Work Logs

Work Log #1 - 1/14/22

The Senior Project is upon us. This massive assignment that, as students at Northgate High School, we have heard about since we stepped foot in the halls. As we broach the beginning of the biggest English project of the year, many thoughts and feelings have been swirling around in my mind. What will I focus on? What should I research? As of right now those questions remain unanswered there are some things I am sure of. I know that I am the most excited for the project, community outreach portion of this assignment. No matter what the topic of my research is, I know that I will definitely enjoy participating in activities that help the people around me. Interacting with, and meeting new people can be stressful but considering the tone of this project and that it is centered around a topic of my choosing I will hopefully be meeting and interacting with like-minded people and that always creates some really special moments. I am definitely nervous for the interviewing portion of this project. While, like I mentioned, I do enjoy meeting new people, the interview setting creates a rather stressful atmosphere no matter how nice the interviewer is. I am hoping that if I go into it with a positive enough mind-set and well prepared with questions it will turn into an informative conversation rather than a stilted, awkward Q&A session! I have some exciting prospects for the actual project portion of the assignment which I will be following through with in the coming weeks. I am anxiously anticipating the next few months and all of the adventures they have in store!

Work Log #2 - 1/20/22

As we make our way further into finalizing our research ideas and project plans I decided that it would be the most satisfying for me to focus on music. With my family being as musical based as it is, my dad is a conductor and my siblings and I grew up playing various instruments, it has always been a large part of my life and it just made sense to focus on it for the major cumulative project of my senior year. With music being such a large part of my life growing up, performing was also such a huge aspect of it. Whether I was attending my fathers performances or I was participating in those performances it was a constant. And music is such an impactful thing that even after the pressure to do it from my parents dissipated I chose to continue. The mediums changed as I grew of course. I shifted from instruments to musical theatre and then to choir which has been maintained consistently since 8th Grade. The lack of performances during the lockdown and the feedback I heard from others about how it made them feel pushed me to wonder: how much of an impact does performing have on people and more importantly what impact did the lack of it have on the development of young students’ confidence? Especially young people. It provides a space to learn and grow. To become confident in yourself and your abilities as an individual or the talents that you possess and without that validation from an audience how is that passion supposed to persist? These questions all inspired me to pursue this topic further with the Senior Project.

Work Log #3 - 1/24/22

I started drafting possible research question ideas and landed on ‘How does performing contribute to the development of self confidence in middle school aged children?’. The day came to confirm my question with my English teacher, Mrs Eisner, and I am not going to lie, I was dreading it. My meeting was on the final day and everyone else's meeting lasted at least 3-4 minutes if not more. I was called over and sat down and Mrs. Eisner just looked at me. So I started rambling at my idea and how I got there and why I was interested in it, I don’t think I know what I actually said in those 20 seconds of just word-vomit but it seemed to do a good enough job at explaining it because after a few clarifying questions and some rearrangement of wording I was sent back to my seat. This all occurred in less than a minute, record time for a meeting if you ask me. Reece Jordahl who sits next to me seemed to be having less of a smooth ride. After his meeting with Mrs Eisner he seemed more than slightly agitated and I discovered that it was because his question had not met her standards. After a little brain storming session I suggested that we turned my project into a collaboration. We would work on different portions of the project, Reece was ambivalent at first due to our usual comfortability lying in the others hands, mine being music which would be his focus and his being organsation which would be mine but I quickly convinced him and it was settled. He would work on the music with the choirs while I organised the event.

Work Log #4 - 1/25/22

Previous to the start of Senior Project season my classmate drew my attention to an email I had missed from my middle school choir teacher, Mrs Anderson. She suggested the possibility of helping put together the 'mock CMEA festival' that I am pursuing as my Experiential Project. We performed at CMEA festival when I was in the first year of the Foothill Middle School choir program and it was so fun so when she approached me asking if I was interested in putting together a 'mock CMEA festival' with the Northgate choir because her students couldn't make the real CMEA festival I was thrilled. I responded to her first email and after some back and forths' we decided that I would work with her to create and run this CMEA festival for the Foothill Choirs with her as my mentor. My goal is to create a smoothly running festival that lasts around 3 hours and includes not only the Foothill Choirs but the Northgate Choirs as well. It will allow the middle schoolers to not only gain the experience of performing in a professional setting but also see where they can get to by watching the high school choirs. The high school choirs are actually participating in an official CMEA festival the Saturday before the set date, 21 May, and as such will just be performing their previous setlist. Due to my history in school choirs and my family being relatively musical I have a few connections that I intend to pursue to get judges for this festival. My father, who is a trained conductor in addition to directing various operas and teaching at the London Royal College of Music, both the choir teachers at Northgate and Foothill and hopefully one other musician will agree to judge the festival in either the performing portion or the sight reading portion.

Work Log #5 - 2/1/22

My research question and project got approved and now the real work begins. There are many things to think about. On the project side of things I am continuing my contact with my mentor, Mrs Anderson, as we figure out how best to start planning the Festival for May. We have a set date and now it is up to me to decide and reach out to the best prospects for judges. In addition, I should start asking around for possible venues. Hopefully we can use Northgates Little Theatre but if not there is also Foothill Middle School’s stage or possibly Walnut Acres stage. This is all a matter of simply sending emails though, the more pressing matter comes with my research question. The task at hand is finding reputable websites, books that actually apply to the topic, and another person to interview in addition to Mrs Anderson. There are various options that come in the form of childhood development books and the relation to music, it is just a matter of picking the most applicable one. My goal is to find time this week to head to the library and look through the options they have there, possibly check a couple out to peruse.

Work Log #6 - 2/22/22

The to-do list is getting rather long. The most looming of tasks continues to be the interviews. I already have one of my interviewers decided, almost for me, my mentor Mrs Anderson. That interview will be easy considering how easy our discourse has been so far, the only issue being when this interview will occur. Musical America is approaching fast and the week that the interview is due happens to be tech week. But it is no matter, we will figure it out. I am considering who my other interviewers could be, possibly an author of one of the books I am going to use as research, maybe one of my previous music teachers. Because Mrs Anderson is in the area, I am hoping that the interview can be in person but if not, zoom is also a viable option that would work. I am actually quite glad that the interview is being forced to be transcribed because hearing and keeping track of what she answers as well as internalizing the information and ingesting it is a big ask on the spot. The transcript will allow me to actually intake what Mrs Anderson says and apply it to my research accurately and insightfully.

Work Log #7 - 3/2/22

1:58, 2:00. 2:05, 2:10. Nothing. Radio silence. I was supposed to meet my interviewee, Mrs Ryken, over zoom. I sent the link at a quarter to 2 just like I had promised to but alas, here I was 10 minutes later, alone in a zoom room. What a throwback to last year! I was frantically checking my emails trying to make contact because I had a limited time window to conduct this interview. Suddenly, an email popped up. “The link isn’t working, we could just do it over the phone?”. I shook my head, MDUSD at it again messing everything up but nevertheless at least I had something to go off of. “Sounds perfect!” I responded. I dialed her number immediately, it all happened so fast I didn’t even have enough time to process the phone call anxiety that is often experienced by the people in my generation. She picked up and I went to turn on my recording app when a message popped up; “Audio in use, end call to use app”. Another barrier in my efforts to interview this very patient teacher. After apologizing profusely I suggested that she call me so I could pick up using my laptop. It worked! Thank god that all Apple products are connected. After those first few mishaps the interview continued without a hitch, barring a few words being cut out. It lasted around 25 minutes and considering the rough start it was a very rewarding experience and definitely made me less anxious for the next one.

Work Log #8 - 3/12/22

Going into this interview I was much less nervous. I now had experience with holding a conversation based interview with the emphasis on them speaking so the whole experience felt a lot more natural. I had also interacted with Mrs. Anderson more in recent years that I had with Mrs Ryken so I was overall just more confident going into it. We started by just chatting and once we had caught up I started with the questions. To begin with I was asking the same questions as I asked Mrs. Ryken but as the interview went on I was able to ask questions that had been prompted by something she said or would prompt her to elaborate on something she said. It was nice because it felt less like an interview and more just like an informative conversation because it flowed so easily from one topic to the next. At one point I asked about how her year as a Spanish teacher was different from her years as a choral teacher and while she was talking about that I realized that foreign language classes must actually be quite similar performance wise as music classes. Oral presentation is a large portion of language classes and so I asked whether or not she believed that children that she taught in choir who were also in her Spanish class performed better. While it was quite a niche question and she had never thought about it, it was an interesting angle which I intend to elaborate on in my cumulative research paper. Overall both interview experiences were overwhelmingly positive. They allowed me to reconnect with old teachers in both a professional and personal manner, gain a view into how this topic affects people inside our community and look at the various angles of the topic.

Work Log #9 - 3/15/22

The first draft of the research paper is rushing closer. With the structure provided I already have a written introduction and an outline along with the quotes that I plan to use in each paragraph. The only task next is to actually write it. Quite daunting seeing as this is supposedly the culmination of all of the skill I have gained from high school English, no pressure. My second interview was incredibly informative and I have a lot more good content which can be added into my outline and eventually essay. While the research on the pros and cons of the act of performing is limited, there was a lot of good information surrounding the benefits and issues of performing arts classes in a general sense as well as focusing upon the social, academic and neurological effects it has. Luckily I think I can take the evidence found within the various research and books and apply it to my topic. My biggest worry is that the essay comes across as biased and one sided. I have attempted to find sources for both the positive and negative effects which performing can have on impressionable youth and a lot of articles I have found have provided that as a counterargument to their own findings rather than as a result of their findings which makes the bases a little shaky. No matter what this will hopefully be a complete collection of all of the research I have read and will accurately reflect that goal.

Work Log #10 - 3/24/22

Now that the rough draft of the research paper is done and dusted it is time to focus on the Project. So far some progress has been made. I am in contact with Mrs Anderson, whom I am helping set up a mock CMEA festival for her middle school students. We have set a date, May 21, and the venue is open that date so everything seems a-okay in that area. My next task will be rallying judges to help. As of right now there is Mrs Anderson of course, possibly Mr Carter, the Northgate choir teacher, Mrs Ryken, an elementary school teacher in the area, and Mr Drummond, a local musical director with experience with all ages of performers and classical training. I plan to send out an email double checking with all of these people to make sure that they can make the date and time of the festival. In addition to that I am attempting to enlist the help of the Northgate choirs so that the middle school students can feel like they actually have an audience and a real CMEA experience. Rallying the students to come and perform two Saturdays in a row may be the biggest challenge of this project considering the Northgate choirs will be performing in the official CMEA exactly a week previously. Hopefully enough agree to join so this can be a positive performing experience for the Foothill Choirs. It is also a good way to form relationships between school choirs and keep a strong bond so the middle schoolers want to continue participating in choir in high school.

Work Log #11 - 4/5/22

Over Spring Break I kept in contact with my Mentor, planning out my project. The first issue that came up was the issue of the venue. The goal was to reserve the Little Theatre at Northgate Highschool but that was tricky due to the busy schedule of the Arts Department. We originally wanted to plan this for Saturday the 21 but that idea was scrapped because of the upcoming swimming schedule. Our correspondence consisted of trying to figure out dates where both choir programs could attend without getting in the way of school. Finally it was decided, with the permission of the principal of Foothill, that their choir program would walk up to Northgate on the 23rd of May aiming to get here at around 2:20 so that when school gets out at 2:30 the Northgate singers can join them in the Little Theatre and watch. We did end up getting the Little Theatre reserved for May 23. The remaining issue lies in my organisation skills and whether or not I can convince the Northgate choirs to participate in this event. I am planning on talking to Mr Carter, the choir teacher here, and asking if he will allow me to come to each class and talk about the event and ask if they would be willing to learn the joint song and then attend and participate in the event.

Work Log #12 - 4/19/22

With the deadline of the paper coming up we are working on our final revisions. My progress has been a little stunted due to the fact that I was stuck in a foreign country for 17 days and couldn’t access my school work. Today I received my notes from my English teacher and have started working on revising my paper. The main issues are in the organisation of the outline, making sure it flows properly and in a convincing fashion and embedding the quotes into the message with enough ethos surrounding the interviews. I have started working on grouping the similar topics together, sandwiching the negatives between the two positive arguments as answers to my question. The conclusion is another large part that needs reorganisation. When I wrote the draft I may have found myself mid tangent. I didn’t fully delete the tangent because there were beneficial points made but the aim now is to create a tighter answer to the questions while including the outside context of the tangent. My mentor read through it and her critiques were along these same lines. There is good information but trying to make it more cohesive. The issue I have run into is that because this is a relatively large paper compared to the essays I have been trained to write it is harder for me to create a cohesive train of thought all the way through without finding myself branching onto a completely different topic. On the other hand, there are so many connected topics with this subject that it was hard to choose which I wanted to focus on for the duration of the paper.

Work Log #13 - 4/25/22

A local conductor and musical director with direct ties to the choral programs of both schools has agreed to act as a ‘judge’ for this clinic. He will give feedback to the performers and help with the sight-reading portion of the clinic. We are working on trying to get a joint song together so that the Northgate choirs can sing with the Foothill choirs so there are some interprogram connections that are made. The planning of this joint song is a little problematic because May is an incredibly busy month for both choir programs, with spring concerts for both choirs coming up and CMEA for the Northgate choirs, learning an extra song may be problematic. I am working on proposing this idea to my choir teacher in the form of a song that he wanted to do last year with the Foothill Choirs but couldn’t because they were too busy. I plan on proposing that each choir gets the song as soon as possible and starts working on it alone and he only has to use a little in class time to try to clean up the song. The song that Mrs. Anderson proposed ‘Sing a Song’ which is one that the Northgate choirs already know for the most part and it will be easy enough to reteach and gives the Foothill choirs enough time to learn after their concert.

Work Log #14 - 5/2/22

In addition to helping run the Foothill Choir Clinic at Northgate’s Little Theatre, I am also going to help out with the K-1 performance of Winnie the Pooh at the local elementary school, Walnut Acres. This will allow me to see the difference in how performing affects students of all different ages. There is definitely a different tone in the performances, the Clinic being a lot more serious and the Walnut Acres performance being more of a good experience for the children. These types of experiences are so important at a young age. I touched on this topic in my paper when discussing how important positive exposure to the arts can be at a young age. I will be helping out Mrs Ryken corral the children and interact with the kids keeping them engaged, maybe helping them learn their roles on stage. In previous years I have helped out at Walnut Acres during the 4th and 5th grade shows and that was always an incredibly positive experience and this experience will hopefully be just as positive, if not more rewarding. This part of the project will probably act as most of the volunteering hours as I attempt to try to create positive performance experiences for children of all ages and all levels of schooling. Helping with the Walnut Acres Performance spans over a two week period of time from today, the fifth of May, until their performance on the 19th! This will hopefully give me an insight into not only how Mrs Ryken creates a positive experience for such young children, but how she reduces the stress of the looming performance because at such a young age it can be quite a daunting thing to be on stage in front of lots of people, not even considering the added task of remembering your cues.

Work Log #15 - 5/5/22

Work Log #16 - 5/11/22

Today I started an arts and craft project. This is a minor part of my overall project but in my mind is perhaps the hardest. Flyers. I struggle with anything arts and crafts related or depending heavily on graphic design and aesthetic organisation. As such, I have been procrastinating on this for weeks. This afternoon I actually sat down, logged onto Canva, a free graphic design program used to create social media graphics, presentations, posters, documents and other visual content, and I designed three different options for flyers that I can hang up in the Northgate Choir Room, pass out to choir students and send to Mrs. Anderson so she can hang it up in her classroom. Luckily for me Canva has free templates that I can utilise to create appealing posters with all the important information. At this moment, I still don’t have all of the tools I need to complete these posters. I still need a form that the Northgate and Foothill students will be asked to complete which is a general reflection on performing arts classes. This form will be turned into QR codes and placed somewhere visible on the flyers. In addition to hanging these flyers up around the two classrooms and passing them out to students, I will create one more flyer to pass out at the end of the clinic with a separate QR code linking a different form with a reflection on the clinic to get feedback related to both the event and my research. While the pieces seem rather scattered at the moment, it finally feels like this project is actually forming into some kind of solid shape!

Work Log #17 - 5/16/22

Today I met with my mentor, Mrs. Anderson, to further discuss the event we are collaborating on to organise. We met at 3:00pm after school along with Reece Jordahl, another pillar in the choral department, he agreed to come to be another set of ears and to give his advice on what he thought was doable in the time that we have. We started with a review of the itinerary for the day. Starting at 2:30 in the Northgate Little Theatre, there will be a collaborative, fun warm up, led by one of our judges and local conductor, David Drummond. Then the group song will be sung by all of the choirs who have agreed to participate. After that the Northgate Madrigals plan to perform a gig song for the Foothill students and hopefully Northgate’s Bella Voce will agree to perform one of their songs as well. Then the Foothill Choirs will sing their combined song for the Northgate choirs. This exchange of performances hopefully will allow the Foothill students to feel more comfortable in the situation and relieve the pressure slightly. Then the real ‘Clinic’ begins. The Northgate students will be dismissed as the audience and the three Foothill choirs will take turns singing their songs, three per group. These songs will be watched by both Mr Drummond and Mr Carter and they will give the groups commentary that hopefully will allow for growth. Additionally the groups will perform a sight-reading exercise for the judges. The aim is to have the clinic wrapped up by 4 o’clock and the Foothill students will be dismissed. This and more was all discussed in my meeting with Mrs. Anderson, in addition to the smaller details of the event such as where people will stand and how reflections will be collected.

Work Log #18 - 5/17/22

Looking back on the planning for this project and the event itself, I find myself looking at all of the things I could have improved on. Planning it, I did as best I could with the pandemic restricting in person meetings, but I know I now that it would have been beneficial to create a group chat, or some form of direct messaging service with all of the people helping out with the planning. Knowing the people I was going to be working with, they do not check or respond to emails terribly quickly and it would have made general communication a lot easier to have all messages in on place so everyone was on the same page at all times. There was a lot of middle man action happening on my part because there wasn't a central communication source. That does seem to be what was the hardest part of the whole thing though. It was incredibly beneficial to go to the elementary school and see how the students there enjoyed their performing and all of the work that goes into it. It was especially lovely to see how the friendships between the kids blossomed throughout the practices. All of the people who were helping out planning the event were so open to instruction and willing to do what was necessary to keep the event on track even with all of the mishaps that happened along the way.

Work Log #19 - 5/20/22

In the moments leading up to my practice presentation in front of my English Class, I had what one could call a moment of panic, a fit of nerves, not a good time. The presentation before me was wonderful, I could not see a single things wrong with it. The speaker was calm, cool and collected while I was sitting in my seat wondering if there was an earthquake happening because I was shaking so much. My hands were clammy and I was running through my slideshow in my head in an attempt to review. The moment came for me to begin as I pulled up my slideshow everything went blank. I experienced exactly what my project was dependant on: Stage fright. Performance Anxiety, as some would label it. I was terrified of all of those eyes on me as I talk. No matter how well I knew my topic I still was worried that I would mess up. Nevertheless I flung myself into the speech with a quirky anecdote about my family and in doing so, I flung myself out of my body, so to speak. What I do remember from those nine and a half minutes, I can picture from outside myself. I can see myself up in front of these eloquent public speakers, all with their eyes on me, listening intently. My teacher at the back of the room with a rubric. I can see it all. But not from my eyes, It is odd seeing yourself in a memory, not seeing a memory from your own perspective. It is alarming, yes, but it gives you a different point of view. In my mind, simply thinking back to what I can remember, I was incredibly anxious, shaking, clammy palms. But from the outside, it didn't show as much as I thought it would. It wasn't completely hidden that I was nervous but my exterior didn't display the internal freakout which I was experiencing. This entire project has given me somewhat of a boost in confidence. It has displayed just how much I have changed since the last big project in school my freshman year. I quite literally shows how much my work has progressed and how much higher my baseline confidence is.

Work Log #20 - 5/23/22

The event went off without a hitch! The Foothill students arrived on time. Everyone was ready to start by 2:35 and it was excellent. Mr Drummond did indeed begin with a wonderful fun warmup split into five sections. A warm up of the body, mind, larynx, breathing, mouth. It including vocal warmups, physical warmups and tongue-twisters. The group song was sung by everyone including the Northgate choirs present, this was followed by a performance by the Northgate Madrigals and Northgate's Bella Voce. Each of Mrs Andersons three choirs then sang their songs for the Judges and got feedback, both positive and constructive. The time ran out before we reached the sight-reading which was unfortunate, but the Foothill students were being picked up at 4:00 and we couldn't run over. I have sent out a form to the Foothill students to hear about their reflections on the event and whether they thought it was productive and helpful. So far I have heard back from a few, mostly positive things apart from a few peoples responses regarding a certain judge/teacher. Overall it was a success and seemingly beneficial to the students. I am incredibly glad they found it useful and quite relieved that it is all over.