Zack Hersh Capstone
I used my capstone to do something that I have always wanted to do: get a band together. After beginning drums at the start of high school, immensely enjoying the instrument and the experience of learning and getting better, and progressing as a musician and as a drummer, forming and playing in my own band was always the logical next step. My project consisted of getting a group of musicians together—who I could get along with, and who were passionate and talented—then with that group going through the process of writing, practicing, polishing, performing, recording, and ultimately producing original and cover songs.
My capstone had a second part, which was organizing and running the music club to engage and contribute to the SLA music community in another way. This was a smaller element, and went very well until the club took a hit from spring sports starting and lost too many of its members to continue functioning.
My goals for what we would do as a band changed significantly as the project progressed. There was no lack of obstacles, especially assembling the right group, which was challenging and took a good deal of time. Midway through the year though, once we were together and meeting every week, it went very well, and we were able to make good progress and enjoy ourselves. In the end, we fully created an EP with two original songs—written, practiced, performed, and recorded as a group—and one cover song that reflects us as musicians.
The digital evidence of this project, our band's Bandcamp, with online audio files and digital downloads for each song, can be found here (or at 302b.bandcamp.com). For my annotated bibliography, click here.
