Getting The Hang of Things

The last time I updated I talked about the little problem that we ran into that kept us from practicing in the band room and nearly flipped our whole project upside down. As far as I've seen, that problem has dissolved a little and we're back to practicing in Mr. Wine's room. Last week I took a break from the set and practiced guitar for a little bit:

 So this week, I practiced more by ear by listening to the song Jaime had learned on the bass, With Or Without You by U2, and playing along. I also taught Catherine the chords to the song so she could play along.

Lastly, I taught Kellar the riff for Come As You Are by Nirvana and played along with him on the drums. We didn't get any pictures of that but it happened. After the long overdue realization that I don't really have any way to access a drum set or a bass outside of school, I'm thinking of changing my goal to something along the lines of teaching guitar and learning to play along with other people if Mrs. Browning will let me.

Changes...

This week we ran into a few issues thanks to some changes in the good old school policy. Unfortunately, these changes had nothing to do with the David Bowie song. Teachers can't let us out of class anymore because of stuff that apparently happens when they do (i.e., starting a fight club in the bathrooms, long leisurely walks around school campus, all that good stuff.)This means we can't go to Mr. Wine's room to practice. Classic. We can still sort of practice in Mrs. Browning's room, but we have to stay quiet so I now have to switch to guitar and stuff. Although I doubt it'll last, I'll keep you posted on how this turns out.

This week I made a little more progress. I learned a few fills for the song and worked on getting them up to tempo. On the side, my friends and I worked on Boulevard of Broken Dreams by Green Day as a joint project. It took a while to get everything to correspond, but it was a lot of fun. Here's some footage of what I've been working on:

This Week's Update

This week has been somewhat progressive. The song I've been working on lately is "R U Mine?" by the Arctic Monkeys. I've decoded the drum part with my drum teacher and used a tab on the internet to learn guitar. I still need to find a software to use and a way to start recording all the instruments together.

Project Proposal

[2/12/16]

[Kekeli Doamekpor]

Proposal: Becoming a One-Girl-Band

Learning every instrument on the planet

Needs and Opportunities

Explain the problem you have noticed that needs to be solved with a project like yours. This is also your hook, so make sure you grab our attention. I’m in percussion in the school band, but my drumming could use some work. I also have an interest in audio engineering, so maybe one of my goals in this project could be to play, record, and mix together all parts and instruments in a song.

Audience / Clients / Users

Explain who will benefit from your project. How will you be able to access them for an empathy interview? It would help me improve my musical ability and help me do better in band and marching band tryouts. It would also give me more practice for drum lessons. Depending on the way I document my progress, it could also help other people learn to play an instrument.

Mentors

Who can help you with this project? Who will you need to contact and what will you ask them to commit to in helping you? Mr. Wine can help me by letting me use his room to practice and giving me advice. My drum teacher Tyler Wallace can help me and maybe Hunter as well. Someone that knows how to work with music software could help with mixing the music.

Timeline

What is your monthly timeline for this project. I want to see a list of deliverables with deadlines. You may find that the timeline needs adjustment during the course of the year, which may be fine. Check in with me if that’s the case.

February 26	Learn a few basic drum beats and perfect them
March 4	Continue working on rhythms and learn a song
March 11	Continue working on song, maybe throw in bass
March 18	Add guitars, lead and rhythm
March 25	Keep working on guitar,
April 1	Add a little keyboard
April 8	Work with software, Learn a new song- drums
April 15	Drums and bass
April 22	Bass and guitar
April 29	Guitar and keyboard
May 7 (Final 20% Friday)	Be able to play a few songs and audio engineer at least one

Product

What is the actual product you will show this spring. This project may be made of atoms or bits, but you must have something to show. I’m not interested seeing a bunch of great ideas at the end of the year. I want to see things. I want to be able to play one to two songs on drum and maybe audio engineer at least one

Reality Check

I am looking for moonshots here, but even moonshots need budgets. What equipment are you going to need? What other capital expenditures do you anticipate, and how will you meet them? I’m going to need access to a drum set, bass, guitar (home), keyboard (home), and music software.

Conclusion

Wrap it up. Why are you fired up about this project? Inspire us to support you, and give us a great reason to approve your project. I’m excited about this because it will give me a chance to work on my musical ability with instruments that I don’t usually get to practice on much and maybe give me a chance to give audio engineering a shot.