FS got talent was an event organized by a few students in IBDP, where  participants from school take part in competitions such as Music, Drama, Dance, Live art etc. I have been drumming for 8 years and this event gave me an delightful opportunity to exhibit my creativity skills in Music. As being an advanced level drummer, I had chosen to compose my own drum solo of 5 minutes. Also, the event was planned during the weekend to not miss out on academic learning. Everytime I show myself as a Musician on stage while playing with the band, but this time I thought to initiate as a solo player. It was a wonderful time for me to test myself, where do I rank out of more than 30 performers taking part in the competition from the school.

LO1: Identify own strengths and areas for growth

It was an easy task for me to identify my strength which is Drumming. When I looked forward to my weakness, I identified that stage fear is my biggest weakness. Then I participated in this event as a solo performer to overcome my weakness. In future also, I would look forward to such events where I could grab opportunities and let the stage fear go away. Composing my own drum solo was most challenging, since I had never created that before with my years of knowledge in Drums. At the end, when I got to know that I’ve ranked 1st. My confidence level had built up and at that moment my fear of the stage also vanished. The significance of knowing our strength and weakness is to help ourselves improve upon it by making our weaknesses turn into a strength.

LO2: Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process 

The most challenging part was composing my own drum solo. The beauty of Music comes out when you relate your life with an instrument and so I did. It was challenging because I tried to create such a unique solo which I had never heard anywhere in my entire journey of learning drums. I had discovered the creativity skill because the uniqueness of my solo came into picture when I was able to communicate with myself on drums by the beats and rolls, during the time of practise. When we try to express our feelings on something like an instrument for musicians or on a paper for a visual artist or either a stage for a dancer, we are considered to be an “Artist”. Apart from composing, my biggest fear was stage and I had overcome it by grabbing the opportunity of taking part in this event. Since I got 1st rank, I think my stage fear had vanished because of my confidence.

LO3: Demonstrate how to initiate and plan a CAS experience 

I had organized the drum setup according to my playing, it includes the tuning of the drum and additional use of cymbal. Being an advanced player, I think I have become an organized person after experiencing and initiating concerts outside the school. Initiating this event was difficult for me rather than planning, as I mentioned above that I had stage fear and because of which i had taken part in the event. In the future, I think that initiating big events with thousands of audience members would  not be an issue for me. As I have developed skills such as creativity. For an artist, I think that planning and initiating activities would be a very important factor because when my band was invitied at a club for live dinner, so it’s very important for learning on how to plan the activity. I mean the number of songs to be played, the timing, managing the sound system, arranging the setup according to place, all things matter while planning the activity. After that, initiating such activities would become a practice for the band. 

Final takeaway

The event FS got talent helped me build my confidence level and creativity while composing my own drum solo and performing in front of many audiences. In the end, I feel very proud of myself for being an artist and ranking at 1st place in this event. Next time, I would change a few rolls in my solo and bring more clearity. I was successfully able to overcome my weakness and turn into a strength, for which I appreciate myself.

Evidence for the FS got talent:- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8n0zqK3AwE