Getting On The Right Note - Music In Middle School

I am most proud of my soundbites in my podcast. I felt that I chose good soundbites from my interviews that represented all perspectives on my topic. I also felt that I did a good job with my bridges and transitions. One example that I am most proud of is when I added a bridge in the middle of my soundbite to connect the two ideas my interviewee talked about. 

My biggest challenge with this podcast would have to be putting research (quotes and statistics) into the podcast script. I felt that this was difficult as I had to find the right evidence that flowed with the ideas my interviewees talked about instead of evidence that was off track and would just make listeners confused. 

Something I wish I had more time to fine tune would be my research. There is always room for improvement and I feel that I could’ve worked on phrasing my research in a more efficient way that leaves less room for confusion. I feel that my evidence is already quite good, but I feel that if I had to fine tune something, it would be the way I phrased my evidence.

One piece of unintended learning I discovered during this unit was that you should always check your recordings before you leave the recording studio. This was because a couple of my recordings were started too late and I had to re-record using my computer microphone, which is very different in terms of sound quality compared to the microphone at the Note Pad.

My interviews went pretty well as I was able to get the sound bites I needed to represent the different perspectives the community had on my issue. I built rapport by asking them about background information on their musical history. For example, with Brian, I asked him if he plays a musical instrument (3:36 in the interview clip). This helps build rapport as this was a question that helped me get to know Brian better and it was also related to my topic, so it didn’t bring the interview off track.

I think I did a good job with my interviews, but something that I could improve on would be my follow up questions. Overall, I felt that I did a good job with my follow-up questions, but there is always room for growth. During Brian’s interview, I asked him, “If I am not mistaken, you play a musical instrument right? And what is that instrument? Why will you keep on playing and learning that instrument?” He told me he played the clarinet and the french horn and he likes the challenges that come with learning the instrument. Learning that Brian has been learning musical instruments for a long time and being a musician myself, I wanted to know his views on his ability to play the french horn impacting him. So I then asked three more follow-up questions: When did you start playing the french horn? And has the ability to play the french horn, does affect your feelings or emotions? How about stress levels. Do you think that a musical instrument helps with the amount of stress someone feels?