5–6 The student evaluates the success of the
product/solution in an objective manner based on the
results of testing, and the views of the intended
users. The student provides an evaluation of his or
her own performance at each stage of the design
cycle and suggests improvements. The student
provides an appropriate evaluation of the impact of
the product/solution on life, society and/or the
environment
This unit we worked on creating House Music. Doing house music was probably one of the most fun units this semester, because I love music, and I love House music in particular, so I was doing something I liked to do. I did not have to research or investigate that much, because I already had a bunch of music which I could play around with, but the main site I did use, to get new music and sounds, was Sound Cloud. Sound Cloud was a really useful source because there was different kinds of music which you can use. The most time in the unit was used to create the house music, rather than working on the different Criterias.
First we worked on Investigate. For that part Mr. Chettri came and talked to us about composition, using different movements and etc, which was helpful for the composition part of the assignment. After that for Investigate, I just looked up different types of music, rather than how to make house music. The Investigate part of the project was short, and in my opinion not really needed (apart from the composition talk).
We worked on the Plan later, which was orgainizing the timeline, when to do what. For me, even if I make plans, I never follow them, so I really didn't need to make my plan so detailed, because it wasn't going to be of any use anyways. Even though my plan not so detailed, it still told you what to do and when to do it by, which was good enough.
The creation aspect of the project was the toughest, because it was tough finding music that would suit each other. It took many classes just to find certain songs, and movements. Originally I made a couple different mash ups, and house music (attempts), to see which one would work the best. For the other two music that I made, which I discarded, I used only one artist's songs, because I thought that the music would fit well with each other, like Stromae's songs, but in the end it didn't sound so good, and I decided not to do it. To create my music, I used Audacity. Audacity was a really good program, with a lot of good effects, and it was really helpful. One of the things that it didn't have, and what I wanted was different sounds that I could fit into my piece, but Audacity didn't have that. Audacity was really helpful for cropping music, extending it, modifying it and doing transitions. Doing the transitions was the hardest thing by far, because you had to make sure that when one song switches to the next, it sounds smooth and not awkward. Most of my transitions were really bad, in my opinion, it was weird and sounded really off. During most of the time that I was creating my piece, I didn't really focus on finding movements, and a linking song, it was basically just a mash up of many songs, which was not what I was supposed to do. Instead of finding songs in the very beginning, I started with 2 songs, and worked on those, worked on the transitions and cutting off the piece, and after I was happy with the way those 2 pieces were, then I kept adding more. In the end, it was just a mash up of 4-6 songs. In the very end, I realized I HAD to do the linking song, so I just added the linking song in between all the pieces, which to me sounds really weird now. I liked it before when it was just a mash up.
One thing that didn't work in the pieces, in my opinion, was the transitions. I think my transitions were really off, and when people told me they were fine, I was confused. Transitions was my main focus throughout my creation, and I worked on them more than my pieces, and even after I was done, the transitions sounded horrible to me. Maybe that was because the pieces didn't fit in well with each other. I had different types of music, from Indian sounding music, to German music, to pop songs, to other house music, so maybe because the music was so different from each other, the transitions don't sound too good. Another thing I didn't like was one of the songs (We found love - Rihanna), I just put it there because it was the extension of the house music, which got cut off. I wouldn't have used that song, but somehow it fit in there, so I just put it in.
One thing I liked about the documentary was my choice of music (except one song). I think the parts that I cut off from the pieces was the most exciting parts of the song. Like Amnesia and Levels in Reverse, I took the most exciting parts and started of with those. I liked my into song, which was The End, by Tommy Trash. It gave an Indian effect to it, which was good/
All in all, doing this unit was really fun, because we mostly focused on Create, and we could experiment a lot , and I got to work with one of the types of music that I really like. It was fun, and frustrating at the same time (TRANSITIONS!). Overall my product, was not that great, according to me, there were some really nice bits that I did like in the songs, but I think overall it just sounds weird and doesn't fit in together. Next time I need to make sure that the music I choose fits in together. I think next time I should also focus more on finding linking songs, and movements before just throwing stuff together -.-
