Personal project Maria Ficek

Ai: My whole life I’ve been a musical person. From singing and dancing in the living room
with my parents to performing in musicals and school concerts. Music has always been a
part of my life, an escape. Over the years music became my safe space. When times got
tough music was always there to help me express my emotions, calm down or just let go and
sing my lungs out. Escpeically when I had a lot of issues with selfharm and suicidal thoughts
music was one of the things that saved me. Since I felt like I was commeplty alone and had
no one who could understand me. However lisetining to songs made me realize that there
were so many people that experienced the same thing. this is why I started writing songs of
my own, from my own experiences in life. Doing that really helped with anxiety and more.
This will also be an opportunity for me to learn how to play more instruments and operate
recording equipment. Since I myself have experienced anxiety and other issues I want to find
out if music can help with mental illnesses. That’s why my learning goal is to research into
how music helps teenagers with mental illnesses. My goal is to create an album of songs that
can teenagers can relate and resonate with.

Product success criteria Importance

Function:
This product should make teenagers feel
something. Whether it is
sadness,relief,anger..etc.
This is important since most albums and
songs are made in order to make people
feel some kind of emotion. If it doesn’t then
there’s no point to the album.

I want to portray the emotions that a

teenager may experience during a tough
time in school.

Aesthetic:
Since this product is an album consisting of
2 songs, these two songs must contain at
least 3 instruments.
In order to make this product aesthetically
pleasing and interesting each song should
have at least 3 instruments for example:
guitar piano and drums. Since Ive never
learned to play the drums this will be a
challenge and a learning opportunity.

Song specific: These songs should have meaning and

Each song should be 1 minute 50 seconds power, that would be hard to portray
at least. through a short song.
Sound should be recorded using
professional equipment and should sound
smooth and pleasant.
I want this album to look and sound
professional therefore equipment and
sound should be top notch.

Plan to achive this:

Dates Task To Do Progress

September Begin Chose topic done
2022 project and advisor
and begin
research
September Upload Have bc done
16 background research
info and get done
approved
by advisor
September research Take notes In
– October on how progress
music helps
with metal
health
October Song Begin In
writing songwriting progress
October- Add Have 3
November instrument complete
s songs with
multiple
instruments
Early Record Have all
December songs
recorded

Aplying skils: ATL Skill: raersch

In order to achive my learning goal which is reasriching into how music helps
teenagers with mental illness, I will haver to complete heaps of reaserch. Thereopfre
I have to create a reaserch plan.
 Main research question: how music helps teenagers with mental illnesses
Complementary questions:
 Mental illness:
 What is mental illness?
 How is mental illness usually cured?
 Can mental illness be cured?
 How many people are diagnosed with mental illness yearly?
 Depression
 Anxiety
 Bipolar
 What aspect of life does mental illness effect
Music:
 What kinds of music are most popular?
 How is music created
 How to record a song?
 How to edit a song?
 Song making software’s

Source 1: A brief article
https://www.israelchildren.org/how-the-power-of-music-therapy- about a 6 year old
saved-a-young-boys-life/?gclid=CjwKCAiAxvGfBhB- boy whose whole
family was
murdered by
terrorists. who was
then treated with
music therapy and
began to slowly
recover.

Source 2: A detailed article

https://jedfoundation.org/resource/how-music-can-improve-your-mental-health/#:~:text=The%20researchers%20found%20that%20the,stress%20hormones
%20in%20your%20body. about how music
helps with many
aspects of mental
illness recovery.
Source 3: Research done by
https://www.nami.org/Blogs/NAMI-Blog/December-2016/The-Impact- NAMI(national
of-Music-Therapy-on-Mental-Health alliance on mental
illness) on the
impacts of music
therapy on mental
illness recovery.

Using this reaerch plan helped be get through the reaserch pahse smothely.
Since I had all outlined all the thinsg I needed to reaserch, I rarely went off
track. If I was of track on unable to think of what to reaserch next I would
look at the plan and have an idea of what to do next. I had also gathered a
few potential sources. I had compplteded primary readerch which s ireasech
done by me such as intervies with peers and surveys. I also had secondary
reaserch which was mainly articles and websites, social media posts ,
interview transscrpicts and official organizational websites. I also looked at
plenty of books since it was easier to know they were factual. Inorder to
evaluate my sources I used the OPVL method which stands for Origin,
Purpose, Value and Limitation. Using this method I was able to deduce the
best sources to help me achive my goal. I tried to keep my sources stricktly
from professianals and official organization websistes. Since my reaserch is
about mental illneses, stuideis about it should be done a porfessianl. Howere
I had also used intervies inorder to see it from a different perspective. In the
end I wrote all my reaserch in a word document.

Source: https://www.nami.org/Blogs/NAMI-Blog/December-2016/The-Impact-of-
Music-Therapy-on-Mental-Health
O: this artickle was made by NAMI ( national allince on mental illness). The
job of this article is to educate and infrom bout mentall illnesses and
treatments. This article was published on June 9th 2016 in America.
P: the purpose of this article is to educte and inform about the exoerunce
the dodcotr had when using msuci therpay on thyere patient because
music therapy isn’t extreamly popular and there is still a lot to learn about
it. This article is appriaoate for most age grousp ranging from teenagers to
adults, since everyone struggles with mental health atleast once in their
lives.
V: this article is valuable since it gives a valuble opinion on how msic can
help wiuth mentall illness. There was not only information about different
illnesses such a depression, anxiety .. etc but alos a lot of strategys to deal
witht hem that include music.
L: the limitation of this article is that it was wrtien in 2016 which means it
migh not be up to date with new treamnets. They also dotn have a lot of
refernces and although this is a valid website it might not have as many
sources as one would wish for. There is no bias in this article since its
strictly scientific.

Reaserch that has been completed

Mental illness in teens:

Depression:
there may be some distinctions, the typical signs and symptoms of
depression in adolescents and teenagers are comparable to those in
adults.

Depression in young children might manifest as melancholy, impatience,

clinginess, concern, aches and pains, refusal to attend school, or
underweight.
 Teens may experience symptoms such as sadness, irritability, feeling
down and unworthy, anger, poor performance or poor attendance at
school, feeling misunderstood and overly sensitive, using alcohol or
drugs recreationally, eating excessively, engaging in self-harm, losing
interest in regular activities, and avoiding social interaction.

Anxiety:
It's common to experience occasional anxiety, especially if your life is
demanding. Yet uncontrollable, excessive concern and anxiety that
interfere with daily activities could be a symptom of generalized anxiety
disorder.

Both children and adults can experience generalized anxiety disorder.

Although panic disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and other forms
of anxiety have some symptoms with generalized anxiety disorder, they
are all distinct medical diseases.

It can be difficult to manage generalized anxiety disorder over the long

run. It frequently co-occurs with other mood or anxiety disorders. With
psychotherapy or medications, generalized anxiety disorder often gets
better. Altering one's lifestyle, developing coping mechanisms, and
adopting relaxation techniques can all be beneficial.

Bipolar disorder:
Manic depression, formerly known as bipolar disorder, is a mental health
illness that results in sharp mood swings, including emotional highs
(mania or hypomania), and lows (depression).

When you experience depression, you could feel melancholy or hopeless

and stop enjoying or being interested in most activities. You might
experience mania or hypomania (a less severe form of mania), which can
make you feel euphoric, energized, or excessively irritable. The ability to
think clearly, energy levels, activities, judgment, and behavior can all be
impacted by these mood changes.

Mood swing episodes can happen infrequently or repeatedly each year.

While the majority of people will have some emotional symptoms in
between bouts, some people might not.

Music therapy:
Music therapy is the clinical application of music to achieve specific
objectives including stress reduction, mood enhancement, and self-
expression. It is a well-known, evidence-based therapy in the medical field.
Experiences with music therapy may involve listening, singing, playing an
instrument, or writing music. It is not necessary to have musical aptitudes or
skills to participate.

You might benefit from music therapy on a psychological, emotional,

physical, spiritual, cognitive, and social level. A quick list of advantages is as
follows:

bringing down blood pressure.

memory improvement.
Through sharing music with others, people can improve their social and
communication abilities.
Self-reflection. observing your feelings and ideas.
relaxing the muscles.
Self-regulation. acquiring sound coping mechanisms to control your thoughts
and emotions.
Increased drive.
controlling pain.
raising happiness.

Applying skills to create a product: Thinking critically:

After conduting my reaserch I realized that created a ful album of songs was
going to be increadible hard and that I had to manage my time exteamly well
which I am not a=very good at. Therefore I had to change the idea fromm an
album to 1 song only, which was a more achievable goal. Since my school
didn’t provide me with any recording software or equiptment I had to figure
it out myself. Once I realized I was beg=hind schedule trying to use a
computer software to recod my song while still strugling to finalize the lyrics
to yhe song. I relized this woudlnt work, therefore I found an app to use on
my phone in which you can record, edit, add effects and much more to the
song you are creating.
Here are some screen shots of me using the app. THE app is called bandlab
and is free to download on google app store. I also had to setle for one
instrument only because of time. I had to recod the song with my phone
microhphone which made it sound a lot less proffesionall however I
overcame that issue whith adding effects to the recording which made it
sound a lot more professional.

Reflecting: The impact of my project on leaerning

When I began this project I thought it would be easy. I thought this because I
had already written songs in the past, howvere I nevere recordere or edited
them. Therefore I quickly realized I was wrong. My biggest takeaway from
this project was how to manage my time. Since ive always had a issue with
procrastanationg. I had to learn to manage my time better. I alos learned that
its ok to chnaeg projects if it you cannot manage to finish them in time, it
doesn’t make the project worse in anyway, alsong as its done to the best og
your ability. The tools I discorvered will deiffently help me in the future, since
I have an eportoflio in music and I will have to create a song using Band Lab
will deffiently make that project easier for me.

Product evaluation
My oroduct:
My product was a song which included voice and acoustic guitar. The lyrics
are relatbel and talk about a student whos experience a lot of pressure in
school and by parent, it also talks about self harm. Some of the lyrics were
inspired by interview I conducted with peers who have been diagsnsed with
mental illnesses. For example “ it feels like im drowning in my own head” is a
lyric in the song it was said in one of the ihhnterviews when talking about a
anxiety attack in the words really stuck with me.

Product success critaris : one point rubric

 Areas of strength Product success criteria Areas of development
According to surveys Function:
that I conducted after This product should make
people listened to the teenagers feel something.
song this is success Whether it is
sadness,relief,anger..etc.
since 100% of the
answers said yes.
Aesthetic: I was not able to
Since this product is an complete this part of
album consisting of 2 my success criteria
songs, these two songs due to time. I only
must contain at least 3
made one song which
instruments.
had voice and guitar. If
this project was done
over a longer period of
time would defiantly
been able to complete
this part of the
criteria.
I completed this part Song specific:
of the success criteria Each song should be 1
because my song is 2 minute 50 seconds at least.
minutes and 39
seconds long.

Overall evaluation:
I think I created a overall suyccefull product, however it was deffinetly not up
to my highest standard. Due to time constransts and sometimes my poor
time management I was only able to record and edit one sond instead of my
hoped for two. However one of my personal gola swith the project was to
make something meaningfuol and according to the feedback I recued I
deffiently did. While presenting my product I also asked my audicne to
completed a survey after listening to a 30 second clip of my song. When it
came to the lyrics and melody 100% of the people that complteded the
survey said that it was relatble. This makes me think that I write the lyrics
well and in a relatable way. However according to the written reviews I could
have shown the whole song, or gave the audience lyrics. Thi si didn’t think
about and I would include if I did this project again.Therefore over all I think
that I created a succesfull product. I