Karen. And her skills.

My first goal is reached, with help from classmates.

I’ve now got my own MySpace, the first step to promoting myself better.

http://www.myspace.com/karenmusaeus

What I feel I’ve learnt so far!

Looking back on last semester, I feel that I’ve gained knowledge on subjects I didn’t know anything about (anything else would be quite sad, really).

I will try to put down in words what it is that has captured my attention the most. First of all, changing from song dip to pop dip must be one of the best choices I’ve made in my life. I then sat down and made friends with Ann Harrison, and reading her book made me open my eyes for so many aspects of the music business I hadn’t been aware of before. The lessons we’ve had have done the same thing. Also, the combination of business skills class and master class has helped me see how the theory is highly relevant in real life, but since nearly all of Harrison’s examples are proper examples from the music business, it’s been more of a confirmation. When it comes to legal advice and contracts, I’m surprised by how interesting I think it is. I come from a family of legal advisors and lawyers, and anything having to do with law has reminded me of boring Sunday dinners. However, the combination of law and music was a fresh wind of something I thought I didn’t like. Especially the work we are doing on contracts in snapshot-groups is an eye-opener, and I find that valuable as all-round knowledge when it comes to making agreements in the everyday life. And it’s without a doubt quite fun to share my opinions with my friends who are in the Norwegian music business and that the knowledge I’ve gained in one semester at LIPA is helpful to them.

Now that our class among other things is zooming in on our personal business plans and the structuring of our visions for the future, I’m finding it easier all the time to dare to think ambitiously, yet realistically, on how I can best present myself in the business. It doesn’t matter how small my goals are, as long as they are the right ones for me and can be reached. I’ve realised that how you promote yourself may be the crucial factor to whether or not you will succeed, and there’s no point in sitting and waiting for things to happen. I also think it’s the perfect time to learn about this since the industry is so rapidly changing, and understanding a little bit more about reasons for the development makes me very engaged in what’s going on.

I can take it back. It’s my blog.

I take back what I wrote in my previous post. At least the parts that would make you think I work hard. I sat down by my computer at 6 pm to work on this presentation, but before I could start properly it was midnight. Who stole my time??

And oh, for my presentation, I will speak more clearly than last week. I will also try to ignore my nerves so they don’t get the best of me, and I will try to get my point through.

I think I know who stole my time today, by the way. Here’s a picture of her.

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Evaluation. And my thoughts on stuff. And stuff.

I’ve learnt something today. A general rule for feedback is to say what’s good, what’s not so good, and then come up with three suggestions to make it better. I’ll remember that. I thought the feedback I got today was overly positive. I know I didn’t get my message across. I got nervous, and I forgot to read the quote that explained my whole presentation, and read it in a rush towards the end. And I talked too fast. And to be honest, I found the subject really interesting, but I didn’t get the overview I wanted. Some things must’ve been all right, and I know I got extra support from my classmates because I did it on my own. But it wasn’t good, and I know that.

So why are we so afraid of evaluation? If we know that we will get it, why can’t we just mentally prepare for it? If we all were relaxed and cool about being evaluated, we wouldn’t be scared of being honest either. I’m not scared of bad evaluations. It sucks a little bit to get them, and I’m sure I come up with reasons to try and explain why I did what I did, but that just shows everyone, and myself, that I really need it. Some of us want everything we do to be good, without being too self-critical, or taking everything too seriously. I like quality. Sometimes I don’t work hard enough, and then the result is bad. It’s as easy as that. My last week in Song Dip, Sam who teaches Intro to voice talked about how you can’t change your habits and limitations before you become aware of them. I liked that.

“Karen’s presentation was vague, and it was hard to catch her point. She should have been clearer on what the issue was, and where the different education programmes fit in the picture. She rushed through the different slides on the Powerpoint so I didn’t get the chance to read what it said, and even though it seemed she did it on purpose (is this me defending myself?), she should’ve been clearer on why she did it. She seemed a little bit nervous and didn’t seem to find all the words, so she should rehearse the presentation more in advance.”  Karen’s invisible classmate, who was coincidentally in class at the time.

I’ve had the pleasure of once participating in a teamwork that really worked, and I got very positive feedback. I felt great. I’ve also stood in front of a class at the Uni. of Oslo by myself with my pathetic little presentation on noun conjugation while my professor in portuguese grammar held a speech to the students, saying “you’re at university now, and this is NOT good enough”. I felt bad, and cried and laughed at once, and promised myself to never ever end up in a situation like that again. It was good fun, actually, when I think about it. Most things are, when you’re over that phase when you feel like shit.

I’m very lucky, because I know that I can do it if I try, and if the teamwork is working. But I need constructive critisism. And I hate that being realistic about your skills or efforts somehow is looked at as having low self-esteem or being weak. It’s not what it’s about. You can always get better, you just usually need an extra pair of eyes to see. And I look forward to feedback after the next presentation.

Plans for the future, as they are this particular Sunday.

It took me about an hour to tidy up after my party today. That’s not much, so I still had a lot of time to spend. I thought I’d go out for a bit, but I stayed in and thought about my plans for the future. 

Those people who know what they want to do with their lives are very lucky. I’ve been trying to come up with ways to have music and playing/singing as a part of my everyday life, without having it as my job. I haven’t been sure about what kind of education I should get. I thought it was music. Even though I’m still unsure of what I want to become, I’ve learnt that what I have to offer musically is my style, my songs and my voice in that context. There will always be someone who’s better, who masters more genres than I do, who’s more suited for a job, more musical, more everything. But no one can interfere with my own music, of course they might find it uninteresting, but the music is the way it is. I haven’t been writing for long, either. I did write a lot some years ago, but I just started again this spring, and I have so much to learn. I couldn’t base my life on something that unstable, but I could spend my free time playing with friends. In shabby pubs. I’d love it. We’d play a first set, have a beer, and then play some more. It would be good.

These thoughts make me hopeful. Let’s just say that that’s my future. Just for today.