The project I am working on this summer is developing instructional content to share along with my DMA thesis recording project, “New Works for Trumpet and Interactive Electronics”. This project will also include developing a platform to share the instructional content and recordings digitally.

I decided to begin my work in the studio this summer by working on recording video tutorials instructing other musicians in how to set-up and utilize the electronic components of the works I am recording. I have recorded tutorial videos now for three of the six works that are part of my thesis project. In the recording of these tutorials I have realized some of the difficulties that arise when creating a static artifact for instruction, in this case a video.

Each person who chooses to work toward performing these works for trumpet and Interactive electronics will be coming to these tutorial videos with different levels of computer literacy, different computer operating systems, different levels of experience performing music with electronics, and different levels of trumpet ability. Also, I had not considered the way software programs change overtime, which could make my tutorial videos less useful, or even obsolete soon after they are posted.

To cope with some of these issues I decided to assume that anyone viewing these tutorial videos would be coming to them with enough computer literacy to get to the web platform, but it would be unlikely that they had any experience with using the software they would need to use in performance. So each piece requires a series of short videos between two and three minutes in length so that users can easily skip parts they already are familiar with and find instruction that they need easily. That means six works may net over twenty instructional videos!

With these difficulties in mind I have been reconsidering the scope of the project and what may be the best platform for sharing this work. In class discussions I have discovered that the interesting part of this project may not be creating a platform to share my own recordings and associated materials such as video tutorials.

Instead, it may be a better use of time and studio resources to work towards developing a platform that contains instructional videos, recordings, program notes, and other information for works with acoustic instruments and interactive electronics far beyond my own using the content I have already created as an example.

I’m excited about what this potential change in direction could lead to in developing a project that has a longer shelf life and will be able to reach and serve a wider audience!

 

-Evan Fowler