1. FINAL MAJOR PROJECT

2. PROJECT DEVELOPMENT

3. BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT

4. TRACK DEVELOPMENT

5. BRAND & WEB DEVELOPMENT

6. RELATIONSHIPS DEVELOPMENT

7. PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT

8. WEEKLY MILESTONES

9. REFERENCES & APPENDICES

I initially planned to complete 5 tracks but:

• I recognise this was over-zealous and is not Sustainable or Achievable

• I am extending the timeline into my longer term career.

• I want to be flexible about which Tracks I produce by when considering the commercial need for income & networking strategy

For these reasons I now plan to have fully completed 3 tracks and be well on the way in producing the 4th with a selection of Demoes and Sketches by SUMMATIVE

• More focus on Relationship Building because I need to work with industry experts to be successful with this

• Extended Timeline for Tracks because this is a career beyond the project deadline

• Considering niching my music to be more specific than "songwriter"

NOW CHANGING:
Extension of the timeliness, track numbers and my workflow to make the Project achievable and deliverable.

• Copyright for my Music as songwriter

• Royalties via PRS

• Split Sheets and Agreements, signed and dated so no disputes

• Metadata to protect my music and be found on Music catalogs

These are the key safeguarding areas for my music as a collaborative songwriters and songwriter for sync.

Actions: Create Split Split Sheet Template, Register with PRS, find solutions for clearance and metadata

• The greatest safeguarding & protection as I'm planning on collaboration and music is subject to litigation this is a sensible safeguard

• My sustainability includes leaving a legacy for my children and this can be done more easily via a ltd company

• I believe Finances should be Ethical and a ltd company I can choose ethical banking, pension and transparent tax

• I'm running two sole trader companies and it makes efficient sense to do both under one "holding company"

  
  

The downsides are the additional tax paperwork and slightly higher costs but in balance this is still the model that best fits what's important to me

This has increased my songwriting & production decision making. Recording is still a challenge.

My network goals are to:

• Expand my network of Performing Artists

• Find Mixing engineers

• Connect with Music Supervisors to achieve sync placement

Focus on building a Business (Frost 2025)

Focus on you, your personality, your uniqueness

I've had to scale back this module so mainly focused on songwriting, improvisation and learning the pieces for my community piano groups.

However on Instagram it is completely different as I'm mostly videoing real-life piano in my studio (which is Blue)

Brand consistency is important (Frost, 2025) so I need my website and Instagram to be inline with my brand and artist persona.

There are strong arguments for niching in any business (Brunson, 2019) yet my initial brand doesn't state clearly what niche I'm in.

So for these reasons I'm reviewing my branding and building a review and re-plan into my timeline

My second case study Carl (Henrik-Wahl , 2025) shared that writing with Artists and focussing on getting them to release in quantity for diversification of income was key, as was multiple revenue streams eg Streams and Licences.

Business Model Canvas

This exercise helped me identify that my networking and key audience are not the end music listeners but those in between, the music supervisors, producers & performing artists and therefore a Relationship Strategy would be more important for me than a Social Media plan

CONTENTS:

1. WB0300 Project Proposal

2. Project Review - Project

3. Project Review - Brand

4. GANTT - Project Timelines

5. SMART GOALS

6. SWOT

7. Formative Submission S1

8. Formative Submission S2

9. Project Evaluation

10. Project Review - Niche

11. GANNT - Career Timelines

12. Values Evaluations

13. Draft S1 Essay

14. Draft S2 No Voiceover

15. Appendices

1. Safeguarding my Business

2. Limited Company Model

3. Finance & Budget Review

4. Sustainability Mindmap

5. Business Model Canvas

6. Limited Company Name

7. Limited Company Hierarchy

8. Sustainability Policy

9. Sustainability Action Plan

10. Revised Budget

11. Business Innovation

12. Final Business Plan

13. Appendices

1. Brand Updates

2. Creating my Brand

3. Mood Boards

4. Website Start

5. Brand Prism

6. Brand Developing

7. Sonic Brand

8. Website Issues

9. Core Values

10. Website Development

11. Website Screenshots

12. Website EPK Copy

13. Instagram

14. Logo

15. Moving Imagery

16. Brand Style Guide

17. Website Published

18. Appendices

1. Minute of Music Reflection

2. My Music Workflow

3. Track 1 - Lyrics

4. Track 1 - DEMO

5. Track 1 - MIX

6. Track 2 Collaboration

7. Track 2 Split Sheet

8. Track 2 Lyrics

9. Track 3 Lyrics

10. Track 3 DEMO

11. Track 3 PRODUCTION

12. MUSE Songwriting

13. MUSE - Idea to Demo

14. Songwriting Opportunity

15. DISCO Playlist

16. Appendices & Future Tracks

Track Development Evidence

1. Sunday After You

2. Sometimes

3. Beautiful Death

   
   

1. Personal Development Plan

2. Practice - Piano

3. Practice - Drums

4. Practice - Songwriting

5. Opportunity - Festival

6. Opportunity - Songwriting

7. Research - Ongoing Education

8. Development - Study Skills

9. Curriculum Vitae CV

10. Appendices

After research in WB0300 I opted for Bandzoogle and began the free trial for 30 days.

This gives me time to:

• develop my branding

• learn how to use the software

• once upgraded I plan to transfer my own domain name to the website

• this will be the place I host my music and share my bio as a songwriter/collaborator

1. Networking Review

2. Networking Goals

3. Relationship Database

4. Competition Matrix

5. Sync Competition Research

6. Sync Case Study

7. Peer Collaboration

8. Study Collaboration

9. DISCO Music Management

10. Relationship & Networking Strategy

11. Appendices

I have continued this Innovation by developing a clearer Niche for my music around Melancholy music, minor keys, music to feel moved by - and the colours associated with these feelings are blues, purples and darker tones.

• Owen & Korel tutor feedback.

• Debs, Francis and Vicky peer feedback

Based on feedback, emotional responses and self reflections the Next Steps:
Develop String/Cello texture/counter melody
Revisit Snare sound
Improve Lyric scanning in verse 2

This track is now into Production phase.

I used the Stop, Start, Continue & Improve Framework (L04) to help me identify that I was ignoring this list and therefore not actively networking in a consistent manner.

Next Steps: Research Contact/Networking strategies and methods & revise strategic network plan

This reassures me that this strategy of learn, reciprocity and build relationships will be a strong model for me and my FMP.

COMPETITION MATRIX

ACTIONS: Complete more research and work on my brand, personality and sound and values

Things that are important to me:

• Fair and Sustainable usage so consider whether AI is too consuming for my business

• Honestly, fairness and ethics with people I collaborate with, suppliers and my music itself

• Ethics with finance and funding

• Building a sustainable community and network so my business supports me, my family and as a legacy for them

• Doing the right thing

-

I can hear the impact this has had, in particular in my piano timing and, although straightforward, I've written all the drum tracks from scratch in my Portfolio tracks.    

For this reason I am scaling back on some of my personal development until after August when I'll have more time and just covering minimal practice time on key areas

Keeping: Movement, Natural, Authentic, Melancholy, Water
Losing: Veils/hidden faces, earth tones, overly neutral
Adding: Blues, Authentic brand based on my personality, traits and type of music

and thats is why....

Justification for Portfolio Selection:
Based on my WB0301 Dissertation research and Track analysis into melancholy music this hits 
Minor Key, Slower Tempo (108) Lyrical theme of Love and Loss and Family.

Sonic Branding:
Piano, multi layer vocals and strings. 

Re=recording the piano and vocal performance and re-arranging the strings but using the original composition and lyrics.

Programme notes attached.

• SUMMATIVE S1 SUBMISSION

• SUMMATIVE S2 PITCHDECK

  
  

• PORTFOLIO WEBSITE

• 1 - SUNDAY AFTER YOU

• 2 - BEAUTIFUL DEATH

• 3 - SOMETIMES

What I learned was:

• The importance of Merchandise for Fans

• What Fans love and dont like in Merch.

• Need for clear identifiable artist persona for audience to identify with

• The phenomenal volume of merchandise for a festival

• The logistics of getting it there and sold for both Fans for the Artists.

• The importance of chatting with Fans when serving them; they have their own personal Love Stories with their Artists and want to share.

• The importance of supporting, encouraging and helping each other out as a collaborative team

The music industry has a very different Mindset to the finance and businesses I've worked in prior. There is a lot of language around financial scarcity and some quite inefficient processes around collaboration and making music into a business.

I plan to take the experience from my existing Finance business and apply these to my Songwriting and Collaboration aspect of my Music business. SEE MINDMAP

Using reference tracks Dorian by Agnes Obel and Gravity by Sara Bareilles as both had vocal, piano and either strings or percussion.

I am a songwriter specializing in melancholy music, reflective lyrics with piano-led emotive melodies

What's Next?

Once my FMP is complete I want to continue developing my songwriting skills and artist sound, in particular my voice. I'm looking for suitable courses where this development, accountability, confidence and skill building could be provided.

Physique - Personality - Culture - Relationship - Self-image - Reflection

Building on my earlier Brand work around being authentic to me and my music I've used this model to further develop it.

GIBBS REFLECTION

ACTION: Accept the loss of time and energy and begin again 

• Inline with my Artist Persona of Catherine-Jayne

• A name I could run both parts of my self-employment through (Finance and Music)

• One that was available and safeguarded by not being in breach of trademarks, other brands

• Website URL was also available

By not adding the word 'Music' I could keep the finance part relevant and using the hyphen between names matched my persona and clarified it wasn't a surname

For all these reasons I chose to register my company name as Catherine-Jayne Ltd.  Both company and website names were available.

• 1 trading as Catherine Jayne Music

• 1 trading as my existing financial coaching business.

• Both brands completely separated but with shared services, ethics, personnel and values

  • This will reduce duplicity of accounts, ease of tax and more sustainable to manage long term

  • Also provides clarity for audience and doesn't mix the two businesses up

As a result I plan to:

• Revisit my Track Analysis

• Review my Competitor Matrix

• Identify which Media (films, indies, rom-com, true story) my music is more aligned with

• Identify THE relevant contacts in those specific Niches for my Relationship Building

AI servers produce electronic waste. They are large consumers of water, which is becoming scarce in many places. They rely on critical minerals and rare elements, which are often mined unsustainably (UNEP, 2024)

I have actively decided to avoid all AI in my creative process as I can not justify the usage of water and environmental damage for my "creative spark"

1 Bottle of water to generate 100 words is unacceptable and totally unsustainable.

Next steps:

• Re-record Vocal Harmnies and Double track

• Vocal comping

• Arrange and Record Cello (BBC Spitfire plugin)

• Working on Gain

• Balancing Tracks

• Panning

• Initial EQ (sub 100 and problem areas)

- Need a SHARED GOAL

- Need all SKILLS covered

- Need a variety of characters/roles

- Need to LISTEN and TRUST others

- Advocate for the SONG

1. Project Review Task

2. Project Review Reflection

3. Safeguarding Task

4. Licence v Royalty Task

5. Personal Reflection

6. Commercial Model Task

7. Competition Matrix Task

8. Brand Reflection

9. Sustainability Task

10. Networking Strategy Reflect

11. Collaboration Task

12. Website Issues Reflect

13. Finance Task

14. Best Practices Task

15. Track & Stress Reflect

16. Final Reflection

Sustainability Mind Map

I’ve drafted out initial ideas for this EPk/Website as text copy whilst I continue building my branded website to support it.

Began this using Click-up as an Innovative solution as I've found using it for my Kanban and Gannt charts and Action List has worked well and helped me stay on Track of tasks and my overall project.

Completed in a XERO accounts Business Plan Template 

I shared 4 variations on Instagram and asked for votes and this one and its reverse on dark blue were clear favourites

To ensure consistency of my look, feel and tone I completed a Brand Style Guide.  This means future work, images for tracks, amends to my website have a cohesive font, colour, tone and style .

I wanted to be more hands on with this Mix so provided track notes as well as reference tracks and Enya as one of my influences.

• A combination of ethereal vocals and grounded cello tones to support the tracks theme of life and death

• To retain the emotional feeling and movement/swells of emotion

• the tones and space to support the duality of heaven v earth, dawn v night, death v life, love v loss

Paddy updated me with videos of the mix and rationale for reverb, EQ and compression choices and micro-delays for my input and feedback as we went along.

• Myself as Director and Shareholder

• My Children as Shareholders as per my sustainability plan and desire to use my music positively to support my family.

1. Based on last modules research this catalog is well respected and used by Music Supervisors

2. Offers detailed Meta data and lyric searching

3. Offers watermarking of music

4. Provides me a logical well laid out place to manage my music

5. Uses my Artist persona name which matches my Ltd Company, Website, Instagram "Catherine Jayne" Music.

I designed these in Canva belnding MP4s and with images of poeple, piano, naturalscapes then downloaded as a GIF to maintain the movement of the water drops.

I plan to use this style throughout my website and as thumbnails for my music tracks.

• Limited Company plus Ethical Banking and Sustainable Values

• Niching in Melancholy Music for Media & Songwriting for Performing Artists

• Portfolio of 3 Mastered Tracks with Workflow and Timeline for 12 months music

• Developed personal brand and displayed portfolio & services on branded website

• Catalog of music professionally listed on DISCO

• Created Song Tracker for safeguarding & managing music outcomes along with PRS membership

• Relationship Strategy focused on collaboration with Artists, Mixers and building network with music supervisors

• Selected the hobby "Free Forever" plan

• Transferred my website catherinejaynemusic via 123reg

• Used a Portfolio Template as a start point

• Email forwarded to personal email address

• Can embed code from other sites eg Disco and Calendly

• Mixing invoiced and paid £150

• Website changed provider and budget

• Brand photogrpahy arranged reciprocal skills

• Bank account includes free software for accounts for 3 months

• Ltd company set up higher than research

• Reduced contingency and personal loans to bsuiness

We have worked together on SOMETIMES for my portfolio but also on Boycott Tyskie for Francis's portfolio and also I'e worked with Paddy on the Mixes of my 3 tracks

We've worked in Zoom, in Person, ON Muse, ON Teams, Over email and Shared Drives.

This is one of my ideal collaboration "pods" as we are all creative, all positive, all encouraging and all talented in our own areas as well as having a cross over into each others.

• We met online bi weekly with a pre planned agenda

• We shared the session equally to support the other in the way they needed

• We have opposite skill sets in terms of writing/production but shared values and goals

• We are both supportive, encouraging, honest and practical and this gave us both something we needed

  
  

We had such a positive experience and learned so much about

• Focus on the Melody, if you cant hum it no-one can sign it.

• Take time to bond/connect

• Let something go if it doesn't spark

• And that we tangibly "feel" the energy shift when something does

• Collaborating in this group was supportive, positive and fun.

• We all had something shared but also different

Within the 5 hour online session in virtual recording studio we:

• created a DEMO - Left me Wanting More

• Agreed Split Sheets

• And collaboratively wrote song, lyrics and shared recordings

Having experienced this directly and evaluated it in terms of efficiency, sustainability and relevance I've decided to use this collaborative innovation within my Business and #FMP

Using Criteria like Relevance, Sustainability & Efficiency alongside my Values.

Sync Placements: Secure my first sync placement within the next 6 months, specifically targeting

independent films, TV dramas, and emotional ad campaigns and niching in Melancholy music

Collaborations: Create 2 new artist collaborations on top of my existing collaborations resulting in at

least 2 Artist Releases by the end of 2025.

Networking: Re-engage with 5 existing industry contacts (producers, music supervisors, and artists)

and actively work on being introduced to and identifying Music Supervisors. Be more specific and

research those within my Media and Music niches. Use DISCO & targeted marketing

Learned this

Because of this...

I did this or didnt do that

Some sources said it was needed, others said dont do it.

I contacted Jamie Sellars for confirmation, following on from my primary research case study with him, as he has experience of released and unreleased music for artists and sync, both as a songwriter and producer.

For unreleased tracks and sync an ISCR code is not required and not having one simplifies clearance.

This has been a key development areas for me for self belief, creativity, awareness of my anxiety, working on my inner critic and learning to love my own sound and style.

It has helped me write lyrics more freely and communicate my thoughts and ideas as well as reflect and evaluate. 

See Reflections

• Merchandise volunteer at Tons of Rock, Norway (june 2025)

• Piano accompaniment volunteer for St Barts community singing group (July 2024 to date)

• Pianist for Take Note 4 part community choir ( September 2025)

• MA Residential (April 2025)

STUDY SKILLS

I've discovered my best working study style is:

 45 minutes Study then 15 minutes rest and repeat 3 times. Then a long break. Then repeat.

I use the 15 minutes downtime to drum, walk, reset and then the longer break to rest and eat and walk.

If I try to do too long I get distracted and browse and procrastinate. This time slot seems to work best for me and I've used it as solo study and also study buddy structure with Francis.

I've found tools like the evaluation wheel, gibbs reflections and values as a framework to make decisions and weigh things up invaluable too and factored these into my Weekly Milestones.

DAW & STUDIOS:

ABLETON

MUSE SESSIONS

ZOOM

SPLICE

SPITFIRE AUDIO - BBC

DESIGN

CANVA

VEED

FILE COLLABORATION & STORAGE

ONEDRIVE

GOOGLE DRIVE

WEBSITE & LIBRARY

NEXTJS

123Reg

DISCO

CALENDLY

BUSINESS SET UP

GOV UK

STARLING BANK

XERO

ROYAL LONDON

PRS-PPL MUSIC LICENCE

PLANNING & ORGANISATION

CLICKUP

MINDMEISTER

WHIMSICAL

MUSIC & SONGWRITING

CHORDBUTTER

SOUNDBRENNER

SNAREOBICS

NB: No AI was knowingly used in the creation of this #FMP

• Copyright for my Music as songwriter

• Royalties via PRS

• Split Sheets and Agreements, signed and dated so no disputes

• Metadata to protect my music and be found on Music catalogs

Beginning the process of Reviewing Reflecting & Refining my Project Proposal in preparation for delivering this Final Major Project.

Sync Licencing becoming the biggest proportion of income payments for musicians. [Chris SD, 2023]

'Register. Royalties are like creating future Passive Income!' (Rory Taylor, 2025) Waterbear Module

I'm setting up a limited company (BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT) so will register for Corporation Tax when setting that up.

I plan to use XERO for my accounts and pay myself a nominal salary through Payroll which will deduct my tax at the time I pay myself rather than complete a self assessment the following year.

I'm focussed on CONSITENCY of brand, look and feel. Does my music sound like my niche? Does my website look like my brand style guide. Does my brand look /feel and represent me? Is it Industry facing and Professional?

And am I being SAFE enough with split sheets, agreements, PRS and cataloging and documenting.

And am I managing my portfolio in an SUSTAINABLE way? Do I know where in my workflow my tracks are. Can I track these? Can I adapt when timelines change? Are my projects on time and if not what can I do about it?

I am also PRIORITISING my final assets which is my 2 submissions, my portfolio website and my 3 tracks.

And moving unfinished tasks into the first year post graduation as part of my ongoing business and career development.

This has been such a long project full of highs and lows, lessons and challenges but overall I am immensely proud of myself for getting to the stage of having a Portfolio.

LOVES

• Overall I am really pleased that I have clarity on my career plans.

• I know what I want to do and have a framework and strategy for it

• I really like my Brand, it feels very me and something I can sustain going forward

• I have a wonderful network of positive collaborators and have learned, gained and hopefully reciprocated so much

  
  

WOULD DO DIFFERENTLY

If I could do this again I'd pace myself more and now i have a better estimation of what can be achieved in certain timeframes I'd be less ambitious in the quantity of things i can do

I would have liked more time to develop the tracks in Ableton on the production side. I felt I had to go from songwriting to light touch production in order to get it to Mixing because of the Timelines and time needed fr my collaborator to do their part.

I would have found a way earlier on to evaluate and articulate my decisions, I work intuitively and being able to identify why I made a decision was tough

NEXT STEPS

• I'm looking forward to playing my piano and drums more again!

• I have some additional development areas booked in including a cinematic orchestration course and vocal lessons and a production course in mastering.com

• I am having a weeks rest and beginning September 1st starting to run my business as a business rather than a project

• 1 fully mastered including vocals

• 1 mastered instrumental

• full set of mixed STEMS

Add writer and clearance data including writer splits:

• Add Metadata including BPM, key, PRS number and ISCR code if applicable

• Add lyrics

• Add Playlist to Channel for Sharing

• Update profile for contact information

This is not my current marketing strategy and is on my timeline for developing later. But I wanted my brand to visual and style to be supported here too

1. SUMMATIVE S1 SUBMISSION

2. SUMMATIVE S2 PITCHDECK

3. PORTFOLIO WEBSITE

4. TRACK 1 - SUNDAY AFTER YOU

5. TRACK 2 - BEAUTIFUL DEATH

6. TRACK 3 - SOMETIMES

1. WB0300 Project Proposal

2. Project Review - Project

3. Project Review - Brand

4. GANTT - Project Timelines

5. SMART GOALS

6. SWOT

7. Formative Submission S1

8. Formative Submission S2

9. Project Evaluation

10. Project Review - Niche

11. GANNT - Career Timelines

12. Values Evaluations

13. Draft S1 Essay

14. Draft S2 No Voiceover

15. Appendices

1. Safeguarding my Business

2. Limited Company Model

3. Finance & Budget Review

4. Sustainability Mindmap

5. Business Model Canvas

6. Limited Company Name

7. Limited Company Hierarchy

8. Sustainability Policy

9. Sustainability Action Plan

10. Revised Budget

11. Business Innovation

12. Final Business Plan

13. Appendices

1. Minute of Music Reflection

2. My Music Workflow

3. Track 1 - Lyrics

4. Track 1 - DEMO

5. Track 1 - MIX

6. Track 2 Collaboration

7. Track 2 Split Sheet

8. Track 2 Lyrics

9. Track 3 Lyrics

10. Track 3 DEMO

11. Track 3 PRODUCTION

12. MUSE Songwriting

13. MUSE - Idea to Demo

14. Songwriting Opportunity

15. DISCO Playlist

16. Appendices & Future Tracks

1. Brand Updates

2. Creating my Brand

3. Mood Boards

4. Website Start

5. Brand Prism

6. Brand Developing

7. Sonic Brand

8. Website Issues

9. Core Values

10. Website Development

11. Website Screenshots

12. Website EPK Copy

13. Instagram

14. Logo

15. Moving Imagery

16. Brand Style Guide

17. Website Published

18. Appendices

1. Networking Review

2. Networking Goals

3. Relationship Database

4. Competition Matrix

5. Sync Competition Research

6. Sync Case Study

7. Peer Collaboration

8. Study Collaboration

9. DISCO Music Management

10. Relationship & Networking Strategy

11. Appendices

1. Personal Development Plan

2. Practice - Piano

3. Practice - Drums

4. Practice - Songwriting

5. Opportunity - Festival

6. Opportunity - Songwriting

7. Research - Ongoing Education

8. Development - Study Skills

9. Curriculum Vitae CV

10. Appendices

1. Project Review Task

2. Project Review Reflection

3. Safeguarding Task

4. Licence v Royalty Task

5. Personal Reflection

6. Commercial Model Task

7. Competition Matrix Task

8. Brand Reflection

9. Sustainability Task

10. Networking Strategy Reflect

11. Collaboration Task

12. Website Issues Reflect

13. Finance Task

14. Best Practices Task

15. Track & Stress Reflect

16. Final Reflection