This is now the seventh week of school and time has never moved faster. I do feel like I am on track and making good progress. Since I have an outline, sources, an article written, and the skeleton of my site, I feel some added momentum. However, the subtle but ever-present fear of falling too far behind is nonetheless in my mind.
In ethnography, practice theories can be used to understand the ways that people interact with digital media and technology. It all started as a result of a focus on ‘how human actions and habits shaped and maintained over time and the ways in which these impact the world”. This approach entails a concern with the understanding of the relationship between between “human actions and the rules, structures, and processes that underpin what people say and do”. A focus on practices can allow us to manage how technologies can become key in social relations”. Furthermore, these theories tend to focus on routine over actions, flow and sequence over discrete acts dispositions over decisions, and practical consciousness over deliberation. They emphasize ‘doing over thinking, the material over the symbolic, and embodied, practical competence over expressive virtuosity’.
The example, “Approaching Fan Fiction Practices through Ethnography” involves a more holistic approach to practice. It looks at the practices of fan fiction writers and their relationship with digital media technologies, in this case, of a sixteen year-old who was part of a larger study of digital media. This sixteen year-old writer used a fake name for the study. The takeaway of the study, which also serves as an answer to the question of why this study is ethnographic, is that members of this subculture are now not only consuming professionally produced media, but they are also produce their own media products. According to the text, they are “continuing to disrupt the culturally dominant distinctions between practices of production and consumption”. Related work has shown how once ‘alternative’ fan practices have become more and more mainstream with the integration of ‘traditional’ and digital media forms’. What makes this study ethnographic is not only what was researched but also the way in which it was conducted. The way it was conducted allowed the researcher to come up with methods that could explore more deeply the practices that young people were reporting in their interviews. Since the fan fiction writing is almost exclusively done in private and at home, the ethnographic approach to the study revealed a closer and more detailed look that other methods may not have provided.
This is the fifth week of school already. Thus far, I’ve done a decent job of getting the skeleton of the capstone project done. I’ve installed the appropriate software, I’ve installed almost a dozen plugins for my site, picked a hosting service, gathered my sources, and outlined a couple of pages for one of my topics. That isn’t an awful start, but it’s time to get cracking’. Continue reading “Blog #2”
It has long been said that experience is at the center of ethnographic practice. Definitions of experience have changed over time and new implications present themselves as culture and technology advances. John Dewey once defined experience as “the flow of everyday life punctuated by moments of fulfillment”. Researching experiences involves many things depending on the case and the type of experience being analyzed. Researching experience means collecting and measuring subjective stories that point to something beyond the story itself. Experience is a form of explication because there is a meaning and significance you can draw out of the initial data. However, this can be troublesome for ethnographers because the significance or meaning of an experience can be difficult to articulate. Continue reading “Experiences”
Answering the question of who I am has always been a curveball for me. You go through life thinking you know exactly who you are, then either someone asks you who you are and what your story is, or you have an experience that naturally provokes the question as a reaction. You then realize you don’t know yourself like you thought you did. It takes some people a lifetime to find out who they truly are and that is okay, we are all on different paths. Continue reading “Who are you?”
Here we are, my last semester of college. Tell me what happened to the time! From experience, I know this semester will be the fastest one yet. The last three quite literally felt like a month. I’ve heard that despite the expectation that this last semester will go by the fastest, it will go even faster. With that being said, the deadline for my capstone project will show up in a blink of an eye. That date will serve as one of many reminders that there really isn’t much time left. Continue reading “Blog #1”
Last Thursday, the communications department held their capstone event for students graduating this month. There was a total of six students who all presented their capstone projects they have been working on all semester. The first presentation was one of my favorites. The student did an adaptation of a story she previously wrote. She displayed her drawings for her project and they were very good. Also, she was cool and confident presenting to the audience. Another presentation I enjoyed was a student who started a YouTube channel. This was particularly intriguing for several reasons. First of all, I watch a god bit of YouTube. I don’t have cable while I am away from home at school; I don’t watch much TV these days anyway. I mostly watch YouTube tutorials by people who do things that I’d like to do someday so it was interesting to see what posting content on YouTube is like. I ended up having a conversation with the student about it after the presentations were over.
Also, one student who’s studying digital filmmaking made a short film for his capstone. This was interesting to me because I took a music video class as well as narrative screenwriting. His presentation reminded me of these classes and of how much goes into these types of things. If I was better at it and more creative I might have done some type of combination of film and music. The genre of his short film was a psychological thriller which I am a fan of so it was interesting to learn about his thought process. The event went well and I enjoyed attending it.
I had an idea for a source that isn’t an online article, video, or text at all. I know an audio engineer and producer from home who rents out space for a recording studio. I thought about doing a half interview have documentary segment with him at his studio. I have several songs out on Spotify, iTunes, Apple Music, etc, that were recorded in his studio. I want to record some video footage of the experience to provide my audience with an inside look of the environment of a recording studio and what the process looks like. I’ll add this video to my website with a small written description as well. In terms of that will be in the video, I thought about having an artist record a song. I’ll be there to document it and I’ll have the engineer and artist answer some questions as well.
This next source is very informative, partly because of who the author is. I mentioned BMI, or Broadcast Music Inc., who is a performance rights organization. I found an article on their website entitled, “I Know I’ve Got a Great Song – Now What?” I read it through and some of the information is stuff I have already mentioned, but the bulk of it goes very in depth on publishing. Since this project is for school, I don’t want it to be just about the music side of things. The business side of the music making process is not only important, but relevant to my major, so I think this is a great source to use. This article discusses publishing companies as well as what a professional publisher does.
Source: https://www.bmi.com/news/entry/i_know_ive_got_a_great_song_now_what
Have you ever heard an old vinyl record play on a turn table? Did you notice how good, warm, clear, and satisfying the sound was? That music was recorded and played back in an analog format. In modern times however, we have the option of going digital. In modern times, this is an important distinction that concerns the innovations in technology and software that have come about over the years. For music heads, specifically engineers, there is a common debate of which is best, analog of digital. This is important because for one, each style of engineering gives you a different and unique result of sound, and secondly, analog, which is the “old school” technique is still widely used. This article breaks down the differences between analog and digital recording. The author is pro-analog but does a consistently good job of detailed the pros and cons of both techniques. In essence, analog audio recording is all there was before fancy computer softwares were developed. Digital recording is basically a replication or simulation of analog. A preliminary distinction between the two is that analog recording yields a warmer, more natural tone and texture. Digital recording on the other hand does not provide such texture but does have more control and precision. Also, analog recording translates to a lot more equipment because the simulation aspect of digital recording means that everything is translated to one computer, where everything is in the same place. This article individually explains the significance of each style, as well highlighting the distinction between them.
It dawned on me that all my sources so far are informative but don’t get too deep into the actual process of making music. I’m thinking about making some content of my own for the project. However, I did find a video that depicts a typical modern day making of a music. Now, my project is centered around the entire process of making a song so this source is a representation of only one step: production. I’d like to incorporate more sources like this to depict the other steps as well. Perhaps I’ll use a combination of sources and original content so that there is some variety to the project. In this video, a well known producer makes an instrumental from scratch. In the context of my project I’ll let the video be self-explanatory and I’ll explain what would typically happen before and after this part.
One very important aspect in the process of releasing music is mixing and mastering. This is important because it is the process that allows music to sound coherent, blended, and clean. To the average listener who knows nothing about audio engineering, there is no awareness of the mixing and mastering done to a song they listen to. However, if the mixing, mastering, and all the engineering to that song were stripped away, they would cringe! This is what my third source is all about. According to the Conservatory of Recording Arts & Sciences, subsequent to recording, mixing is the second step to making a record. This is where you “take each of the individual audio tracks we recorded in step one, and put them together to sound like a cohesive music production experience”. Although a vast majority of the creativity in music is in the musical ideas, many people do not realize that a lot of creativity can be employed through mixing. This is due to the use of various effects that may not seem noticeable, but bring a song to life! In essence, mixing is glueing individual recorded tracks together to achieve a cohesive overall product. Mastering however, is the final step to producing a record. According to my source, CRAS, “this is where we take the finished, mixed recording, and run it through some final processing which prepare the song for distribution”. This step is also vital because it is what allows a song to sound consistently good on various platforms, such as a phone speaker, laptop speaker, headphones, the car, and even live concerts. Without mastering, what might sound perfect on studio monitors sounds cloudy and poor in the car. This source breaks down the steps to mixing in mastering which is very important and helpful for my project.
Source: https://cras.edu/what-is-audio-engineering/
My fourth source is all about record labels. Although independent artists are on the rise, and releasing music independently sums up my experience, record labels obviously still play a huge role in the music that is released worldwide. This source explains how record labels work. This is very relevant to my project because my projects is centered around how music is made and published in modern times. In these modern times, record labels often have the upper hand and the last say on what, how, and when music is published under their label.
Also, this can be a controversial topic because it often results in feud’s between artists and labels. This source breaks down what record labels are responsible for and what they control. From A&R support, marketing and promotion, specialist support, distribution, label deals, licensing deals, distribution deals, branding, and more, this source informs us on the inter workings of a label which plays a very big role in the music that we hear everyday.
Source: https://spinnup.com/uc/top-faqs/how-do-record-labels-work/
Music Production - All You Need To Know 