Turner - Senior Thesis

1. I finished my thesis paper because I had forgotten that I had two pages left. 2. I also started getting all of my papers together for my final submit.

1. For about the first half of the class I was in communication with one of my judges who is unfortunately unable to come to my presentation so she will be Skyping me during my presentation today. I made sure to email her all of the documents needed. 2. For the rest of the class I tightened up my presentation and tested my slideshow on the projector.

1. I made some changed to my presentation that I took note of yesterday when I practiced my presentation. 2. I played around with some music since I hadn't made beats in about a week or more because of preparing my presentation.

1. I finished up my presentation slideshow and my presentation outline all of class. I had a lot of fluff to try to make it over the 20 minute minimum but I ended up being able to remove a lot of it because I was over the minimum.

1. I showed up really late to class (10:15) 2. During the rest of the time I had left, I worked on my thesis presentation. I completed roughly three more slides. I think I can make 20 minutes as of now but I want to be well-over the minimum so I don't have to worry about it. 3. I locked in my presentation time with Correa.

1. Last night I locked in two more judges for my thesis presentation. This class period I communicated with them to try to workout a specific time/date that works for all of them. In addition to that, I sent them the judge paperwork. 2. Afterwards, I continued working on my paper and redid about two pages of it. 3. Lastly, I started my slideshow for my presentation. I'm using the one I used for our end of year check up, but I'm expanding it and cutting some things out based on the audience I'm presenting to.

1. For the first half of class, I researched people to send Judge Requests to. I found roughly ten producers/artists/rapper from the DFW area and emailed/messaged them. I'm hoping at least one of them will respond. 2. For the rest of the class I worked on my outline for my presentation. I'm putting together a loose script for me to follow while presenting. I also started working on visuals for my project.

1. I finished the rough draft for my thesis paper and had Ettesaf read over it. I used some of his feedback into consideration. 2. I finalized my concert on May 18th and communicated with a couple people who are promoting the show to see how the concert is going to go down. 3. I then continued searching for more judges.

1. I reached out to four more people about being one of my judges. I'm thinking of just going to a guitar center and asking people who work there if they'd be interest because a lot of producers on the internet aren't responding. 2. I continued working on my paper for a majority of the class. I cut out some fluff and expanded on some details that I thought needed to be fleshed out. 3. For the last five minutes of class, I uploaded my two most recent singles to Spotify/Apple Music/Tidal.

1. I contacted 5 more people to be my judge today and one of them responded during this class period. We talked over email for a bit and he said he could possibly come but not to lock him in yet. 2. Instead of working on my paper, I decided to work on some music since I have my upcoming concert in about a month and a half. I want to get about 2-3 more songs out by May 10th so I need to hustle! I didn't make anything I like really however, but I did find this BOMB producer on YouTube who sells his beat for only $20 and are free for nonprofit (soundcloud use only). Listening to his beats kind of make me feel like my beats are garbage but it's okay because I'm still learning and I have to remember that. 3. The song I'm going to release on Friday will most likely be my most played song ever since the beat is awesome and also includes a female artist on it. I don't want to get into the habit of using others' beats though because I want to continue expanding my sk...

1. I continued working on my thesis paper. I believe it's coming along pretty well. I'm about five pages in. I'm going to ask Mr. Correa to proof read it. 2. I also was contacted by a booking agency to perform a show on April 27th. However, it was in Forth Worth on a Friday night at around 11 pm. I declined because I don't think a lot of my peers would drive roughly 40 minutes to go see me perform that late at night. Luckily, the agent asked if I was available May 18th. I accepted this offer although its the same night as Townview prom. Most of my friends aren't even going to that so I decided to take it!

Today, I mainly focused on the song I'm releasing tomorrow. It was kind of difficult to focus since everyone around me was talking but it kind of forced me to get into a zone and black everyone else out. I cleaned up the song that I want to release and I started the artwork for it. I decided to start releasing my music on Fridays rather than Mondays so I can get more people to listen as I feel that people are more inclined to listen to a song on a Friday rather than a Monday. I also continued reaching out to different local artists in hopes of having them be one of my judges. So far, only my mentor has agreed on being a judge.

1. I contacted three artists in regards to being my judge for my presentation. I haven't received any response but one of them is my mentor so hopefully he can. 2.  I finished a song I started over Spring Break that will be releasing this Friday. Then I started working on a song that I want to release next Friday. I've changed my release days to Friday because I feel like more people will listen on a Friday. 3. Then I talked to the Marines recruiter.

Initially, I was going to work on my thesis paper all class, but I decided to play around with a couple of samples I found yesterday. I was only planning on making beats for about 30 to 45 minutes but then I got really immersed in my music and I lost track of time. I worked on one beat the whole class period and I think it's REALLY good. I'm going to record during TAG-IT so I can release a song this Friday. I decided to release this song on Friday rather than my usual Monday releases because although I like to release music on Mondays, people usually don't listen to music on a Monday because they're LAZY. So I think I'm gonna do Friday or Saturday night releases from now on.

For the first part of class we discussed the thesis presentations and the guidelines for the paper and the presentations. We then asked Mr. Correa questions about the guidelines, the rubric, and the presentations. For the rest of the class, I searched for new sounds that I could use in my beats. I downloaded some drumkits and sound packs and fell in love with a specific instrument. I started constructing a beat around this sound and hopefully I can release another by the end of TAG-IT.

Today, I decided to make a beat from scratch instead of using samples. I really just played around with instruments and plugins. I didn't have any idea of where I wanted to go with the beat, but it turned out nicely. It's not really my type of music and I couldn't see myself on the beat but I do think it's good that I focus on beat-making once in a while so I can advance my skills.

I worked on beats during all of class. My main focus for the day was to explore samples to use for beats. For the first half of class, I listened to probably 30 songs from between the 20th century, trying to find something to use to sample for a beat. Luckily, I found about four songs that I really liked and wanted to sample. For the second half of class, I attempted to make some beats using these four samples. I made two beats using two of the samples. However, I'm not sure if I'm going to be using them.

1. I spent about 10 minutes registering for APs 2. Since I finished the beat for the song I want to release next Monday, I wrote a couple lyrics and got half way through the song. I will probably record Saturday night and then release it Monday around 11. 3. After I wrote some lyrics, I got pretty burned out creatively so I decided to extend my presence on a forum I frequently visit. It's called Looperman and users upload musical loops that they've created for others to use. I use this too pretty consistently and especially when I have no ideas for beats. Today, i decided to start uploading my own loops as I've seen some loops reach over two thousand downloads! I'm hoping that through this website, I can gain a new audience and expand the number of people who listen to my music. I've already prepared three loops and I have so many unused beats I have plenty to upload from there.

1. Over the weekend, I produced, wrote, and released an entire song. It's been doing okay with about 100 plays after 4 days but my past release, Sleepwalker, is still rising in numbers. It's over 1600 plays. 2. Since I released All Talk this Monday, I'm going to try to continue with the trend of releasing a song once every week. Today I worked on a beat for a song to release next Monday: 18. This song is going to be released on my birthday, which is also the one year anniversary of my first song I've ever released. In this song, I will sit back and reflect on my life and my musical career as a whole. In addition to reflecting on the past. I want to contemplate the future and lay out the plans I have for the rest of the year. The beat is pretty much done but I may add a lil' somethin somethin to it to spice it up. This song will revert back to my more traditional chill type of music rather than the Lo-Fi/Trap mash up I've recently been working on.

1. AYEEEEEE. The song I posted two classes ago hit 1000+ plays today. I've been doing a lot of online promoting and I feel like it has been paying off. 2. I continued collaborating with Carlos during class. We are finalizing songs for the Black Panther EP. We spent the class showing each other beats that we had made and we bounced ideas off each other. We're still thinking of doing roughly 4 songs for the EP.