Update on Progress

Currently I am still on the phase of testing my product with different people. Those people are my friends who lived in Sentul. I haven't tested my product with teens whose age are different.

So far, I have only tested 2 people, and that's only the beginning tests. Those tests are only recording the heart rate for the 1st, 3rd, and 5th minute after the two people jogged for 5 minutes. This one is still the trials without the songs. I am planning to test my product with the same and different people tomorrow, and also throughout this holiday.

 This is a photo of one of my friend who's jogging. This is done so that the person's heart rate will increase

 This is a photo of me counting one of my friend's heart rate, by checking his pulse in his wrist for 60 seconds.








In 14 December which is on last Friday, I tested my product with my guitar teacher. He's an expert in music since he's a musician and he's experienced with recording and playing guitar. I asked him about the quality of my music in terms of sound quality from the recording, how I composed the songs, duration of the songs, theme, and how I played the guitar. He gave his comments and feedbacks about my product, and rated the songs from 1 to 5.

Below is a photo of my guitar teacher listening to my songs. He gave plenty of comments about my product, so I think it'll help a lot for feedbacks and knowing my product's quality or success rate for how good or bad the songs are. But this is not to test whether the songs are relaxing, because to know whether the songs are relaxing or not, I must test the product using a different method, not surveys.

Other than only testing my product, I am starting to write the report. Below is the plan from the timeline for this month.

I have finished editing the evidence movie for the product submission day. I have also checked my movie and final product. Now, I'm testing my product, and have already started writting the report before the 3rd week of this month. I am actually earlier with my progress. What I have to do next is to finish the product testing and also finish writting the report until next month.

Update on Product Testing

I have started to test my product by interviewing Mr. Scott, who's an expert on Psychology, and also by giving out surveys to some of my friends.

I interviewed Mr. Scott 2 days ago, which is on Tuesday 11 December 2012. I interviewed him about how good is my product in terms of Psyschology. I asked him how much will he rate the song from 1 to 5, and then his comments about the songs, feedbacks, and then he told me that my songs could be good for relaxation, and also for background music. He rated 4 for my song, and then he told me that I could add more variations to the song.

I interviewed Dr. Iskandar today. What I have learnt from him is that to determine whether my songs could help people feel relaxed, I need to do trials with the songs by measuring people's heart rate after they listened to my songs.

I surveyed my friends yesterday, which is on Wednesday 12 December 2012. I surveyed 6 of my friends that day. The survey contains:

- Rate the song quality from 1-5
- Their opinion whether the song is relaxing
- Comments

I did another survey today with my friend at school.










I am now in the product testing phase. Interviewing Mr. Scott is to know the Psychological effects from my song. I have learned from Dr. Iskandar from the interview with him about how to know whether my songs are relaxing by comparing the heart rate after resting without my songs and with my songs after doing several exercises or activities. From this, I must plan to test my songs with my friends. I must do more than 3 trials to proove the success rate. My target audiences are teenagers, so I'll test the songs with my friends during the upcoming holiday so I'll have more time. What I need to do next is to interview Ibu Marina, who's a music expert. From her interview, I could learn whether I have created good quality songs or not from how good are the compositions and equipment used. I must also arrange time with my friends to test my product.

Reflection on my Progress

So far, I have still continued my progress based on my plan. I have followed my plan well. I have finished working on my product. My final product is complete, so now what I have to do is preparing the stuffs for the Product Testing which would be survey questions, camera, and other things. I also still need to edit my Evidence video which will be also due with the final product. My supervisor said that the video must be burned on a CD. I have burned my songs on a CD, and convert it to an Audio CD.

What I did well so far is keeping up with the planning, and what I didn't do well enough is I didn't have evidence such as pictures or videos of my interview with the experts when receiving information for my research.

Update on Creating Progress

I have found a problem on my songs that I have recorded. I found out that I did a mistake after recording, and when exporting the songs. I should have selected the sound as Mono instead of Stereo, so that both Left and Right speakers or microphones would have the music. If I selected Stereo, only one of them only have the sound.

Fixing that problem is simple. What I did is using Audacity to change the sound wave into Mono. After that, the sound in both Left and Right microphones/headphones, and speakers would work.

Below are screenshots of what I did using Audacity to fix the problem.

In this picture, the red highlight shows that the waves are still in Stereo. The sound only comes out from 1 part in my earphones.

 In this picture, I am changing the sound into Mono by splitting into Mono.

 In this picture, the sound is already Mono, and works in both earphones that I'm using.

Reflection on Progress

What I've learned after recording all those songs is that I need to be careful when playing the guitar, I need to use good equipment, and understand how to use them as well.

What I meant when I said being careful playing the guitar is not to pick the strings too hard, or not picking the guitar steadily like playing too hard and then playing too soft. When I picked too hard, the wave in audacity when recording will go out of range and create an unpleasant buzzing sound. That made me recording songs over and over until I get the good one without much buzzes.

When I said using good equipment, I meant that I must find good cables and the jack converter. I bought the bad jack converter, it creates buzzing sounds when recording. The microphones must also be the good ones which doesn't record too much background noises, which I had some at home. I must also understand how to connect the cables from the microphone receiver to my laptop, or using the receiver in order to record. Luckily using them are easy.

This is the timeline of this month and what to do for the next month:

So far, from this month, I have worked according to the timeline I made. I have now finished recording and since early of this month I have finished composing my songs. Now I still need to compile the evidence videos and edit them on this last week of the month as written in my timeline.

During recording, I noticed that if I used different guitar playing techniques for recording the relaxing songs, the songs wouldn't be always relaxing. Because of that, I decided to not follow the design specification of using different techniques, so that the songs would be flowing well, not too complicated, and always maintain the slow and soft guitar sound.

What should I do next is to start editing the evidence videos and then burn the songs into an audio CD so they would be ready to be tested as a final product. I already bought a CD so what I should prepare next is knowing how to edit the videos by using the fast-forward effect, which I stil didn't understand how.

Progress

Today, I have finished recording the seventh song, which I decided it should be the replacement for the fifth recorded song, because that fifth song has the keys not combining well. The new song used better keys and it's a little different from the other songs, because this seventh song has more melodies instead of just playing the chords.

This is the seventh song that I wrote.

This is a photo of me recording the seventh song with the guitar and the laptop.






What I need to do now is only to burn the songs into a CD, and convert the CD into an Audio CD. I can burn those songs with iTunes, or Windows Media Player. After that, I will do some interview with the experts to find out whether my prouct is successful or not.

Song Writing and Recording Progress

These are some photos of the progress that I had made

These are the songs that I had written. These songs have no lyrics but on these papers I wrote all the keys/chords that I will play on each songs with my guitar.

These are the photos of the laptop screen when I was recording.

This is a photo of me playing the guitar and recording the sound to my laptop






So far I have already recorded 6 different songs. I am planning to re-do one song, because after I listened to the 6 songs I have recorded, I found out that 1 song had a mistake and wasn't good enough. I'm also planning to re-write that song.

Equipment for Recording

So far I have prepared all the equipment I needed for recording. These are some photos of the equipment:

This is the audio jack converter that converts the audio jack from the bigger size (from the amplifier) to the smaller size that can fit into my laptop's mic input. The converter with the long cable was the best I can use because with that, the audio recorded has no buzzing sounds.

This is the receiver for the Wireless microphone. The cable connects fro the receiver and transfers the audio to be recorded in the laptop.

This is the wireless microphone. Since I already had microphone and audio system from my karaoke equipment, I decided to use microphone instead of directly plugging the jack from the amplifier to the laptop because microphone has better audio quality.

This is the microphone receiver connceted to the laptop to be ready for recording

This is the mic's position which is right in front of the guitar amplifier to capture only the guitar sounds.







After preparing these equipment, I can already start recording.

Appendix 9. Research Note for Criterion A and C

Investigation Form

INTRODUCTION

Follow these steps to help you research information for your project. You must do the activity one step at the time.

STEP 1      TASK DEFINITION

1. Defined Problem/Background

Stress is one of the problems that people experienced. Stress has bad effects and sometimes could be dangerous. One of the groups of people who may experience stress is students. Some students could stress out especially because of their school works, just like what I had experienced in my life. But Stress could actually be cured and there are many ways to decrease stress and its effects. One of them is listening to relaxing music. Music is actually quite useful to decrease stress, and works well especially with students who are teenagers and young people who enjoyed music, just like me. It also helped me to do my work.

2. Goal : 

My goal for this project is to use my guitar playing skills/ability which I have practiced for a quite long time, for composing an Audio CD with slow instrumental songs that could help people to relax.

3. What are your inquiry questions?  What kinds of information are you looking for?

Inquiry Question: How to compose an Audio CD that consists of relaxing instrumental songs that I will make with the skills that I have?

1. What kind of skills do I need to compose the music?
• What skills do I currently have?
• How the skills could help me compose and record the music?

2. How to compose the instrumental music?
• What equipment and materials do I need?
• How to write an instrumental music?
• How to record the music into a CD

3. Why are slow and instrumental music relaxing?
• What effects does slow music give to our body and mind?
• How does music from music instruments decrease stress?
• Why would people prefer this genre instead of other genres?

IDENTIFY THE INFORMATION REQUIREMENTS. (What information do I need? i.e facts, examples, diagrams, table, graphs, experts.)    

Step 2.  INFORMATION SEEKING STRATEGIES Consider: accuracy- (complete); related (on the topic); availability (ease of use); appealing, etc.	Step 3  LOCATIONS  &  ACCESS
Consider possible sources. e.g. BOOKS, REFERENCE BOOKS (Encyclopedias, dictionaries,  almanacs, other reference materials); AUDIO VISUAL (CD roms, Videos / VCD’S & DVD’S, cassettes, others), PERSONAL INTERVIEWS; INTERNET (record websites used).  Indicate which maybe the best sources and why.	Locate sources (Where will I find these sources?). List call numbers
Primary Sources: 1.       Experienced musicians or music teachers. 2.       Experienced musicians, music teachers, composers or artists who have worked in recording studios 3.       People who knew Psychology, Biology, or health. (Doctor, Psychology Teacher, Biology Teacher) Secondary Sources: 1.    Internet, Books 2.    Internet, Books, Workers at music stores 3.    Internet, Books	My Guitar Teacher and former band member. Petrus Pangaribuan Phone Number: 081383984729 Mr. Scott Riggenbach Email: scott@sph-sentul.net Teacher of SPH Sentul Dr. Iskandar SPH Sentul’s doctor Email: iskandar@sph-sentul.net Ibu Marina SPH Sentul’s Music Teacher Email: marina@sph-sentul.net

STEP 4. USE OF INFORMATION            NOTE-TAKING SHEET( show  references in a bibliography (MLA)

Criterion A.  Process Journal Students should demonstrate information literacy, thinking and reflection. Research Topic 1/What inquiry question do you try to answer? What kind of skills do I need to compose the music? What skills do I currently have? How the skills could help me compose and record the music?
Sources (MLA) Pangaribuan, Petrus, interview by Christopher Geralno. What Skills Are Required To Compose Music? (August 3, 2012). Novianti, Marina. What skills are required to be able to compose music? Christopher Geralno. 1 October 2012. Kaiwhakatangitangi. Musician - Personal requirements. May 2012. Web. 6 September 2012. <http://www.careers.govt.nz/default.aspx?id0=20103&id1=j22140>. Sloboda, John. What Makes a Musician. 1994. Web. 30 September 2012. <http://www.egta.co.uk/content/sloboda>.	Recording musicians must have the knowledge of basic music theory, able to play music instruments, know some recording methods, know how to tune instruments, and know different techniques of playing music instruments. Other than those skills and knowledge, recording musicians must also be dedicated to practicing, confident when playing instruments, and able to keep time. To be able to play songs, I must know about the music theory, and at least understanding the basic music theory, which are music notes, dynamics, signatures, and expression. I must also have good listening skills and ability, and also interpretation. Musicians must have technical skills to provide more accurate performances and playing fluently, and be more expressive when playing instruments to show deeper techniques, and not playing too simple. Songs must also be made with expressive additions such as slight changes in timing, speed, loudness, pitch, and sound quality of the notes. These help the music to become more interesting. Currently, I have a guitar playing skill that my guitar teacher said is good enough. I’m able to play different genres of songs, improvise on guitar when playing songs, and also create my own melodies and rhythms.  My guitar teacher also said that even though I can’t do all the professional guitarists are able to do, I’m still a good player because I still can enjoy what I played in my guitar. The skills that are required to compose the kind of music that I want (instrumental) are the ability to create music, which means the abilities to play music instruments, being able to decide and choose what keys/chords that will be played, and also being able to create our own rhythms and melodies. It’s also important to understand how to use the equipment, especially the ones for recording. Being able to develop our own style in guitar playing like other professional guitarists isn’t necessary for me, because I still can play  what I wanted to play and can follow other styles. I already have the guitar playing skills which could help me create the music, but I still need to learn how to use the recording equipment. Understanding how to use the equipment is important because it could help me to record easily.
Evaluate your sources!  (The Evaluation should be done per-topic research, not per-resource and draft should be posted on the journal) a.    How the information suited to the project? (Coverage)      Does the information help me respond to the inquiry question? The information helped me by answering the question      Does the information belong to my topic? Yes because it answers the inquiry question      Will the information help me to develop my project product? Yes because the information will also guide me by telling me what I will need and how it will help me make the product      Does the information connect clearly with the area of interaction or aspects of it? B.      Is the information source reliable (Authority)?  Where does the information come from? The information’s source is reliable because it came from my Guitar Teacher who was a former band member, already went to a recording studio and recorded songs. C.      Is the information accurate? Can the information be verified in another source? The information is accurate because it’s what musicians think D.      Is the information up-to-date? (Currency)  Is the information current or still valuable if it is older? It’s still up-to-date E.       Is the information objective/not biased? (Objectivity) Yes F.       What information do I still need? If I still haven’t got all the skills, how can I develop the ones that I still need G.     What new questions does my research bring? How to use the skills on working with the equipment

Criterion A.  Process Journal Students should demonstrate information literacy, thinking and reflection.                 Research Topic 2/What inquiry question do you try to answer? How to compose the music? What equipment and materials do I need? How to write an instrumental music? How to record the music into a CD
Sources (MLA) Music On My PC - How To Record a Guitar on a PC Computer/Recording Guitar. t.thn. http://www.musiconmypc.co.uk/art_record_guitar_on_pc.php (accessed July 26, 2012). Novianti, Marina. How to compose music? Christopher Geralno. 1 October 2012. Frederick, Robin. How to Write a Song. 2006. http://www.robinfrederick.com/write.html (accessed July 26, 2012). Pangaribuan, Petrus, interview by Christopher Geralno. What Skills Are Required To Compose Music? (August 3, 2012). HowStuffWorks.com. How to Burn Music onto a CD. t.thn. Web. 30 September 2012. <http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/how-to-burn-music-onto-cd.htm>. Brower, Chris. How to Make an Audio CD From a Computer. 2012. Web. 1 October 2012. <http://techtips.salon.com/make-audio-cd-computer-11913.html>.		The equipment and materials that I need would be the guitar, recording equipment, amplifier, and effects. Ways to record from Amplifier to Computer: -       Record directly from the Amplifier by connecting an audio jack/cable from the Line Out to the Computer. It will record using the computer’s microphone. This way is cheap and easy -       Use an USB Device that could record the audio from the amplifier also by a jack/cable to the computer, which could be bought in several stores. It’s easy to use and creates good sound, but could be pretty expensive -       Buy a microphone and record it by putting it near the amplifier to record. Could produce good sound, but still may not be always clean. Microphones are expensive. -       Recording software to be able to record the sound and save the audio file. To start writing a song that has the genre that I have chosen which is instrumental, I must have the structures in the song which are the verse, chorus, pre-chorus, and bridge. I don’t need to write any lyrics, and since I decided to only record songs I won’t need to make the title of the songs and album. I will also need to decide what chords/keys that I’m going to use on the songs, and what knowing what are the rhythms and melodies that I want to play. A good relaxing instrumental song must  have Slow tempo beat, has repitition of some parts, and must not have much changes in keys. The song may not be too complicated. To record songs into a CD, I must first have a CD, the songs that I want to burn into the CD, and the program that I could use to burn the songs. To start burning, I must first open the program such as Windows Media Player and iTunes which also could burn the songs into a CD, and convert the CD into an Audi Disc. Then I must locate the songs that I want to burn, and then select them. After the program knows which songs  I want to burn, I can insert my blank disc, and then start burning.
Evaluate your sources!  (The Evaluation should be done per-topic research, not per-resource and draft should be posted on the journal) b.    How the information suited to the project? (Coverage)      Does the information help me respond to the inquiry question? The information helped me to respond because it answers the questions I had made      Does the information belong to my topic? The information belong to the topic because it’s still about how will I make the relaxing songs      Will the information help me to develop my project product? The information will help me by telling what I need to create the product      Does the information connect clearly with the area of interaction or aspects of it? Yes B.      Is the information source reliable (Authority)?  Where does the information come from? The information is reliable, it came from the Internet and my Guitar Teacher C.      Is the information accurate? Can the information be verified in another source? The information is accurate, same information had been found in other websites and my teacher have used those ways to record songs D.      Is the information up-to-date? (Currency)  Is the information current or still valuable if it is older? Yes, because the information is not an old one and are still used by other musicians E.       Is the information objective/not biased? (Objectivity) Yes F.       What information do I still need? Where to buy those equipment G.     What new questions does my research bring? How much money will I need to buy those equipment?
Criterion A.  Process Journal Students should demonstrate information literacy, thinking and reflection. Research Topic 3/What inquiry question do you try to answer? Why are slow and instrumental music relaxing? What effects does slow music give to our body and mind? How does music from music instruments decrease stress? Why would people prefer this genre instead of other genres?
Sources (MLA) Riggenbach, S. (2012, August 3). Why Are Slow Music Relaxing? (C. Geralno, Interviewer) ChangingMinds.org. Causes of Stress. 2002. Web. 24 July 2012. <http://changingminds.org/explanations/stress/stress_causes.htm>. Stress – Just what causes it? 2012. WordPress. Web. 24 July 2012. <http://whatcausesstress.org/>. Webber, Christine. Why do we get stressed? 15 July 2010. Web. 23 July 2012. <http://www.netdoctor.co.uk/diseases/facts/stresswhydowegetit.htm>. Hung, Iskandar. (2012, August 3). How Slow Music Affect Us? (C. Geralno, Interviewer)	Music helps a person the most if the person likes that type of music. A music genre helps a person if his/her brain is used to listen to that genre. There isn’t actually the best and most suitable genre for relaxing even though slow music is the most preferred, because if a person who used to listen to rock music listens to classical music he will feel tense instead of relaxed, but if a person who’s used to listen to slow music, he will feel relaxed if he listens to slow music. Stress can happen because of situations like problems, experiencing difficult times, and worrying too much such as financial problems, problems in workplaces or with jobs, death of family members, relationships, arguments, less received support, bullying, poor communication, change of environment, and also health problems and diseases like hypertension, eyesight, and heart diseases. The main cause of stress is any mental pressures which come from any events, small issues that became bigger issues, which add pressure to people. Stress because of working too long or too hard could cause some health problems. Stress also could cause frustration and depression. All people have an instinctive stress response. Stress hormones are released into our bloodstream in potentially dangerous situations. They cause changes mentally and physically, and also giving more strength, enabling us to run much faster, and will make us feel ready for a fight. The response is called “fight or flight syndrome”. Stress hormones could increase our heart rate, blood pressure, and breathing rate. Listening slow music is the most effective relaxing method, but only for people who prefer to listen to music for relaxing. Slow music is the most effective genre for relaxing, other genres such as rock that is harder music has more beats, louder volume, and also faster, it won’t be the most effective because it will not make us work slower. There are several people that I have interviewed, and they mostly chose those music with slow beats and tempo and not too loud such as Rock and Metal as their relaxing music. The music that they chose could be classical, simple songs, and reggae. There are other methods like looking at paintings and sceneries which are mostly used by people who liked to use their eyes instead of ears to relax. The other methods would be using nose to smell nice scents. The music makes us feel relax by first entering our ears, and then it goes through the nerves to the Hippocampus of the Brain. Then it goes to the Amygdala, and tells the brain to release endorphin hormone. When that happens, blood pressure and heart rate follows the music to relax and work slower. Relaxing is very useful on work, because it can improve our concentration, and we also can work more accurately when relaxed, unlike being stressed that make us work with emotion.
Evaluate your sources!  (The Evaluation should be done per-topic research, not per-resource and draft should be posted on the journal) c.    How the information suited to the project? (Coverage)      Does the information help me respond to the inquiry question? Yes, it helped me by answering the questions      Does the information belong to my topic? Yes      Will the information help me to develop my project product? Yes, because it confirms that my genre of music that I will compose could help relaxing      Does the information connect clearly with the area of interaction or aspects of it? B.      Is the information source reliable (Authority)?  Where does the information come from? The sources are reliable, because they’re from the studies, and also from a Doctor and Psychology expert C.      Is the information accurate? Can the information be verified in another source? It’s accurate and can be also found in many other websites, and confirmed by a doctor and psychology expert D.      Is the information up-to-date? (Currency)  Is the information current or still valuable if it is older? The information is still up-to-date because it’s still new and are the latest E.       Is the information objective/not biased? (Objectivity) Yes F.       What information do I still need? Who can be the audience for the music that I will make. G.     What new questions does my research bring? Will listening to slow music be the best way to feel more relaxed for people who can prefer music, images, scents, therapies, or exercises?

Note:  Please do repeat according to number of your research topics/inquiry questions.  This will be posted on your journal.

STEP 4. USE OF INFORMATION           NOTE-TAKING SHEET( show  references in a bibliography (MLA)

Criterion A.  Process Journal

Students should demonstrate information literacy, thinking and reflection.

Research Topic 1/What inquiry question do you try to answer?

Sources in MLA   (Summary)

Evaluate your sources!  (The Evaluation should be done per-topic research, not per-resource and draft should be posted on the journal)

a.    How the information suited to the project? (Coverage)

     Does the information help me respond to the inquiry question?

     Does the information belong to my topic?

     Will the information help me to develop my project product?

     Does the information connect clearly with the area of interaction or aspects of it?

B.      Is the information source reliable (Authority)?  Where does the information come from?

C.      is the information accurate ? Can the information be verified in another source?

D.      Is the information up-to-date? (Currency)  Is the information current or still valuable if it is older?

E.       Is the information objective/not biased ? (Objectivity)

F.       What information do I still need?

G.     What new questions does my research bring?

Note:  Please do repeat according to number of your research topics/inquiry questions.  This will be posted on your journal.