Methodology

Research processes:

My main approach behind my research was to either find educational sources such as university papers, dissertations or thesis’s and I researched books and youtube videos.

I felt more confident choosing these sources as they’re more likely to be accurate and full of important information. For example, academic research papers, dissertations and thesis’s are reliable sources of information as an extensive amount of research goes into them, they also must be backed by a large number of references.

Books were another great source of information, especially when I was writing about non modern topics such as late 1800 composer’s and female composers in the 1900’s. The books were slightly older in date but that meant they were closer to the time of when those events occurred which I felt was accurate information to be reading from.

Youtube videos were also a great help to me as I’m a visual and auditory learner so information goes in best when it’s being described to me or presented in a visually pleasing way.

The process’s I decided not to take was to find online articles from unreliable sources like Wikipedia. This is because those types of online articles are accessible to the general public who can edit the information themselves, therefore the data isn’t reliable.

I also avoided non-certified Youtube accounts to source my data. When gaining information by watching videos, I only reviewed the ones that were posted by official Youtube user’s that discussed accurate information in their videos. Also, when discussing certain artist’s in my blog posts, I watched official interviews that contained the people I was talking about so I am getting a source of secondary data but from a first person point of view.

I another approach I left out was to avoid personal beliefs and primary research from other people. I read sources that emphasised the importance of objectivity and mainly wrote about sources that were backed by numerous facts.

However, I was subjective to certain topics I discussed as I have a strong passion for Music and equality so I guess I can say that I was conducting a mixture of objective and subjective research. The subjective research was me trying to find objective sources that I thought fit my interests and passions.

This links to reflexivity and how my subjective views could affect my qualitative research but in an attempt to limit subjectivity, I must reinstate the fact to the reader that my own reflections in my research are a necessary factor to good research, my blog is written in first person so my subjective opinion will appear throughout my posts but a good balance of subjective and objective research can overall make an unbiased blog .

Creative processes behind composing:

The inspiration behind my creative processes will always come from other musicians and composers, whatever I think sounds nice, I will study and incorporate in my music. Whether I accidentally come across a nice tune or learn to play a new piano piece, if my ears prick up to nice harmonies and melodies, I will study how those artists created that sound and I will try to recreate but still be unique to myself

My intial ideas to a creative process will start off with me sitting at a piano and improvising, it takes time before an idea is explored into something bigger but once inspiration sets in, my compositional strategies will advance and help me create a piece of music.

Once I have captured the idea I created on the piano, I will take a technical approach to my work by translating my piano improvisation onto my laptop and use the software ‘Logic’ where I have a template of instruments that replicate a full orchestra, from this step, I can then turn a simple piano idea into a full orchestral piece of music. Once my composition has been created, I will share it to SoundCloud where people can comment on my work and give me feedback.

However, sometimes an idea can be a spur of the moment creation and to review my compositional development I will often ask for the support of both musicians and non muscians to give their opinion on my musical idea before I adapt it any further. Having a mixture of non musicians and musicians listen to my work shows an unbiased review on my music. Social media platforms are a good but risky way of getting honest feedback from people who may not know you, the feedback can be very honest on social media platforms but you are then vunerable to internet ‘trolls’ and harsh comments.

If the quality of my work is not up to a professional standard from what feedback says of my compositions then I try to inspire myself and listen to different styles of music to see which style I write best in. I’m also not afraid to ask for help from my peers and fellow musicians to advise me on how to improve my compositional skills. Also when composing pieces of music for University assignments, my lecturer will always give me feedback on what I need to improve or change.

Overall I am happy with compositional processes because I’ve constantly been adapting the way I write music since I was young. I’ve grown up and experienced different styles of writing and I’ve also been taught by many music teachers, all of whom have a different outlook onto the music world. Music is a very subjective field of work, therefore I am aware that self confidence plays a vital role in a successful career as not everyone will like your music, but the people who do will lead you to a successful path.