Week 1: Debut
March 5, 2024
Hello all, and welcome to my Senior Project: I’m With The Band! The overarching goal of this project is to foster the creativity of budding High School musicians. I hope to encourage them to experiment with different styles and genres, without the pressure of adhering to popular media.
Research Question
In this project, I want to investigate the following: What contributes to the success of bands started by High Schoolers in San Jose? Does the genre of music or the venue environment affect the popularity of the band? Is it possible to record an album with all the songs we create?
Methodology
My project has already changed from what I had intended. A significant portion of my time will be dedicated to forming bands from independent artists I have found, instead of promoting existing bands formed by High Schoolers. It has become easier to be an independent artist as opposed to being part of a band, largely due to convenience and available technologies. However, I want collaboration to play a large role in this project. This adds another step to my intended methodology, grouping artists into bands based on their instruments and musical interests.
I plan to create an Instagram account to track likes, views, and shares of content. I’ll use social media for finding artists, publicizing and advertising live events, and sharing content and messages from the artists themselves.
After forming a few bands, we will start running rehearsals. I will sit in on rehearsals to gauge the progress of the bands, and I won’t intervene in the creative process unless I am needed. Writing original music would be our next step. While covers of existing songs can be creative (just look at Marilyn Manson’s cover of Sweet Dreams, originally by Eurythmics), original songs would be fun to have when comparing popularity.
So far, the music has been behind closed doors, so I plan to organize live concerts for my bands. While small (and eventually larger) venues are preferable, busking (performing on the street) is a viable option for some live performances. These will be advertised and videotaped and the audience turnout will be included in my data collection. Lastly, my bands will record a few of their songs professionally in a recording studio. A part of my research involves learning how to produce music, which will be necessary throughout this process.
Progress
This week, I have been working on launching my project’s Instagram account (@im_with_the_band_sj). I dedicated the first post to finding musicians and urging people to follow the progress of the project. By next week I hope to put together a couple bands, have at least one finalized, and potentially start rehearsals. Be sure to check back in then!
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