Narrative Perspectives

English

Lyrical Essay

I interviewed my friend who has a lot of allergies and wrote a Listen Lyric about what goes on in his life.

You wake up from a lengthy slumber.

It’s just another day where you have to avoid landmines.

For breakfast you settle on eating an apple and rice bread.  You look into your cabinet to get some sunflower seed butter. There’s none left. You want to go to Whole Foods to buy some more, but it costs around seven dollars and you’re not sure if you want to spend that money. If only you could’ve just bought the cheaper alternative, but–

There’s nothing you can do about it.

You go out with some friends to hang out and eat. Your options are very limited. Pizza places are out of the question as well as ice cream parlors. You wish you could at least try those foods, but–

There’s nothing you can do about it.

You and your friends decide to go to your local grill, again, as usual. Your friends make light-hearted jokes about always going there, but you just laugh along with them because there is no sense in taking it in a bad way.

You order the beef kabobs with sweet potato fries because when you tried them before, you didn’t feel like you were dying.

You’re not sure if you want to try to experiment with food anymore. You want to try something new for once, but you won’t know if your immune system will rebel against you.

There’s nothing you can do about it.

You see your friend has ordered the quesadilla plate. You’re getting jealous. You see the crispy meal in front of you. The creamy cheese oozing out catches your eye, as if it’s inviting you to take a bite out of it, but–

you’re not allowed to eat that.

Why can’t you eat that?

Why shouldn’t you be able to eat that?

Why did you have to be born this way?

Why do gluten, dairy, soy, or nuts decide not to cooperate with your body?

What did you do to deserve this?

…

But then you remembered

There’s nothing you can do about it.

You will never be content with your allergies, but you just have to live with them. They are a part of you.

There’s nothing you can do about it.

You will have to be cautious your whole life about what you eat.

There’s nothing you can do about it.

All those foods you wish you could eat will have to stay at the back of your mind.

There’s nothing you can do about it.

The day ends.

It is time to go to bed. It has been a long day avoiding the landmines.

You go to bed mentally preparing yourself to repeat this routine the next day

and the day after that

and the day after that

and the day after that

and the day after that

and the day after that

and the day after that

and the day after that

and the day after that

and the day after that

and the day after that

and the day after that

and the day after that

And there’s nothing you can do about it.

Research Paper

Since I enjoy making music I decided to research a way to grow in the music industry which could help smaller artists be able to make a career out of what they enjoy doing.

How Social Media Can Help Grow Your Music Career

If you have ever tried to pursue a career in music, you would know that one of the biggest obstacles in being successful is getting exposure. It is something that many artists struggle with, and there are many undiscovered talents out there that haven’t been noticed, even after years of hard work. Music is a growing industry with a myriad of aspiring artists trying to achieve the same goal of “making it big,” but there isn’t much that make them stand out in this wide field of talent. In the past, before social media became what it is today, there were few methods of advertising, and most of them involved young musical talents paying money to get an advertisement placed on a billboard, on a television network, or on a radio station. Since then, several more methods have emerged when it comes to advertising. One way for artists to advertise and stand out is by having a strong social media presence where they can interact with their growing audience, whether it be on Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, or the several other options at their disposal, completely free.

The social media sites that are commonly used for all kinds of advertising are Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram. The social media giant Facebook has around 2.234 billion active users on their site, while Twitter has around 335 million, Youtube around 1.9 billion, and Instagram around 1 billion as of October 2018 (”Most famous social network sites worldwide”). As you can see, there is a wide range of people that have the ability to see what the artist is saying. There is a higher possibility of people seeing an artist’s announcements, merchandise, or upcoming songs with social media, and with little-to-no costs as to how advertising worked before the age of social media.

The main problem is building that audience to be potential fans; for a music producer, the solution would be to make more music and a platform for their songs. Some places to get their music out there are YouTube, Soundcloud, and Spotify. “YouTube is the number one place where people stream music versus Spotify, Pandora and a whole slew of other services combined” (Burstin). YouTube has 1.9 billion active users, so there is a larger audience to show their music to, but since Youtube isn’t necessarily only for music, their content will be in a wide pool of other people’s content, so it may be harder for others to discover them. Meanwhile, Soundcloud has 175 million users that either listen to or post their audio-based content (McIntyre). Soundcloud has helped many artists get discovered and rise in popularity. Big names such as Lil Uzi Vert, 21 Savage, and Grammy winner Chance the Rapper are examples of artists that started on Soundcloud, and thanks to the platform, they were able to blow up in popularity and listened to by a plethora of people. (Davis) There are several users that post their content, since there is no restriction on who can post their work onto the site, there will be a variety of musicians that are also trying to achieve the same goal that they want to achieve. Spotify, the most well known music streaming platform, has 170 million users that can potentially hear their music, half of those paying for premium. Spotify is a platform that is significantly harder to get their music on, but there would be less competition compared to Soundcloud or YouTube. Artists are taken a bit more seriously if they were to get their music on Spotify, and people would be able to share their music a lot more efficiently with Spotify. An emerging artist would get money for every play their song gets. While it’s not much money per play, with accumulated plays, they have the potential to make a living if they were to get enough fans. According to Budi Voogt and Marina Martin, both from the label and management agency, Heroic Academy,

The journey begins when potential fans (also: leads) are pulled into the funnel via audio/visual media centric social platforms such as SoundCloud, YouTube and Spotify. If they like what they hear or see, they might ‘follow’ or ‘like’ you on one of those platforms, or browse to your other socials, such as Facebook, Twitter or Instagram, potentially subscribing there as well. This creates a window of opportunity where you can convince them to become truly engaged, raving superfans. These are the people that care so much about your brand that they would tell their friends about it, come to your show, buy your merch, and stand in line for an hour to get tickets. These people are your primary means to making money and are therefore considered the artist’s holy grail. (Voogt and Martin)

Once the artist is growing their fanbase using their music, they can use social media to make their existing fans feel more connected with them. Fans generate more fans, especially if the current fan is engrossed in their projects. They have to capitalize off of that “window of opportunity” in several ways. If they use their platform as a way for their audience to feel like they know them without actually meeting the artist in person, that would establish a connection and make the consumer more likely to support anything else that the artist would create. Ways of doing this would be posting things that they enjoy, stating their opinions on issues or topics, and anything that is personal to them. San Holo, an artist who has garnered great success with 2.8 million monthly listeners on Spotify (Spotify), uses his social media accounts as a “mirror of his personality”:

[San] provides value to his fans through his socials by actively being open and personable, whilst paying close attention to their experience and the connection he builds with them. By showcasing his multi-faceted character, interests and personal life, he gives them a reason to follow him on more than just one platform. (Voogt and Martin)

The way San grows his social media is a great template of how others could use theirs. He posts a variety of content that he appreciates, likes, or finds inspirational, as well as material that would keep his audience interested like announcements and song previews. Artists could also post pictures of their performances, studio shenanigans, artwork for releases (with credit to the artist), and anything that they feel they need to say to his audience.

However, it is realistic to understand that not everyone can replicate the success that San has realized. Even if the artist is consistently posting music to his Soundcloud or YouTube, it could still be difficult to get people to be interested about their social media channels. A way they can grow their social media is to use hashtags. Without hashtags, the only people that would see their posts are people who are already following the artists, unless people decide to share it with others. But, they can’t just rely on solely on their fans to grow, which means they are going to have to take action themselves to have more people see their content (Audiotheme). Another way of growing an artist’s social media is to use the platform that they post their music on to advertise. In YouTube videos, they can place their social media handles in the description, or even during a video so that many more people would be aware of their socials. Soundcloud also has a feature where artists can edit their pages to include links that redirect them to another one of their social media channels.

The more followers an artist has on social media, the more potential fans they can get. The artist is able to advertise future releases, tour dates, and new merchandise, to name a few examples. Social media accounts are essentially just free advertising-spaces where an artist could use several methods to grow their fanbase and their income. It’s overall extremely effective and completely free.

Work Cited

Burstin, Ahron. “Growing Your Fanbase on SoundCloud: The Ultimate Guide For

Artists.” Gleam. 10 May 2017. gleam.io/blog/soundcloud-growth/ Accessed 6 January 2019.

Cann, Simon. “Jumpstart Your Music Career” Course Technology. 2011.

ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/mtvlasd-ebooks/reader.action?docID=3136490.

Davis, Shawn. “5 Hip Hop Artists That Blew Up Using Soundcloud.” Frukt. 4 May 2017.

wearefrukt.com/insights/5-hip-hop-artists-that-blew-up-using-soundcloud. Accessed 9 January 2019.

McIntyre, Hugh. “The Top 10 Streaming Music Services By Number Of Users.” Forbes.

25 May 2018. www.forbes.com/sites/hughmcintyre/2018/05/25/the-top-10-streaming-music-services-by-number-of-users/#255a7dfa5178. Accessed 8 January 2019.

“Most popular social networks worldwide as of October 2018.” We Are Social. Statista.

www.statista.com/statistics/272014/global-social-networks-ranked-by-number-of-users/.

San Holo. Artist Page. Spotify. open.spotify.com/artist/0jNDKefhfSbLR9sFvcPLHo.

Voogt, Budi and Marina Martin. “Getting More Fans: The Artist Guide for Social Media.”

Heroic Academy. 19 November 2018. heroic.academy/artists-guide-getting-more-fans-social-media/. Accessed  17 December 2018.

Digital Media

EDM Music (8 Bar)

My 8 Bar is at 4:30, I went with a darker tone for this small piece and this is what I made using a program that I wasn’t too familiar with.

Mandalas

We made a black and white mandala as well as a colored mandala. The process for the black and white mandala was so long for what I was going for so I didn’t make mine big with the time I had.

Freedom Video