My Personal Journal

I've never had a journal, and that was because I didn't think I needed one and as a result of that thought there was going to be no benefit to me at all.

I am wrong on all counts, for one I do in fact keep a journal (although not exactly in written form, more of a reflective look back using my own memory) to help me develop as a professional not only as a musician but also as an engineer. It helps not only prevent me from making the same mistakes but also to develop and improve on ideas that may have already been successful, but could still be improved in one way or another.

Writing a journal helps to break down situations in a format that can be understood easily, and the way I am experimenting with doing that is simply to detail the events that took place and then analyze them point by point with notes for improvement. If there are no immediate ideas for improvement (for example, if more research needs to be done) then it is marked for a follow up in the same way as flagging an email in your inbox or sticking a note to your fridge for example.

To honour the privacy of others and sensitive information I keep all names and details fairly ambiguous, and hopefully it will provide a new perspective on my professional development going forward.

Video

Well, if a picture is worth a thousand words then a video must be worth a thousand pictures right?

This video took a lot longer to do than it should have, I found it quite difficult to do and in the end I used quite an old take just because it had everything in it I wanted to get across and share.

Video link here:
https://youtu.be/lPCBCuI64mE

Darren

Photos Worth Thousands Of Words

I have a photo album on my portfolio website, which I use as part of my online Musician's CV. In the entertainment industry, image is very important. People want to know what you look like as well as what you sound like, and sometimes they rely more on your image than what most sensible people would regard as important things like experience and ability. I try and have a presence on many different forms of media, as it increases the chances of getting the gig and ultimately getting constant bookings and a steady stream of income. It is a very important part of social media, as although some people prefer to remain anonymous in fields such as political and social activism the role of an image can provide the viewer with much more information than typing it out.

As the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. And if you put that into the digital realm in terms of data, you have a tangible parameter in the size of the file itself. A text file with a thousand words generally only takes up less than a hundred kilobytes on a disk, a picture of sufficient quality can easily surpass this amount taking up anything to a few hundred megabytes or more. A picture is actually worth much more than a thousand words in the digital age of data alone, and when you consider the scenario of something never truly being deleted once it appears on the Internet in the form of social media it can have a much heavier impact.

Something to think about... Oh and here's the link to my couple of thousand words :-)

https://www.flickr.com/photos/127949528@N07/shares/CAC87W

Darren