Critical Reflection on Professional Practitioner Inquiry

Appendix F

Critical Reflection Portfolio

 

One of the key things that I have learnt is that to find out what I want to know, I must first realise what I don’t know. Whilst reflecting on task 2d (see appendix 1), I found that there was pattern to my continuous stunting of my career but by realising this I was then able to go about tackling it. I began to look at self esteem and confidence issues and how they may affect the success of a performer. However, this then raised the question of ‘what is success?’ and ‘what does it mean to be successful?’ (see appendix 2)

I got very involved with discussions on the SIG groups and found that everyone has a different opinion of what ‘success’ is (see appendix 3), thus making it extremely difficult to comment on whether a performer is ‘successful’ or not. I needed to change my tactics and to change my negative frame of mind. In my spare time I ran a half marathon, which was a massive achievement for me and left me feeling extremely positive and with that I found that ‘success’ was far too subjective. I decided that to change my life and career now I needed to be proactive, and what it came down to was ‘not knowing’ how to go about beginning a career as a recording singer. I previously felt, like I was sitting on the edge of the BAPP course not being 100% involved, but by making my inquiry completely relevant to my career now and useful to the progression of it, I have now submerged myself completely into the inquiry and my ‘self testing experiment’. To find out what might be useful to me, I first needed to find out what others had done previously, so I conducted some pilot data analysis (see appendix 4). This led me to finding reoccurrences in methods used by other singers, which in turn led me to the inquiry topic ‘Inquiry into the most effective ways of entering the recorded music industry as a singer’.

 After researching codes of conduct (see appendix 5 ), ethics (see appendix 6) and how I might go about collecting data (see appendix 7), I decided that my inquiry was quite feasible and potentially very useful to many, other than myself. I then began to write my proposal plan. My academic advisor, Adesola, pointed out the title words ‘most effective ways of...’ would be a different inquiry altogether, and after considering this, I realised I am investigating the ‘most applied methods’ rather than the ‘most effective’. I altered my inquiry title to ‘Inquiry into the most employed methods for entering the recorded music industry as a singer’, and I now feel strongly prepared and excited to begin my inquiry.

Appendix 3, Extract from Facebook SIG discussion

WHAT does it mean to be successful. what is success to you !????

 

Bobbie Pingram For me it's about achieving my goals. Not a measure comparing myself to other people.

Mimi-Lulabell Whitney Sucess to me is being happy, being happy with life, work, family, friends x

Emily Hunt achieving what I want to achieve and being happy with how I have done it.

Louise Dempster Success is meeting my own goals whether it is professional or personal , being happy and healthy.x

Melanie Brown To me, success is achieving dreams and goals you have set for yourself but most importantly success is being happy and content with your life...:)

Gee Bird would you call amy winehouse then,successful?...

Gee Bird so if u end up happy but with no career or with a great career but not happy...are u still successful??

Bobbie Pingram I'd say you have been successful in one area and not the other. Maybe that's one of the sacrifices of success.

Gee Bird how do you mean? to be successful in one area of your life another must suffer?

Melanie Brown Well from an outsiders point of view you would say yes she was...but then was she happy? As I said before that to me is the most important thing. She was obviously battling with a lot of issues. There has to be a balance between a good career and happiness. Was it that maybe too much success made her unhappy because she didnt know how to cope? I believe it must be about balance like most things in life x

Gee Bird see for me, success falls to career straight away.. but iv always been career minded, if success is what you set out to accomplish...(even if its not what you thought at the beginnning) if you achieve it, then you are a success. She had a massvively successful career. but same question falls to all the huge stars who die young. marilyn monroe, etc.. they were successful, no?

Change of plan!

basically what happened is, I was sitting here, banging my head against a brick wall thinking 'I have no idea what to do next!!!!'. You see, what was troubling me was that I have my question, but when I looked at task 6b, I thought 'what questions am going to ask towards that if I conduct an interview?' Hmm well it all got very stressful, and then I went to the campus session. Within which, we had enough time to talk through any issues we were having with the course. Rosemary made the suggestion to me that perhaps I don't need to conduct pilot interviews, focus groups, observations and surveys. She suggested that perhaps I only analyse existing data. For example, rather than conducting interviews and observations etc., I only consider what's already been written.  (Rather than trying to interview Lily Allen, I would look only at autobiography and interviews with her, that have already been done.)

I need to find literature regarding getting started in the music industry:

http://musicians.about.com/od/musicindustrybasics/tp/Five-Ways-To-Jumpstart-Your-Music-Career.htm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMXlmn1JzIk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWf9CgJS2gI

Lissie

http://news.qthemusic.com/2010/08/interview_lissie_-_blonde_ambi.html

Justin Bieber

http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.mdx.ac.uk/docview/250027694/13DA198C3B17D9E331B/4?accountid=12441

Articles on becoming a singer:

http://rt5vx6na7p.search.serialssolutions.com/?ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_enc=info%3Aofi%2Fenc%3AUTF-8&rfr_id=info:sid/summon.serialssolutions.com&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:journal&rft.genre=article&rft.atitle=BECOMING+A+COMMERCIAL+SINGER&rft.jtitle=Back+Stage+East&rft.au=John+Henny&rft.date=2008-05-29&rft.issn=1930-5966&rft.volume=49&rft.issue=22&rft.spage=22&rft.externalDBID=BACS&rft.externalDocID=1496128201

changes in the music industry (to digital)

http://www.forbes.com/sites/forrester/2013/02/27/music-industry-stops-losing-money-finally/

http://pandodaily.com/2013/03/13/the-music-industry-has-irreversibly-changed-the-labels-have-not/

http://bloggermouthsocial.wordpress.com/2012/03/05/the-music-industry-then-and-now/

if you do anything today that takes approx. 3 minutes...make it watching this...

 EVERY ONE SHOULD HAVE SEEN THIS, IN LIFE. ITS WHAT ITS ALL ABOUT. beautiful song, beautiful harmonies, just good music

6a

Punch 1998; stated that there are two different types of data collection, qualitative, quantitative. These suggest the difference acquiring quality in depth answers and have lots of simple answers that can then be transformed into numerical data. Punch 1998 (p.19) said the "different questions require different methods to answer them" therefore it's at this point that I need to start discovering what's the best way to answer mine. Blaxter suggested 3 concepts for research, VALIDITY, RELIABILITY and GENERALISABILITY. When I begin to design my inquiry, I need to make sure that what I'm asking is relevant to my topic and the tools I use are useful to my research.
"whether your methods, approaches and techniques actually relate to, or measure, the issues you have been exploring" (Blaxter et al., 2001, p. 221).
Blaxter also suggests the concept of 'reliability'. I need to ensure that the results that I come up with during my research would be essentially the same as if some one else were to look into it using similar tools. The concept of generalisability was suggested by Blaxter, and contests that an inquiry should be relevant for use as a reference in a different context. I think I can achieve this by using effective inquiry tools and showing that the answers I receive are valid and that the methods I used are useful to inquiries in general.

Qualitative research:
written notes,
transcribed audio,
transcribed video
collecting information from peoples memories, description and opinions.

Mason 2002, suggested that within qualitative research, the researcher becomes one of the tools of inquiry and therefore must be constantly aware of their own opinions creeping in. Blaxter et al. 2001 suggest that you must also be aware of the audience that your inquiry is written for.
One criticism of qualitative research is that, due to the detail of the research it is limited t that one area of inquiry rendering it less useful to other situations.
This can be helped by explaining the process in a final report.

Quantitative research:

Surveys

Quantitative research provides lots of data and can be analysed on lots of ways. Making it relevant to other inquiries as it allows space for other interpretations. Fowler says that " the purpose of the survey is to produce statistics, that is, quantitative or numerical descriptions about some aspects of the study population" (2009, p.1)

"quantitative research is quite good at telling us what is happening, and often qualitative studies are better at determining why events occur" (Black, 2002, p. 3).

In order to find the best tools for me to use I need to decide on what I want to find out and work out the bets way of answering those questions. Blaxter et al. 2001, states that questions act as a frame for the inquiry. And I totally agree. Without questions there would be no base to build an inquiry on but this just highlights the importance of choosing the right questions.

MIXED METHODOLOGY- using a qualitative perspective to analyse quantitative research findings, and vice versa

Triangulation - is using a few different tools to test the same issue, in order to find a middle answer. Bell, 2005, said that triangulation "allows the comparison of data and the presentation of more cohesive and considered research findings in social research."

I need to consider the basic layout of the whole process first, in order to make the most effective use of my time and the tool but once I've found 'raw data' I must document it, and categorise it before analysing it, in order to identify patterns in the findings.

PURPOSIVE- using a sample of people who are able to give qualitative answers.
REPRESENTATIVE- using a mixed selection of people quantitative and mixed in order to gain a more scientific answer.

 

5c applying it to what i've learnt

What I keep finding is with this course is that my views have a name. Its silly, we think things all the time, but we never stop and consider that actually some one has probably studied that and decided that its called being a 'consequentialist' or whatever else.
From breaking down that reader and comparing it to what id learned from the focus group and just from my own consideration is that I probably do fall in with the consequentialists. When I attend auditions I follow the rules of that audition to the T, however, if for some reason I thought that the right thing to do was to bend those rules slightly then I would. The thing is I believe it to be down to judgement and circumstance. If within an audition, we are required to dance 'full out' but doing so would mean smacking someone else in the face, it is likely that I'm not going to do it in order to avoid hitting the person next to me.
I think that virtue ethics is probably quite apt for the teachers within my focus group because when it comes to disciplining the children, the teachers moral code of conduct would hopefully point them towards making the best judgement for the pupil however they also have to be seen to be following the rules, like a deontologist. Purely because they are not there just to teach dance, but also to teach about being a good person and right from wrong. However a deontologist approach within a school couldn't work all the time because there will be times when the teacher needs to see that the pupil only committed such actions with good intentions, they must see their virtue, or that the reason for breaking the school rules was greater than the rule itself (consequentialism).

I think for me, my professional inquiry will be coinciding with virtue ethics and consequentialism because I am currently unemployed, there are no set rules that I have to abide by apart from setting myself an ethical code of conduct. For example being punctual to interviews (unless that comes at the expense of someone else's health, i.e pushing someone out of the way to get on the tube). Being polite and well mannered to anyone I interview or ask to reference etc.

5c

Good God why is there so much writing in this reader!!!  As I slump into the point of no return mentally, I feel my grasp on ethics leaves a lot to be desired. Why is not as simple as, just don't act like an idiot! I dread to think how long this is going to take me but so help me I will smash apart this reader until it is tiny acceptable pieces!!So.. here we go.

ETHICS!

Well what is it, briefly- ethics comes from the thoughts around good and proper ways to behave. It is the understanding that our actions have a ripple affect on those around us. Therefore an action can go from being purely personal, to professional, to organisational to societal! ethics and morals go hand in hand with religion and law, both with the aim of creating a society based on the idea of being 'good'. Ethics comes from the Greek word, Ethos, meaning 'character'. Aristotle suggested virtue in only true through habitual action. (I.e- you cant be good once and call your self a good person, you need to do it all the time). The virtue is the middle ground, i.e- for me, I don't like to be being really early, or extremely late, however being professionally punctual all the time has become my virtue.

What the theorists said...

HOBBES- 1651, viewed ethics as a way of creating 'social harmony' through conduct of moral rules, followed by all under the social contract that if one person does, every one else will too. He suggested that if these rules were not adhered to, the world would be in a constant state of war. Use morality as rules that benefit everyone.
I think Hobbes has a good point, and for the most part i'd like to believe that people are good, and have morals. However not everyone does follow the laws put in place by government let alone moral guidelines.

KANT- 1779, believed that you should never lie, no matter what the circumstances. He believed that you should always help someone no matter what your gain or lack there of, would be. He suggested if we were forbidden from lying, then trust between people would be higher, whereas if it is allowed, it would become the done thing and therefore no one would ever believe one another.
           OOOOOOOOH. I like Kant just because he makes me think. I think he is wrong, but I am thinking none the less. I consider myself a very honest person, perhaps at times, a little too honest. I distance myself from liars and try to avoid lying at all costs. HOWEVER... I do think some times there are times when good people are hurt by unnecessary honesty. The term 'white lie' hasn't just made itself up, its come from these times when your fattest, ugliest friend really needs to hear that she looks fantastic, or the lovely ex boyfriend who asks, but really doesn't need his ego hurt any more by the admittance that your new guy is far better looking. Lying, leads to mistrust, YES, but some times the best moral thing to do is to perhaps not tell the whole truth. I find it quite small minded of Kant to suggest that all situations can be painted with the same brush of honesty being the best policy.
Also, were we in a world, where lying is forbidden, there would always be one person who breaks the rule, and that could lead to catastrophic outcomes purely because no one ever suspected it to be a non truth...

MILL- 1861, developed the idea of Moral obligation... making a decision that benefits the greatest number of people. Unlike Kant, Mill would tell a lie if it was a way to end something far worse.

THEORETICAL APPROACHES!

Consequentialism- is the view that the worth of an action is only judged on the value of its consequential outcomes, and is linked with Utilitarianism ( making decisions to benefit the greatest number of people) Kant would disagree with Consequentialism because he believed in no bad actions even if it was for the right reasons. I think perhaps consequentialism would be an area where the term 'moral dilemma' probably pops up quite often.

Deontology- actions judged by their adherence to rules. I think its fair to say Kant was a Deontologist. Deontology suggests that the value of an action is based upon its failure or success of following the rules, with no consideration for the situation.

Virtue ethics- an aspect of ones character considered morally good or positive. I think surrounds the idea of 'if they meant well'...its ok.

E.g: The Rule- Do not step on the grass
        The situation- A person is injured on the grass
Consequentialism approach: helping the person is the right thing to do because you have benefitted them, with ripple effect to their family, work colleagues, Boss, and so on and so forth.
Deontologist approach: You cannot step on the grass because that is the rules.
Virtue Ethicist: stepping on the grass is ok because you want to help some one and do a good deed, there's nothing in it for you, but you believed it to be the right thing to do at the time but you don't make a habit of standing on the grass for no reason.

COMPARATIVE ETHICS: Understands that 'good' or 'bad', 'acceptable' or 'not acceptable' changes due to circumstance of time, place and society. It is not set in stone. Rather than 'normative ethics' which suggests what society should be like. Plato suggests that comparative ethics is not what is, but what it seems to be at the time in that area.

MORALS AND ETHICS

Devlin, 1959: suggested that private behaviour should be regulated by morality derived from Christianity. That personal private acts against this morality affect public cohesion.

Hart, 1963: argued that the laws purpose is to prevent harmful acts, which affect others , such as theft etc. He suggested that there can be no common morality because society and the people within it are too different, and its the minimum content of natural law that is needed for society to function properly.

JS MILLS: The Harm Principle. The idea that people's actions should only be limited so that they don't 'harm' anyone else. Again the modern term would be the ' they're alright, as long as they're not hurting anyone'...

PROFESSION vs OCCUPATION

Occupation= a job that you do, a job that you occupy
Profession= must be trained, be of a certain intellectual standard, provide service to society.
Further elements of 'profession': sometimes you need a licence to practice, you get judged on your behaviour and work.

PROFESSIONAL ETHICS

So err, this is where we get into the nitty gritty bit. At the last campus session with Alan we discussed professional ethics. To do so we split in 2. What it means to be a professional, and what is ethics. I think the key thing to remember when it comes to professional ethics, is the ripple effect. When you are in a professional position, more is expected of you. The ripple of your actions is greater. For example, a doctor (who has had extensive training, has a licence, continues to do exams and is checked back on) has a greater responsibility than going to work treating some one and leaving.
The doctor has trust put in him by the patient, due to the extensive training. Therefore there are a number of expectations. The doctor has a duty to the patient, and therefore the patients family and friends, the patients work colleagues and boss who are changing there plans to cover the absent employee, the doctor has a duty as an employee themselves to the hospital to follow the rules and regulations set in place, as well as the ethical obligations of being a 'good' employee (i.e turning up on time, working hard). If the doctor is private, there is an even higher expectation on them due to the cost of their time, where as if the doctor is NHS their action then also affect the view of the NHS to society. This affects the trust that society puts in the NHS or doctors in general and so on ...

Morrrre research, and putting it into practice.

So, I've not been blogging that much recently, because I've been trying to follow the advice that i've been discovering during my inquiry to see if it works, and to check if I'm on the right track. I chose this topic of inquiry because I wanted it to be relevant, and effect my life as it is now for the better.

So what's been going on!? well.  A few weeks ago, after speaking to Naomi, I joined various online groups, for singers and songwriters, and looked into different jobs within music, and applied for updates of events coming up. I returned from Disney almost a year ago in order to further my career and realised that actually I had done nothing of the sort. I recieved an invite on Facebook to a charity event in a small music venue, to which I replied with,, can I please have a slot in the line up instead?
I was in luck and got offered a 30-45 minute set in the line up which took place last night. I had a guitarist and a percussionist who joined me and we covered many well known acoustic pop/rock songs. The set went really well.
The owner of the venue has offered me a paid opportunity at a later date where I would perform three 45minute slots in one night.

For this I would need to find a guitarist willing to join me on a regular basis. So i'm now on the hunt for one. I've also got myself onto soundcloud, and uploaded a cover of a Paramore song so I have something to send to people who ask. And been in contact with a fairly established songwriter in Twickenham who is interested in collaborating. So I feel like slowly, progress is being made.

Im hoping that by getting myself out there at the smaller gigs I may find people who may want to collaborate in future.






Coincedentally, just been in touch with another singer songwriter who performed last night, who would be interested in working with me on the gigs in the future so thats great news.
PROGRESS.