music going along the guidelines I made.
I was able to synthesise my research into my projects by taking traits of music and common patterns across one of the sub-genres and include it in my own music, also I was able to make a couple synths to help me in the creation of my tracks
I feel I could have researched more topics to do with the different problems alternative & contemporary R&B face for example as I mentioned earlier looking into the issues facing alternative & contemporary R&B with hegemonic males. In addition, looking at my proposal I believe I was planning to research the wrong topics and if I had planned to research more relevant topics that had substance to them my project would have been more of a success.
I could apply to my future career, when planning ensure I'm aware that nothing always goes 100% as planned, to make sure I leave enough time to work on all aspects of my work and to research topics that might not be directly related to your project but could lead to another question answered.
Technical/Practical Skills
My research informed my practical work because I was able to make synths from the research I conducted and include them in my tracks. Moreover I was also able to find the differences between the sub-genres and make sure the differences were clear within my music.
I developed my skills to create synthesisers through Logic, we had touched on the subject in class but really fine tuning them to be included in my project definitely is a skill I has developed. In addition I also had to develop my skills in music theory as I'm not too confident in my music theory, this was a way to work on it so I could work on a melody corresponding the chords within my tracks.
I feel my practical skills have developed quite well over the past few years but I do feel I could develop them further, I still could work on my music theory as I think that is something I am lacking in greatly.
Presenting Your Work
I chose to present my work through soundcloud and soundcloud only, this is because it's very easy to share sound cloud tracks through other forms of social media e.g twitter, Facebook and a wide range of other platforms. Furthermore on soundcloud you can fine tune the audience that will hear your music through the use of tags and assigning the track genres.
My presentation method is a very popular and common practise many of today's popular artists started off through soundcloud and still use soundcloud as their platform to upload their music on, a key example would be Bryson Tiller. Whilst many people believe uploading to soundcloud is pointless as people can stream your music for free, it's one of the easiest way for your music to spread and many artists start off this way then later on go to platforms like Apple Music and Spotify.
My method has been successful in reaching my target audience since I was able to choose what audience would be able to listen to my music. Furthermore being able to share my music on twitter has been a huge help.
Project Management
I feel I could have managed time management within my EXP track a lot better, this would have helped me to finish my tracks and add more research to my project. In addition I also feel I could have handled balancing my research and practical work a lot better, if I had put more time into research atleast then the research I had done would back up my tracks more making the differences clearer to see.
My biggest challenge for my EXP would have to be my time management. However finding sources relating to my project was also an issue. Our lessons changing for a week towards the end of the project made me have to change course and prioritise my tracks more than I had liked to.
I didn't use too much of the access timevto book studio rooms or production rooms because most of our access time was during our lessons then we had a slot on Fridays, I made use of access time by prioritising these days to work on my practical as I would find it easier to research outside of college.
I have not completed all of the work I would have liked to fit this project as I wasn't able to do as much research as I had initially planned and I didn't finish the final track. This is due to my time management and having to change direction towards the end of the project.
Problem Solving
The biggest technical problem I faced was my USB formatting whilst in the process of transferring my practical between computers however since i had access to the computers I was using on another day I was able to transfer my work on my google drive which is what I had been doing for my research.
The theoretical problems I faced during the EXP would be that I had to revisit learning musical theory as I wasn't 100% sure on my circle of fifths and I needed this to work on the melodies within the majority of my tracks.
The research methods I applied were mainly secondary forms of research as I didn't interview anyone or conduct surveys. Doing primary forms of research, interviewing especially could have made a positive impact on my project, as not many people have done work of my sort it could help by gathering information on maybe why they prefer alternative or what they think is making it so popular. The secondary forms of research I found were mainly articles and other forms of websites. The articles in particular were helpful to me as it showed me what companies and promoters think their audience thinks about types of music and artists and it allowed me form an opinion and come to conclusion from the information given to me. Furthermore another form of research I conducted was to compare the musical elements between alternative & contemporary R&B this was useful as it allowed me understand clear differences between the sub-genres and create my own music going along the guidelines I made.
I was able to synthesise my research into my projects by taking traits of music and common patterns across one of the sub-genres and include it in my own music, also I was able to make a couple synths to help me in the creation of my tracks
I feel I could have researched more topics to do with the different problems alternative & contemporary R&B face for example as I mentioned earlier looking into the issues facing alternative & contemporary R&B with hegemonic males. In addition, looking at my proposal I believe I was planning to research the wrong topics and if I had planned to research more relevant topics that had substance to them my project would have been more of a success.
I could apply to my future career, when planning ensure I'm aware that nothing always goes 100% as planned, to make sure I leave enough time to work on all aspects of my work and to research topics that might not be directly related to your project but could lead to another question answered.
Technical/Practical Skills
My research informed my practical work because I was able to make synths from the research I conducted and include them in my tracks. Moreover I was also able to find the differences between the sub-genres and make sure the differences were clear within my music.
I developed my skills to create synthesisers through Logic, we had touched on the subject in class but really fine tuning them to be included in my project definitely is a skill I has developed. In addition I also had to develop my skills in music theory as I'm not too confident in my music theory, this was a way to work on it so I could work on a melody corresponding the chords within my tracks.
I feel my practical skills have developed quite well over the past few years but I do feel I could develop them further, I still could work on my music theory as I think that is something I am lacking in greatly.
Presenting Your Work
I chose to present my work through soundcloud and soundcloud only, this is because it's very easy to share sound cloud tracks through other forms of social media e.g twitter, Facebook and a wide range of other platforms. Furthermore on soundcloud you can fine tune the audience that will hear your music through the use of tags and assigning the track genres.
My presentation method is a very popular and common practise many of today's popular artists started off through soundcloud and still use soundcloud as their platform to upload their music on, a key example would be Bryson Tiller. Whilst many people believe uploading to soundcloud is pointless as people can stream your music for free, it's one of the easiest way for your music to spread and many artists start off this way then later on go to platforms like Apple Music and Spotify.
My method has been successful in reaching my target audience since I was able to choose what audience would be able to listen to my music. Furthermore being able to share my music on twitter has been a huge help.
Project Management
I feel I could have managed time management within my EXP track a lot better, this would have helped me to finish my tracks and add more research to my project. In addition I also feel I could have handled balancing my research and practical work a lot better, if I had put more time into research atleast then the research I had done would back up my tracks more making the differences clearer to see.
My biggest challenge for my EXP would have to be my time management. However finding sources relating to my project was also an issue. Our lessons changing for a week towards the end of the project made me have to change course and prioritise my tracks more than I had liked to.
I didn't use too much of the access timevto book studio rooms or production rooms because most of our access time was during our lessons then we had a slot on Fridays, I made use of access time by prioritising these days to work on my practical as I would find it easier to research outside of college.
I have not completed all of the work I would have liked to fit this project as I wasn't able to do as much research as I had initially planned and I didn't finish the final track. This is due to my time management and having to change direction towards the end of the project.
Problem Solving
The biggest technical problem I faced was my USB formatting whilst in the process of transferring my practical between computers however since i had access to the computers I was using on another day I was able to transfer my work on my google drive which is what I had been doing for my research.
The theoretical problems I faced during the EXP would be that I had to revisit learning musical theory as I wasn't 100% sure on my circle of fifths and I needed this to work on the melodies within the majority of my tracks.
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