The Language of Performing Arts

On being given the task of creating and performing a song based on the stimulus provided, it seemed doable and was approached by my group and I with enthusiasm and determination. We achieved roughly what to set out too. With some effort and contribution, every member of the group provided a vital input into the making of our final piece. Although all group members could have put in more effort to provide a more tidy finish to the performance, I believe the song written was of a good quality. When given the stimulus our group came up with several ideas based on â€Å"Of Mice and Men† for lyrics, although only those who knew the play were inspired by this particular stimulus. The other stimulus was ‘Dustbowl Days' by Nicole S.Porter and this again provided vague ideas for lyrics. The group however took more specific ideas from â€Å"Dustbowl Days† and used ‘Life' as a topic for the song, the lyrics were then written around this. As far as music is concerned the group decided that the lyrics could not be written out until chords and melody were fitted into place. As I was the most experienced with music in the group it was my job to find chords that created a sad yet effective pattern for a deep and meaningful song. After tampering with a E, D flat minor, G sharp minor, B chord progression for the verse I finally came up with just a simple A minor, F change over. Then every eighth bar a G fitted well. The rhythm was straight and of a moderate tempo, we decided working with a straight 4:4 rhythm would be easiest and besides that would fit our song better too. We practised improvising melodies over these chords until the group agreed on one fitting better than the others. To do this we took notes from the chords and practised singing them over the top of the chord to try and create a sad yet beautiful sound, this was achieved by holding the first note of the first chord of each verse and then using notes which fitted into the scales of both chords for the rest of the verse. Two members of the group then wrote the lyrics while I taught the other two members the chords and appropriate piano and guitar parts. We felt we wanted to include more instruments to give a thicker texture to make the song deeper. The piano part consisted of a simple set of notes (A, C, E, F) linking each chord before each change over. These harmonised very well as the notes were taken from the chords. The timbre of our song was very important to all members of the group and we decided that the lead guitar should be dominant and of a more clear sound so in order to do this the rhythm guitar used palm muted power chords while the lead clearly picked the notes from the chords. This did not only prove more practical but also have a more calm and tranquil effect as intended due to the songs nature. We then decided we wanted to try and make the audience ‘fall in love' with our song, this was ambitious but in order to do this we intended to take advantage of the G chord every eighth bar and create a hook from it, this we achieved and although the singers did not harmonise with each other they did harmonise with the chord creating a hook line. A chorus proved quite difficult to make as our verse had come to us so quickly we were puzzled as to what to do. As the verse was in a minor key we decided the chorus should be in a major key. We came up with possibilities for a chorus and decided it should definitely consist of C major as the first chord as this fitted the well with the song. Certain members of the group then wrote more lyrics and insisted they had to be the lyrics for the non-existent chorus; this made writing it an even trickier job. After agreeing to all meet up and work on the chorus during a free block only two of the members of our group turned up, this added insult to injury and we finally decided as a group we shouldn't spoil our song by adding another melody and set of lyrics which were of poorer standard to the verse' and instead we should simply just have a guitar picking chords C, D Bb, and G. This didn't turn out to be too badly and fitted the song well, and after speeding the tempo of the chorus up it fitted the song well. The transition from verse to chorus was immediate and very smooth, and then from chorus to verse it was paused with a two beat rest. As far as the performance of the song went it could have been better, the picked intro went as planned as with the fist verse and chorus, but one of the members of our group had decided to change the structure of our song at short notice, therefore the song did not end properly as not all group members had been informed of the removal of one of the verses. The part of the song that did go to plan was played pretty well and with little mistakes. Intentions were met as far as the audience were concerned although our mistake was noticeable it was not really commented upon. Little feedback was given but the audience responded all the same as the general tranquillity of the song was felt by most. If we got the chance to make and perform a song again I would insure more harmonising was done to create a deeper feel in timbre, and possibly more instruments were used including drums to maintain time. I would also ensure all group members were at rehearsals as appose to just two, this would mean more work could be put in to a shorter space of time.

Macro and micro environment of clarks shoe company Essay

Macro and micro environment of clarks shoe company - Essay Example Thus they moved the entire production overseas meanwhile maintain their high standards. Clarks Shoe Company maintained their marketing strategies according to the latest world trends. Their marketing campaigns such as ‘Act your shoe size, not your age’ and ‘Enjoy Every Step’ has upheld the glory of this company (clarks.co 2012). The company adjusted their strategies and made their important decisions keeping in view its micro and macro environment. The micro environment of a company is the ‘internal factors’ that affect a company’s ability to serve their customers. These factors are the company’s departments such as finance, marketing, research and development, accounting and purchasing operations. Others include the suppliers, the marketing intermediaries, competitors, publics and the customer markets. On the other hand the macro environment of a company is the ‘outside factors’ that include the economy, demographics, technology, culture, politics and natural forces. In this essay I will highlight the micro and macro environment of the Clarks Shoe company and how to gain online sales of our shoes. In order to emerge as a successful company, produce a high quality of product, deliver it to the client and receive a positive response from them, every department needs to work together a team. If we want to gain more customers who buy our shoes online we need to start with the marketing depa rtment who has to do effective marketing that can attract online customers. Right now our sales of Clarks Shoes are going very well and the company can put in the finance required for increased marketing. The company needs to keep up with the computer and internet age as it did in the nineties. Nowadays as time becomes a rarity, more and more people are opting for online shopping. According to the latest research the online retail industry will amount to over 270 billion dollars in 2015 (Wauter, 2011). In 2012 more than 242 million Chinese people

Capital Budgeting Analysis Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Capital Budgeting Analysis - Research Paper Example This shows that the company has improved on the efficiency of the usage of the assets of the company. This is also depicted by an improving asset turnover over the three year period. In 2003, the company generated $1.25 of revenue for every $1 invested in the assets of the company. Moreover, the company is also maintaining a strong control on its administrative and selling expenses; this is depicted by an improving net profit margin. This signifies that the company has strong growth prospects in future and could pave it way to become the market leader in its line of products. Figure 1 Figure 2 Figure 3 Since the company has strong future prospects, the company can use the IPO to its advantage. It will provide Superior Living Inc with the much needed capital money for expansion of its product lines including the production facility. The ‘going public’ stance will also boost the awareness of the company products in the market and develop a whole new batch of potential cust omers. This can eventually lead to an increase in the market share of the company. However, once Superior Living Inc goes public, she will have to face a number of challenges as well. The company will require fulfilling all the necessary obligations of the Securities and Exchange Commission as well as Sarbanes-Oxley Act which will lead to additional costs. Similarly, the management will come under immense scrutiny and pressure from different stakeholders which can lead to somewhat questionable practices for boosting earnings. This is because investors look at short term growth instead of the long term stability in the company. Debt is another option to the company to fulfill the capital requirements for the necessary expansion. the debt option will provide the company with the total control of the business with no scrutiny and pressures from the investors and other stakeholders. Similarly, the interest on the debt will provide a beneficial shield to the company as it will lower the future tax liabilities. However, the debt financing option will increase the leverage of the company; thereby increasing the chance of bankruptcy. Superior Living Inc has a moderate debt to total assets and debt to equity ratio. As shown in figure 4, the company finances only 28.3 percent of its total assets through the short term and long term debt. If the company funds the new production facility through debt, the ratio will still stay below 30 percent. Figure 5 depicts the debt to equity position of the company. The company has maintained an excellent interest coverage ratio over the three year period. It does not face any chance of interest payment crisis in near future; therefore, can easily use this option as well. Figure 4 Figure 5 The company has huge growth potential and a chance to explore new markets and product ranges. The new production facility is the need of the time; and therefore must be carried be carefully analyzed and carried forward. The new production facilityà ¢â‚¬â„¢s cash flows were analyzed at different hurdle rates. Since the Net Present Value of the project is positive at all three possible hurdle rates, the project must be carried forward. Similarly, the Internal Rate of Return is greater as compared to each hurdle rate; therefore the project is acceptable. The project has a simple payback period of 3 years. However, the discounted payback period 4 years at a

Communication paper Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 1

Communication paper - Essay Example In the conversation, the sender was my friend who sent a message to me by directly asking me my plans for the weekend. The question was clearly transmitted to me by my friend to which I responded positively. It was apparent that I am the receiver of the message and transmission was immediately achieved since I answered my friend with choices of places that we can visit. I also suggested some things that we can do like watch a movie or just play games in my room. In a way, there was noise between the message since I was excited by the fact that my friend is back so anything is possible. My friend’s message was clearly transmitted because that is also what I had in mind. Using the linear communication model, the conversation was successful because both parties were very optimistic and looked forward to the topic. If I were to analyze the conversation using simultaneous transactional model, it can be said that I was able to give a positive feedback, the message was decoded very well. I know that my friend has the best intention why he invited me so I relied on that belief. Even before my friend my called me up, I was already anticipating some invitation from this person. The conversation seemed very simple indeed but there lies many important lessons in communication. First of all, messages are can be easily decoded by the receiver when the person receiving the message feels positive about the sender. Since the message was transmitted by a close friend whom I trust, it was not hard to send a good feedback. Of course, this is not applicable in all times since noise can also be an obstacle in decoding the message. I could be experiencing some problems that my friend doesn’t know which can elicit a cold response. Probably, I could be feeling ill at that time and would not want to displeas e my friend so I just accepted the idea. No matter what the case maybe, there is another important lesson in communication

Tyco Company - Process of Communicating Change to Its Staff Essay

Tyco Company - Process of Communicating Change to Its Staff - Essay Example Applying this concept to Tyco’s case, the turnaround team have used Gerard and Teurf’s transformation skills to overcome the frustrations of employees through suspending judgment on those who clearly erred by never openly commenting on what happened; showing determination to change by replacing the members of the board; getting away with sophisticated images of grandeur (moving the Tyco office); and instilling a new culture of adherence to ethical standards, accountability and good corporate citizenship. 2. Tyco used vignettes to communicate changes in ethical behaviour. Write a vignette that could be used by Tyco to assist in overcoming the cultural change barriers that companies like Tyco faced. What international issues might need to be taken into account in writing these vignettes? Possible vignettes that Tyco could have used to assist in overcoming the cultural change barriers that they faced at the time are: â€Å"Transparency is the best policy† or â€Å"Tyco means business: out with conspiracy and engaging in a fraudulent mess.† In writing these vignettes, the message should be clear and should be understood in all cultures where they do business with. The universal nature of adherence to ethical standards through the promotion of transparency in governance must be imminent. Using Ford and Ford’s four types of change conversations, Tyco would go through the process of communicating change to its staff through: (1) initiative conversations, where the need to establish change would be promoted through assertion and declaration that there is a need to reinvent its credibility and integrity; (2) conversations for understanding to encourage personnel to appreciate the changes being proposed to be implemented through vignettes and by affirming reading the new code of ethical conduct; (3) conversations for performance where clear and accurate actions for change are seen and indicate the determination of top management that change is crucial to regaining trust and confidence in the public, and through the use of middle management who cascaded and localized the proposed changes; and (4) conversations for closure where the change garnered a reward indicating that Tyco was one of the most dramatically improved organizations. â€Å"The time of concealment, conspiracy and fraud are over. Just like a ship that has been devastated by a tsunami, now is the time for transformation, for a complete turnaround.  Ã‚  

School segregation Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

School segregation - Essay Example By the 1970's attention focused on trying to desegregate elementary and high schools. Here a problem arose, for if schools were blind to race, then the racial mixture of the student body should parallel the racial percentages of the community. Consequently, as school districts might not necessarily be segregated, they could easily be a larger percentage of a certain ethnicity, schools were hardly heterogeneous. If nothing else, wealthier communities frequently had, if not necessarily better education, then certainly more access to updated teaching supplies. To overcome this inequality, federal and local governments promoted "court-ordered busing", known as "forced busing" by detractors. This essentially distributed students sometimes miles away from their home, and frequently by several much closer schools, in order to create a balanced integration over the widest number of school districts. This program met with varying levels of success, yet remained effective through the '70's up until the late '90's. The desegregation is said to have peaked with the federal overturning of mandatory busing in 1991, directly due to a large migration of Caucasians to suburbs, the creation of magnet and charter schools, and larger enrollment in private schools. While magnet and charter schools can draw students to otherwise minority oriented neighborhoods, their degree of integration ultimately boils down to the selection process. The Harvard Civil Rights Project claims that the largest focus of segregated schools is now in the Midwest, with schools in the Northeast following behind them. Re-segregation has been addressed most recently because of proposed laws in Omaha, Nebraska, which would divide the school districts into three segregations: black, white, and latino. Ernie Chambers, Nebraska's only African American State Senator, claims that the proposed law, which would go into effect in 2008, would "let minority-led school boards run the schools that educate minority children since white-run schools have failed to improve black and Latino graduation rates and reduce dropouts nationwide" The law would simultaneously erase the integration busing has established, which has returned to racially predominant segregations since the end of busing, according to Jonathan Kozol author of Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America. His statistics indicate that by the academic year 2000-200 1,in 87 percent of public school enrollment in Chicago was black or Hispanic while less than 10 percent of children in the schools were white. Other cities revealed similar trends: Philadelphia and Cleveland were 78 % black or Hispanic, 84% in Los Angeles, 88% in Baltimore, and nearly 75% in New York City, respectively. John Jackson, education director for the NAACP, interprets the busing reversal this way: "The implications are the same as in the '50s: Minority students in high poverty areas are not getting a quality education." Why should the public be concerned by school integration Firstly, because segregated schools perpetuate inequalities in learning abilities and widen the gaps in academic success for children of different race. The UCLA School of Public Policy and Social Research finds that "Test scores, college attendance rates, and employment outcomes have been found to improve for students from integrated schools

Critical analyse of the external and internal environments Essay Example for Free

Critical analyse of the external and internal environments Essay From the long run, the economy will only be developed better than before, as long there are no large scales of wars. If the economy in the world is developing in a steady and healthy way, the demand for the cars will be larger and larger. The fact that the number of Japanese cars assembled in North American will soon reach 2 million per year will lead to the oversupply, so it is likely to threaten the price structure of the U. S. auto market and in the meantime, it will bring about negative impact on the revenue of the automotive businesses in the U.S. market. 3.3 Social factors As long as the customers have a certain level of buying power, there will be a large number of car buyers. After the World War II, nearly all countries in the world were making every effort to recover from the war. The war was destructive to all the countries that had participated in the war. In some developing countries, people even had to worry about whether they had to suffer from hunger, let alone buying car to make their life easier. However, as the recovery of economy, people begin to think about the houses and cars to improve the quality of their life(Ravichandran et al., 2005). In the meantime, the social concept is also changing. Men were the trend of the drivers, but more and more women are independent and have good economic conditions, so the demand for cars is also increasing. The changing social trend has enabled Ford to produce various types of cars in order to meet the different demands from different groups. 3.4 Technological factors The advent of the Internet has simplified customers’ life, and the advent of cars have make customers’ life more convenient. However, Ford does not cease to make innovation in terms of technology. For instance, most modern cars have been equipped with intelligent systems such as Global Positioning System (GPS) which enables the customers not to get lost no matter where they go. The intelligent system will be able to provide the car owners with alternative lines according to the actual situation of the road. If there are traffic jams, the system will remind the car owners to choose another alternative. In addition to the intelligent system which will benefit for the car owners, the design of the cars will also be more human oriented. The innovation of technology will bring convenience to customers, so the design and the function of the cars in Ford will ! enable the customers to have better experience of driving. Therefore, more and more customers who can afford cars wil l choose to buy a car. 4. Internal environments of Ford The analysis of internal environment can find out the absolute strengths and weaknesses. If the enterprise sticks to its past successful strategies, they will fail in the new competitiveness for not updating its strategies(Leidner et al., 2011). Every enterprise has its strengths and weaknesses, and the internal strengths and weakness and the external opportunities and threats will be the foundation for enterprise to formulate strategies. This section will use SWOT analysis to explain Ford’s internal environment. 4.1 Strengths Ford has long history and its brand has been well-known to the whole world,  and this strength has enabled Ford to make brand marketing. As long as the brand has been known to the customers, the customer will buy the product due to the brand effect. Then, there is effective customer management system which will enable Ford to target the existing and potential customers more accurately. On the other hand, there is diversified management system that can attract real talents to Ford to make wise decisions. There are many job opportunities that are offered by Ford, and the policies on human resource management are flexible. 4.2 Weaknesses It has reported that the quality of the products has not met the standards in recent years, so many of the cars have to be recalled back to the factory. This incident has indicated that the quality check system has problems, and this may cause public relation crisis. On the other hand, to compare Ford with its competitors, Ford has not introduced sophisticated technology such as robot in the process of manufacturing the products. The third weakness is that the cars that have been produced in Ford have not reached 27.5 miles per gallon fuel efficiency standard(Peppard and Ward, 2004). 4.3 Opportunities As Ford is a multinational company, the international market has been developed due to the market expansion. In such case, the product will not only be sold in the native country  but also in foreign countries. In the meantime, Ford has developed its e-business system on the internet, so the international market is able to enlarge and the market share of Ford is also likely to increase. Then, the low cost of cars does not mean low quality, so the cars will be cost-effective, which will attract more customers to buy them, and thus increase the sales(Peppard and Ward, 2004). 4.4 Threats The major threats come from the competitors of Ford, especially the Japanese cars, for the Japanese manufactures are trying to open the market of luxurious cars in the United States. In the meantime, the exchange rate of Japanese yen and the U.S. dollar is ever  changing and not steady. In addition to Japanese cars, the new entrants to the U.S. will also come from China and India(Leidner et al., 2011). Another threat is that the government has been more involved in the regulations and policies on cars. Although there are concessions made by the government, the  concessions may be taken back by the government. 5. Strategies for Ford in the next five years The analysis of SWOT for Ford will be helpful for the decision makers to make the strategies for the future. When the key external and internal factors have been effectively matched together, it will help Ford to be more competitive than its competitors. It is suggest that the decision makers can implement SO strategy. This strategy will enable Ford to take full advantages of its internal strengths and external opportunities(King, 2002). Effective brand marketing and good customer management system, as well as human resource management system will enable the company to develop its e-businesses in the international market. If the famous brand has affordable price for customers, the sales and market share will increase to a certain extent. As long as the market share and sales has successfully increased, the company can rank at the first or second in the same industry. Another plausible strategy is WO strategy which will make use of the external opportunities to make up for the weaknesses. However, the weaknesses can sometimes become obstacles for seizing the opportunities, so if the company should try to overcome ! the weaknesses and turn them to strengths. For instance, if the demand for the cars which have equipped with intelligent system is large, but the factory has not acquired the technology o f equipping the system, so Ford can cooperate with the companies which have this technology. In such case, both companies will benefit from this business. On the other hand, if the company does not want to cooperate with other companies, the employees who have the knowledge of such technology should be employed to the company with high salary in order to assure the technology innovation. 6. Conclusion In conclusion, this report has conducted a close study of the external and internal environments for Ford Motor Company. The political environment has proved that the government has both positive and negative impacts on Ford, and the economic and social factors have turned out more and more people can afford a car, especially the independent women. The technology factors have also contributed to the increasing market share and sales of Ford for its convenience and comfort and affordances. Then the report has made a SWOT analysis of Ford’s internal environment, and it has suggested two plausible strategies for Ford in the next five years. One is SO strategy and the other one is WO strategy, which will enable Ford to realize its stra tegic objectives in the automotive  industry.