Center name and number- Exeter College- 54221
Student name- Ella Breheny
Project proposal and date-
Main pathway- Performance
For my FMP i plan to create and EP of 4 original compositions, i decided that i wanted to do this project as i want to prove to myself that i am able to work happily and comfortably by myself rather than with a whole band. I also think that this would be a very useful project to do for FMP as i have never released any of my original music onto streaming platforms, this is something that i would like to be doing regularly by the time i finish my second year at college. When i first came to the college, i had very little confidence in myself and didn't really believe in my own ability at all. Throughout the entirety of this course and learning through the different units we had to complete, i have gained so much more confidence in myself and now do believe in my own talent and ability. I also can accompany myself on the piano now, although i'm not super confident playing yet i am still improving day by day and this will help me with FMP as i will be able to write songs a lot easier. During my time at college, i have also become more confident whilst performing on stage and although i still get nervous, i channel the feeling into excitement and it makes the whole process a lot easier for me. Last year for my FMP, i worked on a five track EP with someone in my class which we sadly didn't manage to complete due to our poor time management skills and our lack of urgency to get anything done. To ensure this wont happen again i will ensure to create a strict timetable for my FMP, i also thing i will work a lot faster as i will be working alone (other than a few people i have to collaborate with me). I take a lot of my musical inspiration from artists like Billie Eilish, Deftones, Radiohead and Raye. Although these artists are all quite different, i can use different aspects of their songs to influence my own songs. Usually when writing songs i tend to stick to writing ballads, although i love writing and performing ballads i want to try writing with different genres such as rock, punk or maybe soul music. When i have written and recorded my four songs i am planning to release them onto streaming platforms such as Sound Cloud and Spotify, i also think it would be really cool to do a photoshoot to get a potential cover photo for the EP.
Research
For my FMP research, i want to look at ways to better market myself, i also want to promote myself better as i feel like during last years FMP i didn't post about it online enough. I will definitely be doing some work looking into distribution companies and how much i would potentially have to pay to a distributer in order to release my songs. Although i did something similar to this for my FMP last year, i would like to do some research into other Eps by different artists, this will also give me some insight to how different artists write their songs as my main career goal is to be a singer/ songwriter.
https://www.masterclass.com/articles/songwriting-tips-techniques-for-writing-memorable-songs
Geraghty, H. (2025) Meet Sienna Spiro, the soulful Londoner who found her voice writing soaring pop ballads, NME. Available at: https://www.nme.com/features/music-interviews/sienna-spiro-interview-sink-now-swim-later-breakout-radar-3843654.
Problem solving
One of the main problems i have faced all year and during last years FMP has been my bad management of time. This so far has meant iv'e been behind with work and have not worked hard enough to stay on target. I feel like again time management will likely be something that i still struggle with again but as long as i stick to my timetable, i will stay on target to finish everything on time. I also could potentially get a writers block meaning that the progress of my songwriting will be slightly delayed. This is one of the problems that i have that cant really be solved, i will just have to keep working as hard as i can in order to get all my songs written and recorded before the deadline. For my FMP i am also planning on collaborating with quite a few people on my course and i will also be working with someone who is on the production course as well. As i am working with other people i could definitely run into the problem of not having someone working with me at the time i need them with me. As everyone has their own FMP to get done i cannot expect people to stop what they are doing in order to help me. One way i could get around this would be to have a very strict timetable for when i'm going to get everything done and when i have all my collaborators available to work with me.
Practical Skills
The practical elements of my project are specifically writing composing and releasing my 4 track EP. To start off i will be writing all my songs then will need to get into the studios with my producer (Harry) who will be recording and mixing the tracks on my EP as one of my collaborators. I don't tend to use resources like Logic Pro as i tend to struggle quite a bit with the production side of things, due to this i will have more collaborations with people in my class to play instruments alongside me. My main goal for my FMP is to get my songs and the lyrics i write to be heard and felt by other people, as i struggle to play instruments i will have to be quite thorough in the way i explain things to my collaborators and how i want my songs to sound when they are completed.
Evaluation
In order to evaluate and keep up to date with my FMP work i will complete weekly blogs of my progress throughout the whole process, i will also talk about what i intend to do the week after as long as i stay on time and work according to my timetable i created. Along with doing this i will ask some of my collaborators how they think everything is going every now and again just so that i can get a bit of feedback to potentially improve in places that need improvement. Overall in order for me to successfully complete my FMP i just need to ensure i am focussed on my timeline and keeping up to date with everything, i also need to ensure that i will have enough time with all my collaborators to get the EP to the standard at which i would like to release it.