iQuest Final Reflection

By far, the best thing iQuest has done for me has been to confirm my passion for the subject I have chosen. Having the opportunity and being pushed to pursue my passion of writing music has given me experience and practice in something that I can now say for sure is what I want to look for in a career. Because of the time I was given and the motivation of simply being a part of the class, I was able to get a lot done, most of which I'm very proud of. One of the biggest and most important things I learned is the importance of good communication. While I did my best to keep up quick responses and clear language, I learned how frustrating it could be when the other people that I'm trying to work with don't do the same. For anyone who knows what they want to do, wants to confirm what they want to do, or simply want to give themselves good preparation for their near future, I would highly reccomend iQuest to them.

Digital Workspace

At this point in our day and age, technology has a place in seemingly every industry and every workplace. From a very young age, we learn to socialize and communicate with friends and family both close and distant. Even in school, more and more students and teachers are collaborating with technology and using evolving technology in completing, sending, and receiving school projects and assignments. These skills that students are utilizing are also being utilized in the common modern workspace. Applications such as Google Drive are becoming important and necessary for many areas of study. For me, personally, I've had to learn how to use music-based software. This includes audio editing software like audacity, physical composition software like musescore, and modular music studios such as Psycle.

Workplace Attitude

I am an optimist. It does not seem too much use being anything else. ~Winston Churchill

The reason I chose this quote is because it lines up with my general manner of thinking on any average day. It makes sense that being anything but positive will not get you very far. I find it very difficult to write an entire paragraph on this one simple line. Ironically, you may have read that last sentence with a negative tone. This was not intended. I merely intended to point out that the concept of the quote is very simple and there is nothing more to it that what it says.

supercalifragilisticexpialidocious

How Full is Your Bucket

In Tom Rath's discussion on people's metaphorical "buckets", he shared with the viewer a few ways that he or she may keep a "full bucket". The first was fairly obvious and self-explanatory; prevent bucket dipping. Essentially, this is saying to avoid bad things, stick to good things. As simple as this sounds, it's something that many people find trouble doing. Sometimes it's voluntary, but sometimes we have no choice. Everyone has those people that give you no option but to interact with them on a regular basis. The best thing one can do is to avoid adding people or things to that list. Another strategy was to "shine light on what's right". Again, the concept is fairly simple and obvious, but difficult to grasp in the moment for some people. It just makes sense that positive criticism will, in both the long and short term, have positive results. One last strategy for keeping a full bucket was to "reverse the golden rule". The "golden rule" being respect--treat others how you would want to be treated. This last strategy was unique, in that it was not based off of common knowledge or basic fundamental thought. The point made is that not everyone is the same, and ergo, not everyone wants to be treated like you do. Each person is a unique individual with different needs and desires. Instead, one should find out what it is that fills others' buckets, and utilize that knowledge to do so.

While I agree with Rath's points made in his discussion, I feel that it was primarily due to the fact that most of it was composed of common logic. I also feel that the lecture was ultimately dry because of this fact. While I did find some of his research and studies to be interesting, his examples became redundant. I would have much more preferred to have been given a resource to access the studies cited, that way the redundancies are avoided, and anyone who wishes to review more information on the topic may optionally do so.

Personally, as humble as I can possibly be, I definitely consider myself a bucket filler. This is primarily based off of what others tell me, as well as my individual way of thinking. I personally do my best to make people happy and prevent them from feeling sad or angry. Many people have repeatedly told me that they have never seen me sad or angry, and some ask me how that is. I guess the answer is simply because I am, apparently, a bucket filler.

My Essential Question

What is the biggest market for music composers?

To be completely honest, coming up with an essential question pertaining to my topic was very much more difficult than it seemed at first. What made this difficult was the fact that music is an art form, and ergo, has an abundance of elasticity to it when trying to deal with and inquire about absolute qualities of the subject. Instead, I had to think about the important things I should know regarding the occupation itself. By trying to find the answer, I feel that I may learn a useful amount of information that I can use to better plan out my career.

IQuest book

The book that I read regarding my iQuest project was Anyway Anyhow Anywhere: the complete chronicle of THE WHO, by Andy Neill and Matt Kent. The book is essentially a definitive and highly detailed story of the band The Who. It details everything from the very beginning of the band's formation through the death of drummer Keith Moon in 1978. It is a useful tool for my personal project because it offers insight into different perspectives of the music industry as well as methods of songwriting. Personally, my favorite part(s) of the book were the chapters detailing the years 1964 and 1965. During this period, the reader is taken on a voyage through The Who's struggling rise to popularity. I found that reading about how the band journeyed on through various venues and songwriting strategies was very interesting. Overall, however, the book does tend to get fairly dry and boring. This is not the fault of the author though. The purpose of the book is to offer the most detailed telling of the story of The Who. It does its job well. It's just that the stories sometimes get SO detailed, it loses captivation. That being said, I would not recommend this book to anyone who is not a die-hard Who fan or extremely interested in the music industry of the mid 20th century.

Planning for Second Semester

Now that I'm finally almost half way through my senior year of high school, I can confirm that time does, in fact, move slower in school. It seems like it's taken much longer than 3 1/2 years, but I'm here. The best parts of these last few years have definitely happened outside of school. Rundown Radio continually grew more successful, and my job as a martial arts instructor was becoming more stable and efficient. Overall, I can definitely see how I have matured over time. I do recall many stressful and strenuous hours spent over homework and projects for classes, but the time in between makes for some good memories. This year, I am very grateful for the extra time that iQuest has given me. It has allowed me to put a lot more focus on what is now my passion; writing music. This has evolved to improve both the career of Rundown Radio, as well as my own personal career as a musician for media. I even recently learned how to use a program that allows me to directly edit the coding for the music of one of my favorite childhood SNES video games. As far as the future goes, my plans are panning out well. I recently got accepted to my top choice college: Berklee School of Music. I have also applied to UCSC, USC, UCSB, and Cornish, but Berklee is definitely where I intend to ultimately go. However, I am deferring my admittance until fall 2015, to allow myself time to continue to work and gain money close to home while promoting Rundown Radio.

Bucket List

• Skydiving/BASE jumping
• Travel the world (at least 4 countries)
• Attempt a world record
• swim with dolphins
• Invent something
• Bungee Jump
• Go cliff jumping
• See the aurora borealis
• Become multilingual 
• Write a concept album
• Go backpacking over multiple days

Chasing Signals now available!!

Rundown Radio's new EP, Chasing Signals, is now available!

iQuest Update

Recently, things have been kind of hectic with all the college applications due soon. Luckily, many of the colleges to which I am applying for give me opportunities for experience in the process. That's why a lot of my recent free time has been devoted to writing scores for submission to music colleges. The downside is that this, on top of my job and school, leaves me with almost no downtime. So far this year, I have completed the soundtrack for two indie video games. The first is a mobile puzzle game called "Polygone", which can be found here: http://www.stencyl.com/game/play/19861 (note that only one song has been coded into the game so far, as it is still in the mid-early stages of development). The other is a platformer called Pointstar. Images can be found here: http://www.indiedb.com/games/pointstar/images. Almost all of my music has been posted up on my personal soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/joe-marchuk. 

And then there's everything with Rundown Radio. We've been playing all over the place lately, and will be playing this Friday at the annual Danville Tree Lighting. Most excitingly, our new EP, Chasing Signals, will be released soon. It is our greatest recorded work yet, and we're all really excited for it's reception. 

Most importantly, I'm having a great time doing everything--even during the hectic moments. Once college applications/auditions/interviews are all finished, any residual stress should be out of the way.

New website to view completed projects

http://musescore.com/user/131797/sheetmusic

^a website where people can read and listen to music scores.

Word Cloud

Holland code and Meyers-Briggs code

Holland Code: ASR

Meyers-Briggs Code: ENTP

                I found both codes to be close to what I scored myself before taking the tests. In fact, the Meyers-Briggs code was exactly what I anticipated. The Holland code seemed to be leaned  more towards career choice, while the Meyers-Briggs code seemed to be leaned more towards personality type. This is interesting, because after reviewing the results of both codes, I found that the Holland code gave more accurate results for career choices, while the Meyers-Briggs code gave me more accurate results regarding my personality.  

                My pre-test estimate for my Holland code was that I would be artistic, social, and investigative, but I after taking the test, my code showed that I was artistic, social, and realistic. To be completely honest, after reviewing the code, and reading about the similarities and differences between the possible codes, I didn’t find a very large or noticeable difference between the two.  Many, if not most of the suggested career choices that were recommended to me were careers that I have considered.  As far as the code descriptions go, it’s not necessarily that they were completely inaccurate, but that they do not seem to be a major part of the Holland codes, and were vaguely described.

                As for the Meyers-Briggs code, my pre-test estimate was that I would be ENTP. After taking the test, the results I got were an exact confirmation. On the results page, not many careers were listed. Those that were listed did not interest me much and were not careers that I had significantly considered before. There was, however, very extensive descriptions and explanations regarding the meaning of the code’s significance in terms of personality. I found that essentially every aspect of the description of ENTPs fit me perfectly. 

TED

After watching multiple TED talks, one in particular interested me greatly. The video, posted May 2013, showed musician Victor Wooten lead a talk in Gabriola Island (British Columbia, Canada) titled "Music as a Language". The concepts that Wooten spoke of really spoke to me. Overall, the talk is about the universal nature of music. It is not something that is supposed to be taught, or forced. It is something that is learned naturally, just as an infant learns to speak its first language. From the moment you are able to hear, you are learning to be a musician. Just as from the moment you are spoken to, you are learning your first language. Music is natural and collectively comprehensible by anyone. It doesn't need to be interpreted, or explained. It's just enjoyed, without any instructions. Towards the end, Wooten also speaks of how we can take concepts of music, and apply it to everyday life. For example, if five of the greatest musicians in the world came together, but each played separately, the sound produced would still be awful. In order to make something beautiful--something that works--people need to work together. If those five musicians listen to each other and play together, then that's when magic happens. This video was absolutely inspiring, especially as a musician myself. The way that Victor Wooten explains how musical concepts can tie into anyone's life is why I would still recommend this video to one who is non-musical.

Goals

            The first of my goals is the biggest. With the upcoming release of our EP, “Chasing Signals”, I have given myself a very measurable  though unpredictable goal. Once the CD is released, my goal is to have sold at least 400 units within the first six months through heavy advertising both during and in between gigs. As mentioned earlier, the primary complication for this particular goal is the fact that we cannot fully predict how the CD will sell. However, we are doing everything we can to get the message out to the public, fans and strangers alike. Using posters, announcements, social media, radio stations, concerts, giveaways, t-shirts, stickers, and everything in between, we are making sure that people know.

            My second goal, though insignificant, is important to me, personally, because it symbolizes procrastination incarnate. Blaringly obvious and a general nuisance, my car has been unnecessarily dirty for months now. Inside and outside, it has gotten to a point where I am distracted even while driving simply by being inside it. Within the next two weeks, I will take at least an hour of my free time to wash the outside of my car, and clean out the inside thoroughly and in an organized manner. To put in the best terms, I will give it a car wash, followed promptly by a colonoscopy.

            The last goal I will mention is a primary focus for any senior; college applications. Or to phrase it more correctly in terms of goal setting: college acceptance. Although I do not plan on going to college right away, I still plan on applying to college this year. In fact, I will—this month—apply to my top choice school; Berklee School of Music in Boston. My goal is not simply to apply, but to be accepted into the college. This hinges not just on high school classes and transcripts, but on audition and interview, which I will prepare for thoroughly. 

5 People, 5 Things

Five people who can help me achieve my goal and how. (I've chosen to avoid specifying names to prevent offending anyone on accident):

1. Parents--financial support
2. Boss--Providing me with a steady job and income while I pursue my goals
3. Bandmates--For obvious reasons, working together towards a common goal
4. Parents of bandmates--financial

Five things I've procrastinated on:

1. Starting college apps
2. cleaning my room
3. paying parking ticket
4. cleaning car
5. studying language

Who am I?

I'm Joe Marchuk. As a senior in high school, I have a lot of aspirations. This blog however, is about the intangible form of beautiful energy that intertwines and forms into waves of molecules which in turn intertwine within each other to assimilate into a flowing rush of sound that we humans like to call "music". In my quest to create this "music", I must travel into the multi-dimensional world within our own in which my mind must venture through to grasp the power of the infinite. In this pocket dimension, there is danger lurking around every corner, but if I make it out alive, Ill be able to continue doing what I love; writing music for media, as well as writing for the band Rundown Radio, in which I am a guitarist and background vocalist. For now, I have a good job teaching martial arts. I'm saving up money a few hundred at a time, so life will be a bit easier when I've moved out. As mentioned before, I play in a band called Rundown Radio. We just recorded an EP at Sunset Studios earlier in the summer, down in LA. We plan on releasing it later this year. We can be found on Facebook and Twitter, as well as our website: www.rundownradio.com
Aside from that, I've been experimenting with digital music composition and production. I've been making music for a few small indie video games. Most recently, I completed the music for a puzzle game called Polygone, which will also be released sometime later this year. I've been posting my finished creations on soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/joe-marchuk
So far, things are going well. Life is moving at a good pace, and I'm hoping everything continues to improve from this point on. To stay updated on my endeavor, just keep checking out this blog occasionally, and you can see what the infinite space of the dimension of my mind has to offer.