In this blog post, I will be analysing my contributions to the ‘Groundhog Day’ project to display how important clear communication and collaboration is for a group to be creative.

To begin this analysis, I will explain the overall ideas that surrounded this latest project. As a group, we decided that the story behind the song would be about being stuck in a loop having to relive the same day repeatedly. We communicated well in this initial stage, but it appeared that creating ideas for the song was difficult, within these constraints I learned how important it was to just try. It was a challenge because we were overthinking it. When we overcomplicate things, there isn’t room for any creative music making because we are too concerned about what would be the correct way of doing it.

In the first and second weeks we were in our planning/ trying things out stage, after our first session we were able to get some chords and an opening including a few instruments as shown in our recording linked here: https://leedsconservatoire.cloud.panopto.eu/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=601ad26d-f6ee-446f-9e6f-b2af0115ca16 Communication was vital to this stage due to us being uncertain about the direction that this project was going to go in. Everyone had amazing ideas but also quite different ideas because of the different courses we were on, this was difficult to consolidate. A good thing about our planning stage, was that our group was high in attendance, so it meant that we had as many people as possible to gather ideas. Later, in the second session we were able to write some lyrics that fit to our new chord sequence that had more chords and variations. We had produced those by communicating with the guitarist, she was able to match that piano riff and work with those chords so that they were much suitable for a singer to join in. An example of my part within this project was when I was able to learn the vocal melody by ear and reproduce that melody on my violin to work with our vocalist.

Week three was where our collaboration skills were tested because there was only three of us in attendance, however we managed to pull through and make a remastered version of the song for piano, drums and violin. I was also able to focus on my violin melody and work on it with more precision. This shows the importance of being able to communicate effectively with different people and skill sets. If we had not possessed those skills, we would not have achieved as much as we did that day. Communication skills are very important to also classical ensembles, especially being able to take constructive criticism on your playing and then to implement it. By this point it was less of figuring out new ideas and more like working on a final structure and what different sections could sound like. We worked out a vague structure and were able to make a song with just three of us with and intro, verse and a bridge. We recorded an overall run through of this new structure and it is linked here: https://leedsconservatoire.cloud.panopto.eu/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=51df33e3-d74b-4d07-b410-b2af0115fe2b I learned a substantial amount from this session because it taught me to work around problems and to be flexible because every situation when creating is different. When our group attendance was stable, we were able to remaster it again using all our initial and new ideas; it showed me that even though something has had to be changed repeatedly, collaboration from new people can make a considerable difference for a piece that once was nothing more than three instruments.

I interviewed two of my fellow musicians and I have compared their responses to my personal reflection. One question I asked was ‘How did you find the discussion in week one? Was it interesting to see what other people could improvise?’ One of them answered that it was ‘informative’ and could see how people were able to ‘creatively input their ideas’ whereas the other mentioned how due to the mix of styles from all of us it was ‘unpredictable but inspiring to see how quickly small ideas could evolve.’ I agree with both viewpoints; it was informative and exciting to see how people tried and communicated effectively with everyone else. I also asked the questions ‘What has been the most useful thing you have learned from this project and how will it help with your future creative practice?’ One of them commented that it was useful to know that creating music is easier if there is a story to tell and it adds depth to the song. Whereas the other commented that ‘Learning to communicate musically and adjust to changes and other ideas will be invaluable for future collaborations. I agree with both viewpoints however much more strongly with the second one, as we both agree about the importance of communication and working together to create.

In conclusion this project was a success with all of us communicating effectively however it was unfinished. I chose to analyse this project because we got much further than other projects where we did not know how to work with each other’s instruments or with each other. I conclude that this project has given me the confidence to speak up and take charge of a creative process, due to week three being low in attendance meant that I had to make decisions and collaborate with others when developing a creative piece of work, As a result of this, this will advance my own creative practice in the future because I won’t be afraid of working and changing something.  As for my part, I contributed a lot to this project and had a significant impact on its final structure. A difficult part of this project was collaborating with some new people and having to change the song weekly however we overcame these challenges. An area that I need to work on for future projects is having the ability to improvise and improvise well within a group of people. I will be developing my skills in this area, so that I am able to contribute even more to future creative projects.