For this project I will create a short podcast titled 'The Music She Makes' based on a number of topics between personal experience and academic research, relevant to or touching on what we have discussed in previous lectures like musicking. I hope to do brief 10-20 minute episodes, perhaps with multiple parts to each topic, to make it easy to digest while informative and fulfilling.

I have already begun brainstorming ideas and have thought of topics to discuss, people to discuss them with, sources, and a timeline.

For example: Liv from TOAST has asked to be involved in an episode of the podcast to make space for local female and non-binary musicians; it will be helpful to have another person to discuss with as that way I will not ramble or make it less clear by going too far into depth.

I want this podcast to work well on its own without the context of "it's a university assignment" so it will be public, and as simple or in-depth as required depending on the episode.

On content generation/farming and being a creator on the internet

https://www.instagram.com/girlsbtrs/

Diversity and feminism within the music industry

The future of music as a creative practice, digitally

https://www.instagram.com/themusicshemakes/

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChbZcUl6BAtK7nOH8CyhFmg

I have considered topics to talk about including:

• The development of music as a practice into a digital one and its effects

• Reacting to various up and coming music and events within the music industry and online

• Creativity among the chronically online - and where the line is between being creative and being a "lonely creator"

• Part two: gendered trends and double-standards among content generation i.e. within online trends on platforms like TikTok and within cancelling certain artists but not others

• Music as a product vs as a craft

https://open.spotify.com/show/4pa8CRqMHN5DMfeEFDWv67

another music podcast

It also goes into trends and microtrends, negative methods famous people use to gain attention, and low-quality content farming for views.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YoczRAiLujc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNpf6905icg

Also, trend-hopping in relation to people copying videos such as: https://www.tiktok.com/@bellapoarch/video/6862153058223197445?lang=en as it forms the way one side of the internet (i.e. popular TikTok) will behave to become liked and popualr.

I also briefly mentioned social media's impact on attention span (https://www.queensjournal.ca/social-media-is-shortening-our-attention-spans/) and in turn, the way it is changing music length/formula.

I also used one of the songs I made earlier in this module (titled Dissociation) as the intro and outro song. This gave it a more personal touch and allowed me to use a sound I was happy with rather than browsing through royalty free songs or sounds to find one to use that I may not like as much.

The microphone I initially used for the first 2 episodes I recorded (Neumann u87) was replaced by technicians with an SE mic before I finished the podcast so there is an audible difference in sound quality, so in the future I would have liked to keep it consistent. However, I do not think it was that noticeable.

I had initially planned to upload this to YouTube but felt that Spotify was perfect on its own due to it being free and easily accessible. If I were to upload it to YouTube I would want a background graphic or video to use, but spent most of my time writing ideas and recording, as well as designing social media posts and the cover images for each episode.

I am happy with the way my podcast turned out as I conveyed some major opinions and talking points in the manner I personally prefer to listen to (e.g., factual with a relaxed and humorous edge.) I recorded it professionally and overall the sound was the way I had hoped it to be, with no background noise or heavy editing required.

Initially I wrote a script to be more professional or formal, however after recording a different episode first, I thought it sounded very robotic and uncomfortable, so I changed the way I wrote it and used voice to text so that it would sound more natural. I then could add any extra ideas in the recording studio.

Originally I wanted to do a two part episode with one being on how women are treated in the industry and one how women are treated in song. It was very difficult to decide whether to discuss how women are treated in the music industry and the way that cancel culture affects people, but I have decided to do the second part of this episode in my interview with Liv from a band called TOAST.

It also talks about the watering down of 'cancelling' and the inevitability of facing it in your music career as people are often cancelled over such small things.

It is such a prevalent thing in the modern day that even sites like LinkedIn have steps on how to prevent it from happening: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/8-tips-navigate-cancel-culture-so-your-business-survives-uql0c/

Other references I used/mentioned:

https://studentnewspaper.org/the-effects-of-cancel-culture-in-our-society/

https://www.businessinsider.com/guides/health/mental-health/why-cancel-culture-is-toxic

https://www.businessinsider.com/cancel-culture-meaning-history-origin-phrase-used-negatively-2020-7

https://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/music/300942339/the-rise-and-fall-of-lizzo-why-is-the-queen-of-body-positivity-being-cancelled

https://www.womeninmusic.org/

https://soundgirls.org/

https://womeninmusicproduction.co.uk/

https://womensaudiomission.org/

I also mentioned the statistic that women make up about 5% of all sound engineers in the UK as it shows that female representation is a relevant topic in this instance, as it is very male-dominated https://www.bcu.ac.uk/computing/news-events/blogs/women-in-sound-engineering#:~:text=Did%20you%20know%20that%20women,future%20holds%20for%20female%20engineers.

I used artists like Big L, Tyler The Creator, and Eminem as examples in this because I think they reflect my point very well, i.e. that some of their songs are misogynistic. (e.g. - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxhUk9H_-ys with explicit and sexist lyrics)

https://www.ukmusic.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Counting-the-Music-Industry-full-report-2019.pdf

https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm5804/cmselect/cmwomeq/129/report.html

https://saffronmusic.co.uk/

Instead, I decided to talk about something that is very important to me, and that is behind the scenes work at live music events (sound engineering, stage crew, etc.) I talked about my own experiences as somebody that has volunteered as a sound engineer and work to stage crew, but I also used other peoples experiences mostly online, but partly in person. I didn't want to be biased and I also didn't want to use this just as a chance to complain about my own failures and negative past experiences which is why I looked at other people's thoughts.

For this episode, I didn't really have a script and instead had bullet points of things I wanted to talk about because it began as a cathartic way for me to talk about how frustrating and daunting it can be just starting out, especially as a girl with pretty minimal experience. I ended up cutting most of that extraneous info out in favour of more relevant topics because I wanted to keep the episode approximately ten minutes long. When I was recording the podcast, I did talk for about 45 minutes to an hour!