Crafting Musical Excellence Everyday
Take Flight With NightOwl Studios Where We Soar All Night
This month, I have been taking a course called Professional Writing - Online. The coursework has covered professional writing and the different mediums through which it can be delivered to an audience. As with other types of writing, it is important in professional writing to know your audience. Considering the nature of the relationship between the author and audience, the tone (formal or informal), length, and style of writing changes. My experience with professional writing is limited to that of a student. However, this rule still applies. Writing to my professor is different than messaging a classmate. When contacting my professors, my writing is more formal, in language and format. Soon, I will graduate and begin my career. I will be interacting with all sorts of people, and it will be very important for me to be aware of my audience when writing to someone. I will use these skills when reaching out to current and new clients, as well as possible employers and potential collaborators.
Taking this course has also helped me see that I need to be more proactive with my professional communication. To be honest, I always thought of professional writing as rather routine, like filling out a form. It should always be direct, clear, and formal. Impersonal. After completing the Professional Research assignment, however, I realized my view was too simplistic. Knowing your audience - background, likes/dislikes, etc. - allows you to craft a message that is more likely to resonate with them.
I had a narrow view of communication via social media as well. I saw messaging through these sites as informal and, therefore, not suited for professional communication. However, so many careers have been launched on these sites that they have become an important medium for communication. This has also made me realize that I need to be more mindful of everything I put out there on my page because a potential client could be looking at and/or reading the content on my social media page.
With the rapid acceleration of AI, people are becoming more dependent upon it in areas like education, healthcare, and business. The benefits of using AI are also rapidly increasing; from assisting in data gathering and processing to enhancing the daily lives of disabled people. Musicians use AI to help generate ideas and create new sounds. While many are excited about the potential benefits of streamlining the creative process, others fear AI could end up replacing them entirely. Of course, this fear exists in other fields as well. I do believe that using AI to assist people in their work and/or daily lives is a positive thing, but it could turn into something negative too. People losing jobs to AI is one example. Another is the introduction of deepfakes into society. Deepfakes are images or videos of events that have never occurred. Using AI to alter a person’s appearance or mimic their voice has resulted in some people creating conversations that were never had and actions that were never taken. If this were used for entertainment purposes only, that would be one thing. However, most instances of deepfakes have been to deceive people with fake news. Like other powerful tools, whether AI is a positive or negative thing depends on the character of people using it. I can see myself using it to assist me when creating music. I just hope that people are careful with it, and I pray that the vast amount of cases involving AI come from moral and responsible people.