Self Reflection

1. I think I'm at a solid P for my senior project so far. I haven't outright gone beyond the limit to include all the extra things that would get me an AE, but I've done everything that's been asked of so far relatively well.
2. I think I've done really well at actually learning about my topic. I learned a lot on what it takes to become a teacher, as well as what needs to be done to fit in the role of teaching others music. Along with that, I've gotten a lot more experienced at music in general, I've researched theory, technique, etc. in order to solidify what I want to teach as a music teacher.
3. I want to improve on finding my service learning. I'm very picky about what who I would work with in order to fill the senior team's definition of "fun". Along with the fact that I'm trying to find someone close and who teaches something I want to teach myself, it's very hard to choose.

What I've Learned So Far

What I've learned to do since I've started the Senior Project is the Circle of Fifths. The Circle of Fifths is a tool used in music to find out what scales and chords sound well together, as well as listing the notes in each scale. It's a very key thing for a musician to know the circle of fifths in order to tell the key signature (the amount of flat notes in a scale) of a song. It's also useful when composing and improvising. It's easier for me to find the key of a song now, and I am able to improvise very well. Improvising is something I believe that every musician should be able to do to some extent, so as a teacher, one of my lessons will be based around the Circle of Fifths and the ability to improvise on the spot. Identifying key is also very important, and it will be linked to what I learned from the circle.

Here is my proof (A youtube video):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOvHDYEKsNM



The research that helped me do this was Ricci Adam's music theory website (http://www.musictheory.net/).
This site is full of lessons and tests that helped me memorize the circle of fifths, as well as learn about it's important role in music.

Why I Chose My Topic

My topic for my senior project is musical composition. Since I was young, I had an interest in all kinds of art; from drawing to playing music, it always gave me great joy to be able to have so much fun and be so expressive at the same time. At some point I realized that I had a lot more fun composing and playing my own music and that I was quite good at it, so I chose it as my topic. After studying my topic, I hope to be at a near professional level of musical understanding, so that I'm able to incorporate what I learned into my own musical compositions. I would also like to have a career as a musician later on, and I definitely need a good understanding of musical composition for that.