My Creative Process

Through the creation of Love Letters: an extended play, I was able to learn about conducting qualitative research and interviews, iteration techniques, and developing my time management skills.

The first step of my creative process was research and data collection. Investigations on the concept of love have resulted in the creation of numerous theories and models regarding love taxonomy. However, some works have developed more categories than others, and identify different types. After surveying numerous articles regarding the psychology of love (Bercheid; Tobore; Natividade et al.; Clemente et al.; Sternberg) I was able to identify 6 main types of love commonly identified by studies: companionate, familial, altruistic, romantic, passionate, and consummate love. I also conducted qualitative research interviews guided by the "Twelve Tips for Conducting Qualitative Research Interviews." In order to conduct successful interviews, I prepared myself as an interviewer and developed a questionare based on literature to "understand the interviewee’s subjective perspective of a phenomenon," (Cormac, et al.). After investigating the characteristics and emotions associated with the 6 types of love, I reached out to friends, family, and acquaintances that have experienced them and collected their responses. Through this, I was able to gain inspiration from the stories and emotions the subjects conveyed to me, and translated them into songs.

The second step was to write and compose the EP. Throughout this step, I used mind-mapping and "killing your darlings" techniques to brainstorm and outline the genres and themes I wanted to include in the final product. I used iteration to write down multiple possible themes, messages, and song ideas, and ultimately chose the ones that would capture the concept of companionate love the best. I created multiple drafts for song ideas that had different themes, and used the "kill your darlings" method to choose one and save the other for future development (ELMS). This strategy improved efficiency and allowed me to spend more time editing and perfecting specific songs. I also used timeboxing, a time management strategy involving dedicating blocks of time to certain tasks, allowing me to incorporate time for different steps of my project in my weekly planning and focus on one task at a time (ELMS.) This method made working on the project more enjoyable, with less stress due to planning ahead of time

References

Cormac, McGrath, et al.  “Twelve Tips for Conducting Qualitative Research Interviews.” PubMed, U.S. National Library of Medicine, Sept. 2019, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30261797/. 

Bremenstuhl, H. (2023). Attention Management Strategies [5]. Retrieved from https://umd.instructure.com/courses/1339432/files/71312954?wrap=1

Bremenstuhl, H. (2023). Killing Your Darlings. Retrieved from https://umd.instructure.com/courses/1339432/files/72786720?wrap=1