Intro- Alright so my passion project, if you have been following along, was song or lyric writing. I chose songwriting because it's my safe place and its something that's totally mine. Mine to mess up, mine to change, 100% mine. But just because it's mine doesn't mean I won't share, I want my songs to have an effect on people and hopefully have people relate to the songs and for it to help them get through something in their lives. Another part of the Passion Project was researching and covering what benefits come from it.
Research- I mainly researched neuromusicology, which is the study of how music affects the brain. Music interacts with the entire brain activating different areas depending on what genre and how the music makes the listener feel. Specifically, it sets off dopamine which is the feel-good chemical the brain produces. if you listen to a mixed playlist it can even increase the amount of dopamine produced. One effect of music is that it can make you more productive and creative while studying and working.
Process- The process I took was varied and kind of all over the place. I started off wanting to write a song every week. This turned into a piece of a song like a chorus or verse and that kind of spired out of control and I fell behind in my weekly post. I eventually began to only write songs when I felt like they were good enough to post. Whenever I tried to force myself to write my songs came out fake and they didn't reflect how I wanted my music to be. Some of the songs I posted were "The Melody","Armor on a Rainy Day", and "Don't Give Me a Second Chance". If I was not writing drafts for my songs I was making recording or researching. I only have a few recordings because I dislike the way I sound on my phone but that's one of the things I've gotten more used to as the project unfolded.
Successes/ Failures- I definitely feel that the project had a lot of ups but just as many downs. I struggled with continuing to post songs along with just finding things to write about. This also played into my struggle to keep up with a blog post every week because I didn't have things to write about. I think I failed in answering my overall question because I wanted to learn about how my music affected people and if they understood where I was coming from or if they could relate to it and I didn't get that feedback. My successes were in my own personal growth. I became more confident in my vocals the sound of my voice and myself. I learned a lot about who I am and what I want to write and then what the best way to write my songs was.
RANT- I ranted in my presentation because it became so hard to continue writing because no one commented on the post and I had no feedback to develop my music more and to answer the questions I had. I the rant covered how I felt that the class was not being supportive of the project I worked so hard on and also everyone else's projects because no one got the support they deserved. I did state however that I was not an exception because I too failed to read everyone's post and comment. I regret that but there is no changing it now.
Conclusion- I closed the presentation by singing one of my songs. The song was "Armor on a Rainy Day" and I'll just post the recording below so you can hear it. One other thing I'd like to say is that this passion project is not over, I will continue to write songs even if they don't get posted. I will make a point to post some throughout the summer so you can see that I'm being true to my word. Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed the songs I've written so far.
https://youtu.be/b3zz3fwbsQo
