Work Experience with MAC Makes Music by Ryan Lardner Cameron
Hello my name is Ryan. I am a former "Switch" member. I used to play the keyboard and sometimes sing in the band. I have come back to MAC where the band rehearse, to do 1 week of work experience. I left the band because I wanted to go to the Royal National College for the Blind (RNC), which is a residential college in Hereford. I am now studying Level 3 Audio Media Production (A-Level Music). During my work experience I want to develop my communication skills by interviewing some of the music leaders and learning how to be a mentor.
What I did on work experience
Monday
On Monday I did some audio editing with Nicole Justice. We edited an interview to go onto the MAC Makes Music website. I interviewed Holly the Producer of MAC Makes Music which helped me with a documentary I’m making called Disabled Access to Music.
Tuesday
On Tuesday I went on a tour with Nicole, Holly and Jen around a music exhibition. We filmed it so that I could make a video of what I have done throughout the week. I took the footage from the tour and edited it together with the footage from the day before. Later that day I interviewed Alex, a musician and mentor, and asked him some questions about his career and his background. I then helped to set up the band session "Switch." Finally, after I set up the session, I then helped out with the session and helped them with things like the warm up. For the warm up we did the 12 bar blues in A minor key.
Wednesday
On Wednesday I was helping out Holly and Jen with some of the admin side of "MAC Makes Music." I had to fill out a reflection form to show them what we thought of the “Switch” session. Also they wanted to show me what a mentor has to do after the session and they have to fill out these sheets. Then I had to do some editing on the interview that I did yesterday with Alex. Next I had to do some writing for the "Mac Makes Music" web page. The writing that I had to do was about two of the leading mentors of MAC Makes Music, Nicole Justice and Jimmy Davis. This is to go on a ‘Meet the Team’ page on the website. To finish the day, I started writing my blog.
Thursday
On Thursday I carried on editing the "Interview with Alex." We were cutting out the bits that were not needed to shorten down the interview. After we did that we had a talk with Justice about what she does in her session called "Every Voice" because we are going to help out with it tonight. In the session we encourage the young children to get involved with singing. We did voice exercises and sang singles.
Friday
On Friday we were having a talk with a mentor called Jimmy Davis. I interviewed him for my documentary on disabled access to music. He asked us what we want to do for our career and he gave us advice on ways we can go about gaining our goals. In the afternoon we filled out a reflection sheet for the "Every Voice" session. Finally, we finished editing the interview with Alex by adding effects and backing music.