Within my final evaluation i will be including all aspects of what i have done during this past 10 weeks of my FMP. I will include factors such as my problem solving skills, how my collaborations went, my final outcomes, research and then will evaluate and talk about my entire project.
Problem solving-
Studio availability- Not having the studios available to me as much as i would have wanted became quite a big issue for me quite quickly. This was mainly due to the fact that by the time i went to book my studio slots, there weren't as many as i though there would be. I also had to take into account that at the start of this process my producer was Harry was also producing for quite a few people in my class, this meant that we had to try and not clash being in at the same time. My first studio session was in week 6 on Wednesday where Harry was my producer. This leads me onto another issue involving my producer. Sadly Harry overbooked himself so could only do the one session with me, this ended up with me feeling quite stressed out and not overly optimistic as i had 4 songs to record and ony 3 sessions left. Luckily i spoke to Harry and also my tutor Jordan and had a chat with Issy who is a great producer, i worked with her a few times last year. When speaking to her she was super happy to record and mix my songs and she also had sessions in the studio meaning i had a few more sessions than i initially thought i would have. Overall having all these problems made this experience pretty stressful but i have learnt that if i am ever on a time limit for something that i need to book in my studio time earlier than everyone else.
Time management
Overall i think this is the best my time management has been throughout my time at college. Despite the fact that i didn't have enough time to record all 4 songs, i still managed to write them all in the time frame i wanted them written in. I also overall worked super hard to make sure i stayed on track with my weekly blogs and evaluations as i know the feeling to well of cramming last minute. The only part of my FMP that my time management needed to be better with was my research section. For me i found it harder to get motivated to do this part as i didn't enjoy doing it as much as the blogging and practical side of it. Although this isn't a major issue, i do think that i should have populated this area of my website before i did as it would have saved me quite a lot of stress towards the end of my FMP.
Collaboration-
During my FMP, i worked alongside many of my peers in order to achieve the best outcome for my FMP. To start off i collaborated with Lydia, Josh and Fin as my instrumentalists, i had Lydia kindly play bass, Josh play drums for me and also Fin played guitar for me. Along with those guys i also worked with 3 different producers throughout this FMP process, each of my recording sessions were slightly different as i had Harry for a session, Verity for a few and also Issy did a few for me as well. This process for me was quite easy as i was friends with all my collaborators before hand so knew that we would all be able to work well together. To start off my studio sessions, my producer was Harry but due to Harry slightly overbooking himself he told me that he wasn't sure he would have enough time to work with me. This put me in quite an awkward position as i then had to find someone available to be my new producer, luckily i quickly had a chat with Issy and she told me she was able to work with me. Working with Issy for me was very familiar to me as on a few pieces of my work from last year she was my producer. I also found it really easy while communicating with Issy specifically when she was mixing my song waiting. After her sending me the first mix i asked her to tweak a few things and she understood exactly what i wanted. Although i was overall happy with the mix of Waiting, if i had more time i would have asked her to mix it for a third as i am not overly keen on the lower harmonies at the end of the song and feel like at points they are a bit to loud. The same goes for my other producer Verity, she listened to what i wanted and executed it very well. The only difference between Goodbye and Waiting is that with goodbye if i had more time i would have gone back and recorded the drums and some of the vocals again. For the instrumental side of things i had Lydia play bass, Fin Played guitar and Josh playing drums for me. Working with these people again was something that came quite naturally to me as i am very good friends with them all, the whole process of working with them and teaching them my songs all went super smoothly. Though we didn't have much practice time before going into the studios and recording, i think that the recording process still went relatively well. The biggest issue i had to do with the studios was the availability and also the fact that i didn't book in time.
Outcomes-
For my FMP, i sadly didn't quite manage to get my whole EP (The darkest smile) recorded in time therefore i have recorded 2 songs and have released them on Soundcloud as singles instead. This was due to me not taking into accountability that it takes a while to get a song up onto distro kid, i didn't have the studio time. it also probably didn't help that whilst in the studios me and my collaborators had a few issues which set my FMP back by a few weeks meaning i didn't have time to record all my songs.
Research-
Overall in my FMP, if i had to say one thing that i really should have put more of my time and effort into it would definitely be the research section of my work. Over the past 10 weeks i spent a lot of time down in the studio and prioritising my blogs/ evaluations when i definitely should have been attempting to populate my research page more. I have found it more difficult to find the motivation to do the research section knowing that at some point it would come to me trying to get as much as i can on there during the final few weeks of FMP. This is something that could have been easily avoided if i had stuck to my timetable that i made in my proposal, also due to the fact that i have also struggles with time management in the past should have been something that i should have thought a lot more about. Despite this i have managed to populate the page to a good level and am proud to say that i managed to finish it within the time of the deadline.
Overall
From my Final Major Project i managed to record and release 2 of my 4 written songs, my initial plan being that it would be a 4 track EP called The Darkest Smile that would have been released on streaming platforms such as Spotify and apple music. This didn't quite go to plan which at first really frustrated me as i wanted everything to go perfect but then i remembered that i have worked super hard for this outcome even though it wasn't what i had planned for. I recorded 2 original songs and have got them both onto Soundcloud. I would have loved to say o got my songs onto Spotify but sadly i didn't quite get that far due to the countless amount of problems i ran into. Even though not a lot of my project went to plan, i am proud of how far my music has come and feel i have grown so much as a more independent musician.