It was fun and insightful to put all these assignments and tracks in a chronillogical order. It gives me insight on what Im learning, inspired by and what I still want to learn. 

 

PRO'S ABOUT THIS SEMESTER

• Learning synthesis: I was really overwhelmed by this at the beginning cause I didn’t even knew what adsr meant… but I had an afternoon with one of my classmates (Jeroen) and he explained me step by step how Vital works and a whole fucking world opened up for me. It’s funny to notice how to different genre’s (hardstyle and acoustic folk) can have same elements, like: creating all the sounds yourself from scratch. So Im really looking forward to getting more handy with Vital, so I can make my own kick for my acoustic folk tracks when needed. 

• Connection: I start to connect with people in my class and that feels really good since I never did a music study and I don’t have a lot of music friends (this sounds sad haha). 

• Inspiration: in the beginning I was a bit hesitant, being surrounded by people who mostly make electronic music. But looking back I see I really get inspired by all the differences in genre, skill, etc. I even started with something I wanted to do for a long time: make a drum n bass track. 

• Good communication with the Malik. I really appreciate the good and close contact. It feels as a good balance between doing your own thing and being ‘watched’ (I mean that in a good way). Some ‘monitoring’ in relation to us as students. 

 

 

CONS ABOUT THIS SEMESTER

• Less energy: During this semester I had my album release + release show. After 1,5 year of pushing this I was really exhausted so I had less time/energy to work with everything I learned and selfstudy. 

• Processing information in classes: I have had some trouble processing the information in the classes. I think it has to do with 3 things:

1. Auditory processing disored and learning style: this is the first time in a while Im back in ‘school’ and I really notice the effects of my APD. A lot of the times in class I can’t decode the words of the teacher or I only process a sentence 5 seconds after it is said. It’s really annoying and frustrating: I don’t want to cause delay for my classmated and at the same time I really really want to learn as much as possible.. Visual teaching would help processing the information, since I have way less trouble reading information. 

2. My level in skill: Im still not sure if Im in the right class considering my level and understanding of music production... some things are completely new to me and I feel like maybe my tempo is holding my classmates back.

3. ​Teaching/pedagogy of the classes: Ive noticed as a teacher myself, that sometimes I miss some basics of didactic/pedagogy in the classes. Basic things like a visual agenda/time schedule, goals for the class, time management, interactive reflection, differentiation. 

​​I think it’s super valuable to have an amazing producer/sound engineer leading a class with so much knowledge, skill and experience. At the same time I sometimes feel that knowledge doesn’t always come through. When I look at the most basic teaching styles (visual, auditory, read/write, and kinaesthetic) I see some of them are used, but most methods are ‘Talking about theory’ (mostly auditorial) or an assignment we have to do individually. It doesn’t have to be much! I already would really profit from more visual tools during class. And I think more students would benefit from this. All the classmates I talked to or befriended are neurodivergent, have a short attention span and probably learn quite visually. 

 

 

FOCUS FOR 2ND SEMESTER

• Mixing: I want to be able to fully mix my own track. I feel so depended of people right now, that's why I started this study. But right now I do not yet feel like I received the tools to (from me level) work up to learning how to mix. For starters I really like to know where Im at when it comes to my mixing. 

• Ear training: Im not sure what is most efficient, but I have the feeling ear training could help me gain more 'sight' as a mixer. Curious about what you guys think about this. What approach would be best? 

• Synthesis/sounddesign: I want to keep practice and learn making basic kicks, snares and more in Vital.

• Music theory: I want to teach myself the basics of music theory. This comes last because I will be mostly busy with the above, but when I find the time and energy this year I will give it to music theory. 

 

That was it! 
Thank you for reading :)

​

Valentina de Fost
(LOSKOP)