About

Hello, and thanks for reading my blog! This is a log of my adventures during my Senior Project, "Exploring the Diversity of Instrumental Music."  I'll be updating it with photos and videos of my experiences throughout the year.

What is a Senior Project?

A Senior Project is a year-long project that's designed to be a true culminating experience to high school. It serves as one of our school's most important graduation requirements. Each student independently chooses and executes a project that interests them and can last the whole year. While they are ultimately in charge of the fate of their project, they have the guidance of a Senior Project teacher and a technical advisor (a person chosen by the student to provide technical assistance and guidance.) Throughout the year, students are challenged to work toward achieving the school's Learner Outcomes: engaging in the creative process, answering a call to citizenship, solving problems, and defending conclusions and judgments. Each project culminates with a 45-minute public presentation in the beginning of June.

My Project:

I've often questioned my musical "fate". Would I be as passionate about music as I am today if I had taken up a different instrument back in 4th grade? For a person who is considered so open-minded, I had loyally played the clarinet for my entire music career. I wanted to know how a flautist's experiences compare and contrast to a trombonist's. Here is what I will be accomplishing this year to meet that goal:

1. Learning 8 concert band instruments: bass clarinet, trumpet, saxophone, flute, oboe, trombone, percussion, french horn. ("Learning" means performing a chromatic scale at 60 bpm.)
2. Recording and layering together a music composition through the use of GarageBand recording software. I will evaluate myself using a rubric I created, inspired by the scoring guidelines for the middle school Regionals Music Festival.
3. Visiting the region's 3rd graders to teach them about the different instruments and encourage them to join the band program in 4th grade.
4. Creating a blog to document the above accomplishments.
5. Developing public speaking skills. You can never be too good at public speaking!