Saturday, 22 October 2016

Genius Hour Project: Recording and Editing

Recording and Editing

Recording my lessons was frustrating. I spent a really long time mapping out my lesson plans and I have taught singing before, but without a student there for feedback or a confirmation that I am being clear enough, I was really self-conscience during the entire process. It also probably didn’t help that I could see myself while recording. It was a blessing and a curse. It was good because I could monitor the screen and whether what I was trying to demonstrate was showing up on the film, but it was also extremely distracting. Sometimes it would lag, so I would watch my mouth move after I was done talking, or I would be hyper aware of the way my shirt or face look for a moment. I did a lot of stop and starts, which added a lot of time to my videos and in result of that, I had to ultimately cut down my amount of initial videos I wanted to release. I have a lot of footage of all the lessons I wanted to release, but after editing just the Breathing Techniques videos, which turned into a video just shy of 20 minutes long, and then working on the How to Learn a song video, which was also about 20 minutes long, I had to go through about 3 hours of footage alone.

I noticed the longer I was in front of the camera, the less awkward I seemed, and by the time I was recording the steps to learning a song, I noticed a lot less stopping and starting and my confidence was stronger, which made for a better video.

Reflection

This whole experience with filming what I know and how I teach is a really pivotal moment of self-reflection for me. Because I had to record my knowledge, I really needed to review and prepare what I wanted to say, as well as double check to make sure I was still correct, so I didn’t impart bad information to the YouTube world. I noticed that I say “Um” and “So” WAY too much, especially when I’m searching for words, or starting a new section or topic.  I also noticed I sometimes don’t completely say a word, or don’t put the right tense or suffix attached to it. I wonder if I do this when I’m having a conversation as well, and not just when I’m nervous. Being aware of how I sound when I’m explaining something is an eye opener to where I need to grow in my communication skills, not only for teaching clearly, but also for my credibility.

This exercise really enforced my knowledge of singing technique and while I don’t necessarily think my videos are top notch yet, I’m glad I took the first step and plan to use this YouTube channel to build my confidence in presenting, solidifying my knowledge of singing, and improving my communication skills. As I preach to my vocal students, practice makes improvement (because there is no such thing as perfect).  









0 comments: