Hey. Last Friday night we had our presentation. There was a proper turnout from actually industry professionals. A bit daunting tbh. Especially for the few who had to (read volunteered perhaps?) to present in front of the lot plus the students and Lucy's family too. Gosh, a couple a G's of pressure at least.
But honestly, having read some of the presentation synopses from the schedule, I thought there would some ideas being repeated and projects too similar to each other. NOPE! I was v wrong as usual. Even the orchestra/band books were created in different ways, telling different stories, through different media, aimed at different audiences. I can't say which I enjoyed the most, since all of them had equally valid merit and creativity. The educators were full of praise for all the resources they saw, even so much as to say they would use them in real life teaching application - definitely is encouraging for the creators.
Apart from the resources, I thought the creative reflections were also really interesting. Lara's remixes were great, Gwyneth's OG songs were dope, Matthew's composition and accompanying monkey short video was wacky and wonderful. The 4 hours of presentations truly disappeared in a flash, dunno where the time went. Must have been having a lot of fun!
Here's a tidbit of reflection on my own presentations: Probably should have prepared a bit more, like drawn up a sequence of stuff that I wanted to show. It didn't help that the website died about 20 mins before the presentation started and I had to cobble together a locally hosted version before my first session. And I'm pretty sure I just kinda sat silently for like 2 mins in that presentation, wallowing in the social awkwardness. It was kinda nice though. I've missed awkward interactions especially with strangers on the internet. But also cannot confirm if that really happened or I am imagining things. Also been kinda zoning in and out of life. The second reflection was a bit better I think, since the website worked again. A couple of people signed up to the website and now I have their emails in the database to send spam to periodically so that's nice.
Lara asked if I would want to actually keep the site up and running and have it used by other people. Probably not, since it's not the original vision of what I wanted.
Overall, what have I learnt through this project?
Ideas though can seem similar are a reflection of their creator and that each will be approached in a slightly different angle to produce wildly differentiated results
Technology is applicable and necessary in a contemporary music education context. But choosing and using that technology in well thought ways requires considerations and planning
Lara and Lucy's is still my favourite hehe
Goodbye friends.
*Oh yeah, quick little edit. I asked a couple of homies to help me fill out ensembly a bit. check us out. (mars literally learnt the sax bit in 30 mins with zero prior sax playing so excuse the C# honking/honking in general). A bit of cheeky ensemblying as newbies o these instruments