STP Personal Reflection

Meghan Barrett

Part 1: Introduction
Overall, I feel very good about how the introduction went. What is not shown in the video
is when I pulled up more examples and showed the classes a big array of what this project
could look like. After showing multiple examples, each class seemed to be a little more at ease
about the task. During the initial planning conversation, I offered suggestions for songs that had
moving parts but were easy to hear and replicate. Each group took their own direction and
created something very different.

If I were to do this again, I would have a list of songs for the students to choose from.
The younger students struggled to pick a song that they could easily replicate and the older
students had too many ideas that it took them almost a full day just to pick a song.

Part 2: Planning
Two of the groups really struggled with actually planning out who was going to play what.
They had a song picked out, parts they wanted covered, and instruments to play; but had a
really hard time assigning the parts to each other. I had given them the requirements of having a
melody, bassline, and two percussive parts but no guidance beyond that. There were two
groups who did not struggle with this though and figured out pretty quickly what they wanted
and tweaked it as they practiced/planned.

If I were to do this again, I would give examples of instruments they could use for each
part in order to speed up the process if a group is struggling.

Part 3: Performance and Reflection

The performances went fairly well. If given a bit more time, I think the groups would have
had a lot more parts put into their arrangements. There was also an issue of people being
absent and groups not being able to plan on all the parts getting covered because of this.

If I were to do this again, I would give the students more time to plan out parts and require they
use the app “acapella” so they can have a bunch of different lines put together. I also would
have brought in more classroom instruments for students to use and choose from.

Overall:
I think all in all the project went well and that the students enjoyed having the freedom to be
creative and create music in a different way than what they are used to.