Embedded Files
Alongside your practical project, you need to develop a substantial research project to support your practical work. Use this template and guidance to structure and develop a substantial and thorough research project. Your research project should be publicly available on your website. You might want to place it all in 1 subpage of your FMP, or as separate pages. Remember that you are required to undertake both Primary and Secondary Research.
Structure:
Target Audience
Genre Research
Resources and Techniques
Roles, responsibilities and collaboration
Pre-Production
Production
Post-Production
Target Audience
Create a Forms Survey to identify a target audience for your
project.
Interest in project: You need to create a question(s) that will help you identify if the person completing the survey is interested in your project.
Do they like the style / genre of music. If it’s a live performance – do they usually attend gigs – how often, what type / venues? If its an EP do they buy music? How, where and how often? What makes them actually buy an album / single.
Age: You don’t need to get too specific here. Focus on learning which decade of life your target audience is in, or their generation.
Stage of life: Does your target audience include college students? New parents? Parents of teens? Retirees, Working / Non-working?
Location: Where in the world does your audience live? This helps you understand which geographic areas to target if you were to use social media targeted advertising / music distribution.
Gender - Is this relevant anymore?
Spending power and patterns: How much money does your target audience have to spend? (Often income isn’t that useful, spare income is – how much people have to spend). A good way to pose this question is how well off do you feel? (£, ££, £££). People also feel more comfortable not giving a financial amount so using pound signs eliminates this.
Interests: What does your target audience like to do? What TV shows, music, movies do they watch? Do they go to gigs a lot? What other businesses do they interact with such as streaming services etc - how do they consume music?
Social Media: What social media channels do your audience use – useful for marketing strategies.
Challenges: What pain / struggle in life is your audience dealing with?
Analyse your results.
Are most of the responses in the 16-18 age range? Maybe this is because you mostly sent it to people in this age range.
If your survey is online do you think it is equally accessible to all demographics?
How will the results have an impact on your project direction?
Have you identified a target audience?
Do your results inform you how you might target your audience with marketing tools?
In addition to a survey you could always hold a focus group meeting with people interested in your project to ask more specific questions to gain an insight into how to develop your project for a specified audience.
Sources to get you started.
Damian Keyes videos are a great source of industry and marking info.
Genre Research
Research the genre / style of music you will be working in.
Analyse key songs, albums, artists, composers, historical development and context.
What techniques / approaches have you found?
What are the typical musical characteristics / songwriting techniques?
What are the typical music production techniques?
How and what do you plan to use in your work?
How does the genre / style link with social / political context?
Where has this genre / style developed from?
Where is this genre / style going in the future?
What could YOU do to move the genre forward and do something creative and innovative? Can you find examples of musicians who have moved genres forward with innovation, how did they do it?
Remember to include lots of links to articles, journals, books, YouTube performances / recordings / analyses etc. throughout your research.
Sources to get you started.
Youtube Channels such as: Adam Neely, Dom Sigalas, Music Theory for
Guitar (but relevant for anyone), Junkie XL Film Composer.
Fly Paper – Pop music analysis.
Hook Theory – Fantastic analysis of chords used in pop music – a MUST READ!
Top 40 Theory - Brilliant analysis of current pop music.
Resources & Techniques
Research each piece of equipment you will need to use for your project (you
might find you already have some great research you can use from previous
projects).
If you are creating an EP you should research and review at least:
DAW (compare and contrast e.g. Logic vs. BandLab) Any specific plug-
ins, 3rd party, guitar effects, synths, sampler instruments, effects etc.
Audio Interfaces
Microphones
Instruments (review the guitars, keyboards, drum kit etc. you will use).
The studio set up and equipment.
Monitors (Speakers / Headphones)
Cables (Jack, XLR etc).
If you are creating a Live Performance you should research and review
at least:
Mixing desk (Allen and Heath SQ5),
PA system (Tops, Subs, monitors) – speak to Andy.
Microphones for live,
OBS if streaming,
Video camera,
Video editing software if not streaming.
DAW for editing and mixing the audio recording.
Instruments (review the guitars, keyboards, drum kit etc. you will use).
Cables (Jack, XLR etc).
Room / Space for performance.
Sources to get you started.
Start by using great equipment research sources such as Sound On Sound, Future Music, Computer Music and manufacturer websites. Be wary of online reviews as they are often biased, but you could discuss this.
If you do any experimentation such as experimenting with OBS software, the SQ5 Mixing Desk, PA, microphone placement / choice include this as primary research!
Roles Responsibility & Collaboration
Who is responsible for what? Hold a meeting and identify skills and
experience when assigning roles.
Songwriting
Leading / minuting and chairing meetings.
Organising your time / rehearsals / recording sessions.
Leading rehearsal / recording sessions.
Mixing / mastering.
Video capture / editing
Graphics / branding
Online presence management – social media / YouTube etc.
Parts – guitar / drums / vocals etc.
Research some examples of collaborations in your field of study and discuss the working relationship / pros and cons and impact of collaborations. Document how you are collaborating.
Page updated
Google Sites
Report abuse