GR1: Proposal & Analysis

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Problem Statement

Coming soon...----

Observations & Interviews

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We interviewed three people, each with a different background in musical groups (a cappella/musical theater), and used their responses to put together a portrait of both our potential users and their needs.

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During our first need-finding interview, our goal was to determine what a cappella singers would find useful in a web application.  In particular, we asked our interviewee about common problems he faced while in an a cappella group.

• He mentioned that as someone who had no prior vocal training, when he first joined the group, it was hard for him to sight-sing music and to adjust to singing without an instrumental accompaniment.
• He noticed that many members of his group struggled with rhythm during rehearsals.
• He mentioned a virtual sheet music interface might be useful, so arrangements can be stored and shared via a central location, as opposed to through email.  
• There was also need for someone to maintain a website for their group, so recordings and videos of performances could be uploaded, which was a minor annoyance.

His first two points were interesting to us, and we decided 

Interview Two - The "New Guy"

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• She mentioned the challenges experienced in her two musical groups are different.  In a cappella, singers often find it difficult because there is no instrumental accompaniment.  In musical theater, there are many ensemble pieces, and in those, because people have a hard time hearing themselves over everybody else, it is hard for people to improve via just attending rehearsal.
• In a cappella, it is not useful to drill the notes in your head - it is more important to learn how to adapt once someone in the group goes slightly flat or sharp.  Memorization takes away the ability to adapt.
• The biggest problem with learning music is having the ear to hear where your part fits in.  In the past, to get around this, she gave people a recording of someone else singing their part with everybody else singing their parts in the background.  
• People have a lot of trouble with relative pitch and what things should sound like.
• As a director, she would like to give people feedback when they practice on their own, so she can know which parts need more work.
• In ensemble rehearsals for her theater group, it’s extremely difficult to deal with so many people all at once.  Calling on a few people to drill their parts during rehearsal leaves everybody else bored, and it’s hard to pick out exactly who is struggling, because some people will “fake” singing if they don’t know their part very well.

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User Classes

Describe the user classes that you have identified, and their major characteristics.----

Needs & Goals

Describe the goals that you have identified, with reference to the observations you made.