I have always been passionate about music. When I was going through some of the rougher patches in my life, music was there to comfort me and put me in a good headspace again. So I knew that I wanted to make music, or at the very least study and appreciate it. However, I just could not find the time to do so. In that sense, making this my personal project is a way of getting me to do something I always wanted to do but struggled to find the time to. The main inhibitor for me was schoolwork, so I realized that if I made this a part of my schoolwork I would be able to do it much more efficiently as I would not have to divide time between doing school work and studying music, as my studies in music would also constitute as part of my school work (and a rather large portion of my school work at that). In that sense, I’m killing two birds with one stone.
Goal statement: To research music theory from Indonesian culture, then compile my findings into a compendium that will be used to score a soundtrack.
Essentially, I want to create a “gateway” sort of explanation of the music of Indonesia. What are the specific instruments used? What are some of the techniques applied? Does the culture have any interesting “twists” on standard music theory? These are the things I wish to explore in the compendium segment of my personal project.
The part about scoring a soundtrack is just something that I wish to do in order to test my music making skills and apply the knowledge I’ve learned and ideas discussed within the compendium. My good friend Razqa is making his personal project a video game themed around Indonesian culture, and that having me score his soundtrack would simultaneously lighten the load of his personal project and give me an excuse to create a soundtrack for my personal project, which is something that I’ve always wanted to do. Since I would have already researched Indonesian cultural music, I think it is a great opportunity to apply the knowledge that I have researched.
The main challenge I suppose is researching thoroughly enough the intricacies of Indonesian cultural music thoroughly enough to be able to write an effective compendium on it that is easily digestible to people unfamiliar with the culture.
The global context most suitable for my personal project would most definitely be Personal and Cultural Expression. After all, my personal project is about researching Indonesian cultural music and creating a soundtrack as an expression of that culture. In the most literal sense, it is a study on a culture’s expression through music, and then a recreation of the ideas expressed within the culture’s music, my own personal expression of it.
My outcome is a video game soundtrack inspired by traditional Indonesian music. It isn’t the cleanest soundtrack, but I’ve put everything I have left in me into capturing what I can about traditional Indonesian music and scoring the video game “Crita” to the best of my abilities.
After completing my product, I concluded that my product was able to achive half of my goal, as the other half of it – the compendium never came into fruition due to time constraints.
My product reflects the global context in a very literal sense as I digest the creative expression of a culture and its traditions and I use that to fuel my own personal expression in an attempt to capture the same essence of that cultural expression.
My product is in line with my criteria, as the criteria acted as a foundation that I kept in mind while a constructed my product. I endeavored to make the highest quality product that I could while attempting to illicit the same atmosphere as traditional Indonesian music.
Personal project has allowed me to tap into a field of study that I had always wanted to delve into but never had the time to commit to doing so. In that sense, my knowledge of the topic of music creation and personal and cultural expression has already improved drastically.
I learned that people both express creativity in different ways and perceive creative expressions differently too.
Throughout the project, I have most developed as an IB Learner in open-mindedness and being knowledgeable. I learned more about how people and cultures perceive music, and how different people can view the same creative expression differently, as from the feedback from my project. I also learned much more about navigating FL Studio 20 and as such I feel much more confident in my music making abilities.