Cello Final Project

In this design, I was hoping to explain how beneficial it is to take up a musical instrument and share my personal story of how much I loved my cello. I wanted to express the fact that music is more than just notes on a sheet of paper or taking up space on an iPod; each song, note or instrument carries an emotional tone with it and can be used to express emotions.

Some decisions I made when creating this project was the type of pictures I used. Because my project was completely geared towards personal experiences and emotions, I wanted 1-2 pictures at most per slide, so viewers could emotionally understand my message and connect to the picture on the screen. I also chose to use pictures that had hearts, teardrops or other emotional objects with music notes to further explain that the cello, or a musical instrument in general, can be used to demonstrate or release emotions. Some other decisions I made were which quotes I wanted to use, because I wanted to begin and end my power point with quotes and what color I wanted the background. I knew black would work because many of my images were black and white or sepia toned, and the black would pair with the tones nicely.

This project was very interesting and fun to do because it was about something I loved and was passionate about, but it was extremely challenging. I found that the audio was especially challenging because I could not figure out the correct way to upload my tape-recorded speech about the cello. Posting the finished project was also extremely difficult, and took much time and trial-and-error before I posted using our traditional application, SlideShare.

I overcame my challenges by much trial and error, but eventually, it all came together. My sound slides did give me the most challenge, however. At first, I used a traditional tape recorder and attempted to upload the content to audacity; however, the file only uploaded the second half of my speech, so it was unable to be used. Next, I attempted to use final cut pro, but that application would not work for me as well. Finally, I used Garage band and learned how to cut and create my own speech, adding in my music clips, to create a full speech. It took a very long time, but it eventually was able to allow me to save it as an mp3 and import it into iTunes, which made it accessible in my PowerPoint.

After all of the challenges, I am most proud of the timings in my project. The audio clips took forever to create, but it worked out because the music and voice clips would enter at the same time as the pictures would change, making the Power Point have great timing. I really liked that the slides and audio were matched up because the viewer can emotionally connect with the speech and have the visuals to support what the speech is saying.

If I had more time, I would have definitely tried to figure out a different way to post the project, and would have re-recorded my audio one more time. I finally got the hang of garage band, so creating more clips may have been fun now that I am able to create, cut and formulate songs.