Introduction
The purpose of the explorations project was to take something we were interested in and turn it into a project that would help us learn or develop a 21st century skill.
My specific explorations project was to explore music more deeply. I took a song through all steps of the process; from writing to recording to editing. Music has and always will be a large part of who I am, so it seemed only fitting that I incorporate it into my final junior project at freestyle. With the help of Anna Larson, I wrote and recorded an original song, inspired by recent events in my life.
A True Friend
Process
The first thing that I did in this project was just having fun with Anna in the studio. Mostly, we talked and hung out while messing around on the instruments. After a few minutes, we had a chord progression that we would use for the verses. After about 30 minutes, I had my notebook out and we were writing lyrics. The whole thing came very naturally, and it was exciting to create something entirely new with a friend. After we had the verses, we wrote the chorus and bridge, and polished the melody.
As with all projects in Digital Media, this website was a requirement. Creating it wasn't hard, and mostly involved CSS coding to alter visual elements of the page.
Infographic
Making the infographic itself was not very difficult; the challenge was finding research, and then finding a way to visually represent that research. Eventually I was able to find two medical studies on the effects of music on our brains, but even then, I did not know how to translate the medical terminology-heavy data into something easy to read and understand. Eventually I was able to figure out how to represent the data using brain scans from the study and charts, rather than artistic representations.
Reflection
This project was full of surprises for me. I was surprised at how easy it was to write music, surprised at how quickly I fell in love with collaborative writing, surprised at how difficult consistiency was.
Starting from the top; i didn't realize going into this project what exactly songwriting consisted of. My image of it was notebooks with assorted lyrics, half finished songs with words scratched out, musing for days over the right way to express feeling in a song. My idea of the instrumental side of things was even worse; coming from a choral background, I'd only ever preformed music as one part of a whole. Usually, this whole is so interconnected that it seems impossible to separate the lines–they don't make sense alone. Having that perception, it seemed difficult to imagine music being written line my line, or instrument by instrument. I didn't realize most musicians write for one instrument, then decide what goes with that first line. Writing all parts of a song at the same time would be extremely difficult.
Secondly, it surprised me how easily I took to working together. Most of the time, we think of songwriters as solitary figures. However, this isn't usually true, and during this project I figured out why. Working alone, this song might have taken twice as long and been half as good. Bouncing off of another mind is incredibly conducive to creativity, and by having another person who understood my mind, the song went faster and better than I could have done alone.
One thing that I know I'm good at is singing. It's been a part of who I am for as long as I can remember. So it came as a surprise when that was the part of this experience I had the most difficulty with. With most songs, you hear them or something remarakably similar to them many times before attempting to preform them. I didn't realize just how much that previous exposure impacted my ability. Since this song was coming from my mind rather than my memory, it was nearly impossible to detect the tiny alterations my brain made every time I remembered it. If I hadn't been singing and practicing with another person, I might never have noticed. These alterations continued throughout most of the process, and they were the most difficult obstacle to overcome.
My experience at Freestyle Academy has been incredible so far. Coming in to the program at the beginning of the year, most of who I am now was different then, largely because of the people and experiences here. The first project were in realms I was comfortable and familiar with: photography and coding. Having done both of those in middle school, I felt comfortable and confident. However, the second project, the narrative production, blasted that comfort to pieces. And I couldn't be happier that it did. I had no confidence in my ability to draw, so naturally, when I heard the next project was writing a graphic novel and making a 1-2 minute animation, I was terrified. For most of the unit, I was convinced I couldn't do it and that anything I turned in would be garbage. The community at freestyle, both with teachers and students, helped change that perception, and, despite it being horribly late, I turned in the project and was, to my surprise, able to say I was very proud of it. A similar thing happened in most of my Design assignments; having no confidence in my skill as an artist of any sort, I was constantly second-guessing myself and my choices. It wasn't until the most recent project, the documentary book, that I was able to have any lasting sort of confidence. And I know that wouldn't have happened anywhere other than Freestyle. I'm incredibly grateful for everything this program and these people have done for me, and more than anything I look forward to how I can grow next year, with one of the most supportive communities I've ever experienced encouraging me forward.