arthurmears

[arthurmears]

MD5325 - Blog 5

This is the final blog in which I shall evaluate how effect this project was. Doing market research I discovered many things about tik tok. One of them being that the “for you page” basically determines whether your video will do well or not, if you hit trends or trending music well that's your golden ticket. I noticed the song Brazil by Declan McKenna was trending so I recorded a video on that song and no doubt it did really well, and was my best video I did. 

Whilst recording these views a new feature was released which allowed you to favourite a video, with the last series I did I had over 40 favourites between all the videos which means people will resist the video and learn from it. As far as I'm concerned that means the video was a success as I reached the correct target audience and achieved my goals of teaching people something new. 

Out of the three types of videos I made the last was definitely the most effective time wise and results wise, they were quick and easy to make but also engaging enough to make people come back. By the time I had finished the tik toks I had gained 75 new followers on the account.

Upon reflection I would've started making easier videos a lot sooner than I did purely because I would've been able to pump out more content. Furthermore, I think it would've been smart to pick a target audience less wide, teaching people is great but when its such a wide demographic its hard to get it right every time. For example, I recorded and uploaded a video teaching hot to play a song and someone asked ‘how is this easy’. I should've explained really that it would be easy for someone who knows their way around a guitar.

Nevertheless, I think that this was a success and I interacted and taught a good amount of people something new which was my goal I set out in the first place.

[arthurmears]

MD5325 - Blog 4

Starting my first Tik Tok series, “How to sound like...” This was a 4 part series as I saw interaction drop. Numbers wise this series did really well and saw over 100 likes and 2000 views between all 4 videos, it was a great start for my tik Tok account and it was clear that people liked this format. However, I knew I could do better than this and I would.

For me this series had too much work put in for the reaction received, it was at this point I decided if I was going to have presence on tik Tok I needed to start making videos faster and in more quantity. 

The Next series I tried was “steal this”, this series really did not go well. I sat for hours finding the perfect tik Tok to steal an idea from but none were any good. Timings were poor, nothing was obvious like key or tempo and this made it near impossible to write too. Furthermore, the only video I posted from this did so badly I gave up with the idea straight away and decided it wasn't worth the time or hassle.

The last series which I started has turned into the best one yet, this I shall carry on with past this point as the engagement was brilliant. The first video was a tutorial on how to play Brazil by Declan McKenna. At this point it has 1600 views,127 like and 27 favourites. Favourites are important to me because it means people are going to resist the video again to watch/learn from it resulting in more views. At this point the series only has 4 videos but its done so well it makes sense rot carry on with it. In total it has 2500 views and just shy over 200 likes. After I post more videos I shall document how it has gone and my findings.

[arthurmears]

MD5325 -  Blog 3

Brand Values - As a brand a lot of what I do reflect on my band and what the band do reflects on me. My values coincide with the bands fortunately, and to some them up in short it would be;

Be original 

Don't conform to the norm

most importantly be YOU!

These values although sound pretty basic and simple when you think about it not everyone is quite comfortable in their own skin which I think is important. These days authenticity is quite hard, all it takes is someone to say its been done before and that's it. I tend to just take stuff like that on the chin and get on with it which really is another value, persistence. 

[arthurmears]

LOGO

This logo was originally created by hand then it was transported over to my laptop and further developed. I had two concepts as I couldn't quite choose which one was better. However, I believe it matched the vibe of me and my band very well.

[arthurmears]

MD5325 - Blog 2

The first step for my brand was creating a bio and logo my bio I kept short and sweet and explained exactly what I do. It reads; 

Arthur - Uni student who plays a lot of guitar and writes songs for Cult Trexy

I kept it short like this as it explains exactly what I do and doesn't take any longer than 5 seconds to read, one thing I have learnt from tik Tok is that it has ruined so many young peoples attention span so its important everything is short and snappy. This is actually why I chose tik Tok as my platform of choice.

As far as my logo goes it will be posted right after this, I drew myself a logo with pen and paper then went on to edit it on my laptop. The logo had to be eye-catching but not too over the top and I think this was achieved and even had a bit of my bio included in the logo so its absolutely clear what I do.

[arthurmears]

M5325 - Blog 1

This blog marks the start of making music in the creator economy, I will be discovering ways to make music or use music to boost online presence and see engagement through social media. To do this I have chosen to use Tik Tok to make multiple series of useful content where people of all musical abilities can learn something new. 

Why Tik Tok?

Tik Tok over the last 3 - 4 years has become the most used social media network, its addictive format of watching short clips keep users hoocked for hours. I want to take advantage of this and utilise the short form format to make informative yet engaging videos.

My series

I will create a few different series of videos listed below;

How to sound like in under 1 minute

Steal this

Easy, popular songs to learn on guitar

The one that receives the best engagement will be the one that I focus on. This is partially down to the Tik Tok algorithms but its clear to see which series will do well.

[arthurmears]

Final Performance video

[arthurmears]

Final Week

This week was the final performance, after nearly not making it for personal reasons Ben and I managed to pull together a setlist in a matter of hours and played our set. Personally I think it went really well it will never quite match our full band live sound but it came pretty close.

The first song was played a bit rough on my part, this was down to the fact I hadn't really had time to practice it, nevertheless we made it to the end without too many problems.

The second song went fairly smoothly, again this one hadn't been played all that much and it was the first time we had even played it with each other. So, a few hiccups were expected but ironed out after we were in the flow of it.

Our final song Ben and I have been playing for a very long time so this one was well rehearsed and I think that showed by the way we had performed it. I think it went as smoothly as we've played it in previous gigs and there were no notable issues with it.

The performance video will be uploaded after this weeks write up.

[arthurmears]

For week 8

[arthurmears]

Week 7 - Audio Visuals 

This week ben and I showcased our first batch of visuals that go with our set list. This performance I think visually went well, the visuals worked well with the look and the sound we gave off. However, this is not our best audibly. I think Ben and I had not fully prepared for this set and you can tell by the fact we don't sound as good here as we usually would. This is something that is easily worked on and I'm not worried about, its just something we need to consider next time we do a performance.

[arthurmears]

Week 8 Structure

This week we looked at how we should structure setlist and stage plots, in my work outside of uni Ben and I already had a stage plot from pervious times where it was just us two performing so we used that to our advantage. As far as our set list goes we have a lot of different songs to choose from and one of our feedback notes was that we should try experimenting with electronic sounds, so over the course of the next few weeks ben and I will compose a song with more electronic elements being involved.

The stage plot can be viewed above after this post.

[arthurmears]

Week 6 - visuals 

These visuals all match the songs in sync which adds to the effect we were going for.

[arthurmears]

Week 6 - Visuals and Lighting

This week we looked into visuals and lightning and how they create aesthetics to help our live performance, Ben and I have put together visuals for our entire live performance and there will be a short snippet of the visuals following this post. We decided to base our visuals around trippy, psychedelic vibes that fit the up beat pace of our songs. Furthermore we have been trialling electronic drums in our set so they will match the theme of the visuals well.

[arthurmears]

Week 5 - Technology and Performance

This week we used a range of tech and equipment to further our performance techniques, in groups we used all the technology available and played around with the sounds. We were then tasked to create a small live performance with the equipment, our group mainly used the Roland TR8 Drum Machine around a set that already existed. This opened a new door of sound for us but we decided we preferred the sound as opposed to the format.

[arthurmears]

Week 4 Sofar Session: Stay - Post Malone

[arthurmears]

Week 4 - Sofar Sessions

This week we performed our ‘solar session/live lounge’ type set, myself and Ben collaborated with Felicity and Aaron for this session.

I think it was sounding good with a singular vocalist but the other two singers I felt drew away from this simplistic element, if I were to do it again I think I would've got the singers to play something else or switch them out completely. 

On the positive side it went very smoothly considering the lack of practice we had, fortunately for us we knew the song very well so we never had to worry about structure. Furthermore, I felt my guitar playing was clean and was sat well in with the vocals. It wasn't too overpowering or underwhelming, it fitted the stripped back vibe really well.

The video will be uploaded right after this blog post.

[arthurmears]

MD5320 - Week 3 

This week we continued to look into aesthetics and were tasked to make a Pinterest pinboard to create ideas for our aesthetics. The pinboard should include ideas like:

Colours/textures/prompts to define yourself

Pallet

Energy - quiet? Noisy? Ambient?

Outfits/Stage Clothing

Where do you want to perform? Venues/festivals that you suit

Ideal venue furniture - mood lighting/carpets/screens? What scene are you setting

With this I established I quite liked the whole dark emo vibe, this goes nicely with my bands (Cult Trexy) aesthetic and helps myself and Ben express ourselves while performing. With this Ben and I will wear black hoodies covering our face to an extent but so we’re still visible. Being visible on stage is important to us due to crowd interaction when we play live outside the uni crowd interaction is a key part of our set. We will also be using our banner that we made about a year ago which fits our vibe perfectly.