Reflection on Course’s goals: AAD 550

In this link you can find my initial goals for this term:

Raquel’s AAD 550 Goals

Now that we’re ending this semester, I look back and I do feel like I have learned quite a bit.

My knowledge about art in general (not only music) has definitely broaden thanks to the large expertise that my classmates have about other subjects.

The amount of resources I had to use to make my Field Guide (anything from interlibrary loan to color printing in the library) really has been conducive to a smoother process. And also has made me even more aware of what I still have to learn.

I feel that presenting in class and the continuous comment writing that happens throughout the source really has benefitted my communication skills. As well, all the in class activities we have had have been extremely helpful for successful communication during a team project.

At this point, I have a better concept of what the AAD requires of my work and what the e-portfolio entails, but there are still some rough edges to polish.

I have definitely gotten to know my classmates better, and I feel absolutely blessed to get to know about them and from them week by week 🙂

Lexicon Post Week 6

Risk: When it comes to what we do, risk taking is a valuable skill to have. It makes you be bold when it comes to marketing strategies, and allows you to come up with more impacting and innovative artistic ideas that attract the audience in distinct ways. As we mentioned yesterday, everything has pretty much been done before, and it is those risks that we take that will make our work feel fresh, new, and outstanding.

Values: It is tough to keep your ethics in line whenever you’re dealing with money, but it is highly necessary to really stick to moral principles if you want to be absolutely transparent with people. Specially in a field where you constantly have to be working within teams values should be respected, for whatever your decisions show will affect your peers opinions of you and their likelihood to work with you in the future again or their moral peace to recommend you to others in the field.

Experience: As much as experience gives us great events to learn from, it also gives us a history of failures that we must try not to commit again. So experience is something that we should always use on our favor, build on the strengths we have developed while correcting and leaving aside those things we haven’t been able to achieve.

Exploit: Whenever a job is well done and its purpose is successful. We need to keep track of those successes, celebrate them, reuse their ideas, and perfect them in future occasions.

Strathmore: Media Inventory

The Music Center at Strathmore is an arts organization in Maryland that prioritizes providing diverse and accessible entertainment for the neighbors of their locality. It was founded in 1981 by the Strathmore Hall Foundation Inc., an independent 501(c)(3) organization. Their performances include a large variety of styles and programs, and also use the Mansion at Strathmore where they host a tea room and different art exhibitions.

Website: http://www.strathmore.org/ the Strathmore has a very thorough website where you can find details about their calendar, facilities and operation system. Their gallery of past events archives and pictures is quite extensive. They offer:

-Season subscriptions

-Group sales

-Gift certificates

-Email List

Something unique they have is that, their seasonal subscriptions are customizable which I thought was pretty cool and smart; this way the audience can attend from a variety of kinds of events, not just one genre.

Facebook: The first page that came up when I looked them up on Facebook is a page that seems to have be used, but there hasn’t been any update since June and they don’t even have a profile picture in it.

Twitter: to my surprise, they use their Twitter account quite regularly. There are consistent posts about every other day. The posts are of candid and improvisatory fashion which I think it’s very smart to connect with the social media crowd.

Flickr: Their flickr account has all sorts of picture of the building, events, and people; the resources of said pictures are both part of the organization as well as audience members.

Lexicon Post Week 4

persuasion: In terms of marketing, persuasion is a key instrument. In order to do it properly we need to know both the strengths of our product as well as the psychology to reach the consumer. For instance, persuading the audience successfully requires a high level of intelligence, creativity, and ingenuity that not any person posses. A certain level of manipulation comes with the territory, but the best kind of persuasion happens when you do not need to exaggerate your skills in order to convince the consumer.

visibility: In order to make an image visible, you don’t only need to make sure that it has a good size and vibrant colors, but also that the image as well as the writing is clear and easily understood. Proper visibility would require this image to be distributed in crucial and popular spots so the audience finds then specially when they’re not intentionally looking for them.

need: Easiest way to get somebody to buy your product: offer them something they need. And if they don’t need it, transform it into something they want, therefore they think they need it. Use the persuasion skills we first talked about above to prove to your audience they need what you’re selling them.

incentive: If you find no way to transform your product into something your audience needs in their eyes, then put an incentive next to it. Make them get an “extra” item while they acquire the actual thing you’re attempting they buy from you.

Field Guide Proposal

Because I have basically dedicated my life to music making for the last ten years, I easily neglect other of my passions and forget to spend time enriching my knowledge about them. That’s why when I had to come up with a field guide topic, literature seemed like a good idea. However, the thought process didn’t quite work like that. Since my brother got married a few years ago, my family and I have been looking forward to adding a new family member, and, lately, my mind has been wandering around the topic of what my legacy would be for this child. And I realized, I want to teach him to read, I want to buy him books and immerse in the magic worlds I have explored. But then I realized that of my favorite children’s books, only one is actually written by a Latin American writer. So I decided to change that, and research other books written by Latin American authors and that hopefully captivate the essence of our culture.

Thus, the purpose of my Field Guide is to create a basic introductory guide to Latin American children’s books. In order to keep my research narrow, I will focus to find 5 to 10 books that reflect the richness of the culture, its large diversity, and the way they deal with ethnicity issues.

I hope that the list of authors will represent a wide range of nationalities across the continent and that I’ll find common elements throughout the books I choose.

Since I’ve partially started my research already, I have noticed that a lot of children books are songbooks or poetry books; however, my goal is to pick prose that are either novels, short stories, or collections of short stories.

PROJECT REEDWAY: a bassoon challenge (aka organization questions)

  1. What is your organization or company. Give background history including who, when, and why it was founded.

Project Reedway is an organization started by bassoonist James Ryan Morris after receiving his masters in bassoon performance last May. The name gives you a clue of what this business is about: yes, it’s bassoon reeds!

  1. What do they do or make – describe the products and services and what makes them unique.

Project Reedway sells cane at all the different stages of the process as well as a variety of brands and shapes. Reed blanks are available as well as finished reeds ready to be played

  1. Describe the culture of the organization or company. What is the work environment like – the atmosphere? What is the building like – exterior/interior, architecture, fittings and furniture? How do the employees work together? What are the jobs and roles of individuals? How are they treated by management?

Currently, the entire product that Mr. Morris sells is produced in his living room at a one-bedroom apartment in Dallas. Cane is bought by the kilo and hand processed with skillful and precise craftsmanship.

  1. Who is the targeted audience? What are their demographics?

Project Reedway’s target audience consists of bassoon players that haven’t learned how to make reeds or rather more experienced bassoonists that lack of the time to do it.

  1. What is the organization or company mission statement?

To provide the customers with an alternate option other than factory cane and reeds, so that they are able to purchase them while keeping the quality that a handmade reed offers.

 

AAD 550 Goals

This is what I want to get done this term:

-To gain enough knowledge to broaden the concept I have on art and thus create my own opinion about the subject

-To become aware of the multiple resources that are out there and make use of them

-To improve my communication skills on the class subjects when I write and speak, at the same time that I acquire the right vocabulary to express my thoughts thoroughly

-To build a strong base of how this program works so I can easily focus in just learning in the future

-To get to know my classmates well since I will be sharing so much time with them in the future 🙂

 

LogosĂ­simo

When I tried recalling logos related to performing arts, I couldn’t think of anything. So I made it a point to find at least a couple and these two are pretty cool ones:

This performing arts center opened two years ago and has provoked a revival of the performing arts in Kansas City, therefore it is extremely important for the area. What is interesting about this logo is that if you have observed the building, you know this drawing is a pretty good portrayal. This is what the building looks like:

The lines obviously resemble the building, but just a little extract of the form was necessary to captivate concept.

Another logo that attracted me was the eighth Blackbird logo:

This logo is really simple but it pictures the idea of the ensemble’s name quite well. eighth Blackbird (yes, they make it a point to spell it with small case letters) is an ensemble that has made numerous efforts for the so called “classical” music to be perceived in a different way and I think this logo reflects that purpose.

Lastly, I tried to think of something different, but that I am just as passionate about and the J.R.R. Tolkien logo came to mind. We have seen it in every one of his books, the typography matches our concept of the imagined Middle Earth, and, when we see it, we see his name. Gotta love it!