Set in the late 1700s and early 1800s, Hamilton follows the story of Alexander Hamilton, an American founding father who rises from poverty to become one of the most influential figures of his time. Almost all of the show is sung or rapped, with an average of 144 words per minute and the cast album lasting 2 hours and twenty minutes (the whole show is around two and a half hours long). Although I loved every minute, a moment that stood out to me particularly was when Aaron Burr (Jay Perry) sang Wait For It. The way Perry moved around the stage was so graceful and controlled that I couldn’t help but get mesmerised by the performance, not to mention the hauntingly beautiful way he sang it.

However, one small thing I didn’t like was when the actor playing George Washington’s microphone broke, and he had to shout into the audience for around a minute until his scene ended and the backstage crew could fix the issue. This made it difficult to hear him and also slightly ruined the feeling and tone that the scene was meant to have. However this was just one small blemish in the performance, and didn’t take away too much from the show.

Although I had watched the film of the musical on Disney Plus, I hadn’t gone to see the show live before, and found that this made for an interesting experience as I knew the words and was used to the way the actors in the film say the lines, but also enjoyed the ways the Broadway actors added their own style and character to the songs. I also really liked sitting with an audience and seeing something that hadn’t been edited or had scenes retaken multiple times, and being able to laugh or cry with a group of people all experiencing the same emotions at the same time.

I shared my review with another person doing Silver Arts Award, and they wrote out what they thought of my review. This is attached below:

Overall, I really loved every minute of the show and would rate it 4½ stars out of 5. Despite minor faults such as a microphone breaking, I greatly enjoyed the way the actors brought the performances to life and was very sad when it ended. If I could I would love to see it again as I feel it would be very interesting to see it another time and catch any details I missed, but am so happy that I saw it on stage and know that it's an experience I won't forget.

Plan and introduction - 18th October
For the Silver Arts Award Challenge part 1A, I have chosen to take my Grade 6 piano exam on the 2nd December 2021 and to try to pass with merit. The exam includes sight reading pieces, longer practised pieces, scales, and aural tests. To begin I have made a list of all my current strengths and weaknesses at playing the piano.

Strengths:

• Playing the right notes in pieces
• Arpeggios and major scales
• Playing the right rhythms in pieces
• Aural sight-singing exercises

Weaknesses:

• Sight-reading
• Creating feeling and emotion in the piece
• Performing in front of others
• Playing staccato technique
  
  I also developed an action plan in order to organise my practising and optimise my improvement through the next 5 weeks.

Action plan:

• Practice at least 3 times a week, an hour each practise
• Scales - 20 minutes
  Focusing mainly on staccato scales but also playing through other scales.
• Sight reading - 10 minutes
  Playing small pieces I have never seen before, going slowly to ensure I am working through them properly.
• Pieces - 30 minutes
  Working on creating feeling and emotion on the piece, perhaps adding in notations to help.
• Listen to the pieces on the way to school
• Arrange sessions for me to play in front of others, perhaps friends or family

Midpoint check - 13th November

It is now around halfway to my exam since I started the action plan and listed my strengths and weaknesses, and I think I am improving quite a bit in all the areas I identified as needing more work. I can now sight-read short pieces quite soon after seeing them, but am still playing them too slowly compared to how fast they are meant to be played. Having spent considerably more time on scales and arpeggios than I was previously, I can now play them much more fluently and find it much easier to play the staccato scales without it sounding too jumpy or out of time. However I still need to work on playing under stress and in front of other people, as I did play through the whole exam once in front of my family and found it quite difficult and would have done better if I was on my own. I plan to do this more often in the coming weeks before my exam, and perhaps ask my friends to do watch me play during lunch at some point.

The day before the exam - 1st December

Tomorrow is the exam, and whilst I'm quite nervous and stressed, I think I have a very good chance of passing it with quite a high mark. My playing has improved significantly over the last few months, and having played in front of my family a further three times, I think I will be able to play well under the stress of having an invigilator watching me as well. My pieces are sounding fluent and well-rehearsed, partly because I've listened to them on the way to school on repeat for the last few weeks, I rarely mess up my scales when practising now, and I can sight read the type of short pieces I am going to be given in the exam quite easily. Although I'm very nervous for tomorrow, I think that overall it will go well and hope to get a good mark.

Here is a video my dad took of me practising just before my exam in a practise room as I had about 10 minutes to practise before the exam. He was aiming to get just me playing the piece so the scale I played straight after Allegro by G.B Pescetti is unfortunately cut off midway through, but it still shows how I was playing the pieces just before the exam.

After the exam

After having taken the exam and passing with merit, I am very happy with my progress and the result I obtained. I think that my scales improved a lot due to the scheduled practices, and listening to the pieces really helped me ingrain the song into my memory and helped with the timing. I think that I could have perhaps focused slightly more on my sight-reading when practising as I got a lower mark for this than the other parts of the exam, but I also think that performing and doing mock exams in front of my parents really helped me overcome my nervousness. Overall, I am very pleased with how much I improved in the run-up to the exam and hope to do just as well, if not better, in future exams.

2A - What I think makes a good leader

For my unit 2, I chose to present a workshop online to the rest of my Arts Award group on how to create a catchy hook for a song. I have firstly listed what I think makes a good leader:

• Being calm and organised
• Being interactive and interesting to listen to
• Be good at communicating ideas to groups of people
• Being confident and strong when leading/presenting

I think that currently, I am quite organised also confident when talking to people, but not very interactive or good at communicating in a way that makes people really interested in what I'm talking about. I plan to develop my leadership skills throughout running this workshop, by improving these skills and become clearer in the way I communicate, as well as getting more people involved in the project.

2B - Planning the project

The first time I led the workshop, I wrote out a plan before to read off during the session, which can be seen below. I was to be presenting the workshop on Zoom, so I didn't need to bring anything physical to the session, but I did need to provide a link to a free online piano so they could create their own hooks at the end of the session. However this time I didn't really think about how long each activity would take or if how I was presenting was the best way to communicate my ideas.

2C and D - Delivering the project and how I could further improve my leadership skills

However, after leading the workshop the first time, I went away feeling that I had spoken too briefly and not explained the concept in enough detail. I chose to write out a list of leaderships skills I showed that I was good at and the ones I needed to improve:

What went well:

• Confident in presenting - I was very confident and not quiet or nervous.
• Answering questions - I could answer any questions in a helpful and concise way.

What needs improving:

• Communicating clearly - I don't think the group fully understood the idea or what a hook actually was.
• Being organised and having a clear idea of timing etc - I thought I was good at this, but the session showed that I needed to have a more thought-out plan of how I was going to run it.

I decided to run the workshop again two weeks later.

2B - Planning for the second time

This time, I went over everything that I was going to say before the workshop and created a slideshow for the presentation. I also allocated how long each activity was going to take, wrote it out and had the plan with me when I presented to the group. This is attached below. Additionally, I thought more about where and when the session would be and wrote out this list of things to consider when presenting:

• I am presenting online, so I need to talk clearly and make sure my face is always in the camera so people can see me.
• The workshop will be about half an hour, so I need to make sure I don't run over, or skim too quickly, over any areas.
• Because we are online, people need to click "share audio" when presenting their hook so we can hear it properly. If people can't share their audio, they could post their notes on the chat.
• Some people might feel shy to offer answers to questions I ask, so I should give some examples before asking the group.

I also emailed the leader of my Arts Award group to ask if I could screen record the Zoom meeting, which I have screenshotted and included below.

2C and D for the second time

After running the session for a second time, I think my skills at presenting and communicating clearly and concisely, and not abbreviate things too much, had really improved. I also got the group much more involved and think the way I communicated was much more interesting and engaging. I also had a much clearer idea of what I was going to say and how long everything would run for, which meant that I had met the criteria for what makes a good leader that I listed at the beginning of the project.

Unfortunately, screen recording didn't work in the session that week, but I did manage to get some screenshots and photos of my computer as I was presenting:

I also asked the group to send feedback on how they found the workshop, which is attached below:

The second time I ran the workshop, it was much more interactive and I think I sparked the group's interest more successfully than the first time. I asked questions to the group more frequently, memorised much of what I was going to say so I didn't have to make it up on the spot, and had more examples of hooks prepared. This reflected in the group's response as many more of them were willing to share the hooks they created than the session before, and all of the hooks they produced were exactly what I had been aiming for.

2E

Overall, I think my leadership skills have greatly improved and really enjoyed the process. However, if I could do it again I would've liked to be in person to deliver the session as being on Zoom made it more difficult to believe that there were real people listening to me and following my instructions. If I could run the workshop for a third time, I'd love to do it in person and get the group even more involved, and perhaps have them pair up so they could share ideas and discuss how to create the best results. If I had more time to run a longer session I would also like to show the group how to add chords to the hook, something that would greatly enhance their music-making skills.

But in general, I think that running the session a second time greatly improved the workshop, and really enhanced my leadership skills. I now know that, whilst being concise and to-the-point can be good, it is also good to go into more detail and explain things, and this will reflect in the group's work as well. I also feel I have gained experience with talking to a group, something I hadn't really done before, especially to a group of people my age. I hope to do something similar again sometime soon, as I did really enjoy the process of presenting to a group on something I find interest in and would love to improve my leadership skills even further.

Research into jazz music

I firstly decided to interview my piano teacher, Nikki Yeoh, who plays at jazz gigs as well as teaching piano in schools across North London. She gave me an insight into how playing jazz to earn money works, how she came to be playing jazz and what she likes or dislikes about her job. The interview, which is about 6 minutes long, is attached below.

To summarise, Nikki's jazz inspiration started in secondary school, when a music teacher recommended some famous jazz musicians for her to listen to. I similarly only became interested in playing jazz about a year ago (I'm fourteen now), through Nikki, so it interested me that I could still potentially make a living out of it in the future having only started relatively late. Nikki is self-taught, having not gone to university, but instead joined multiple jazz bands with other musicians before creating her own band. I thought that was interesting as, should I not want to go to university, jazz music would still be open to me as a career, and it didn't necessarily require any qualifications to have a good career in. She now lectures in Leeds Conservatoire (which I subsequently looked into and you can visit the link of by pressing it), in addition to teaching secondary school children and playing in gigs. When I asked how large her field is, she replied that she knew lots of people who did the same thing as her, something that surprised me, because I didn't think so many people were in the world of jazz or music teaching. When asked what she'd change about her job if she could, Nikki replied that she wished there were more hours in the day. As someone who enjoys being busy and always having something to do, I totally agreed with this and thought that perhaps a lifestyle similar to Nikki's would suit me well.

Research into photography

I also looked into photography and how best to get a good career in it, as it is something I am quite interested in. I was surprised to find that photography jobs are in quite high demand and it is quite sometimes quite difficult to find contracts or jobs. This is particularly in light of the development on phone cameras, which take such nice photos that professional photographers almost aren't needed anymore. However, I decided to find out exactly what would be needed to be done to become a good photographer who got hired often because it's something I really enjoy. I found a university in London (where I live) called the University of the Arts London that offers photography courses and thought it looked very interesting - the link is here. I think I could work my way through the courses and eventually take the post-graduate degree, which would show potential employers I was skilled and committed to work. Through my research I also found out that getting work experience is also very important (particularly after reading this article), so I think that while taking my postgraduate degree I could find a more experienced photographer to help out and gain knowledge and experience from them. However, this is also in quite high demand, so I would have to work very hard to get a good position working for an experienced artist, but I can be very committed and would be willing to put in the work and keep going until I found a mentor who would give me work experience.

Overall, I think both the careers I've looked into could work for me and I could have a full and interesting career in them, but I think I would prefer going into photography. This is because I enjoy having a more set path to take where I can plan out what I'm going to do and don't have to rely on being chosen out of thousands to be in a band, like in jazz. However, having a job like Nikki's could be better because I could get into working faster and start earning money earlier. Even so, I think I would rather go into photography as it is overall something I enjoy more and would love to make a career out of.