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PG A2 Presentation Script Welcome Mindfulness as a Tool for Record Producers More precisely, during the mixing process. I am interested in the effect mindfulness can have on every task a producer has to take care of, but where I am in my life now, I feel like starting with the mixing process is the more relevant task to focus on. “How does exercising my mindfulness influences my focus and productivity as a mixing engineer?” Where does this question come from? I started mixing a long time ago. I feel like now, I have understood the usual tools we have at our disposal (EQs, dynamic range processors, special FXs, etc.) I am not saying I am an expert in the subject because I am still a junior engineer, but I feel pretty confident with all those tools. I have to mix 2 different albums for September. And I know it’s those kind of situations where I ruminate on the mixes, everything gets “mixed up”, I feel stuck and that can last for a long time. In preparation of that, I feel the need to prepare myself. More precisely, I think I need to work on my mindset whilst mixing, my focus, how to not loose myself in the mix. This will hopefully help me being more efficient. Definitions Mindfulness John Kabat-Zinn: Biologist who “extracted” the mindfulness out of the Buddhist culture to incorporate it in the western medicine by creating the MBSR. He developed it as a way to help patients heal. MBSR: It has also been proved that it increases long-term memory and attention During the last decade, the MBSR has slowly been implemented in the professional world to help workers as well as patients. It is mostly found in those sectors: Health care (physical and mental) / Business / Sport These are four of the articles I have read during my research. I could not find any existing research about mindfulness and producing but together, thes articles helped me understand how to implement mindfulness-based programs in the “world of work”, what kind of programs exist, and the way people usually assess them. They usually adapt the MBSR program to their possibilities/budget/schedule, etc. To collect datas, they all use questionnaires based on Likert-Scale that the participants will fill up. The two main questionnaires that I found in every articles are: FFMQ (39 Questions) / MAAS (15 Questions) Since I fixed as one of my goals the increasement of my mental toughness, I also thought that the MTI (20 questions) would be useful. I found some other existing questionnaires, but they were less relevant to my study. Together, these three questionnaires are covering everything I need to assess my level of mindfulness. Method for the Preliminary Study Take the FFMQ, MAAS, and MTI have a pre-training score. (I’ll show you my scores in a few minutes, it’s not really good) I decided to do a few mixing session where I would mix for an hour, do 30mins of mindfulness training (guided by Jon Kabat-Zinn on an app), and then mix for another hour. During this time, I would keep notes about my thoughts and feelings. With this, I would end up with quantitative and qualitative datas. For the A1 of the PG Research module, one of the articles I read was using a quantitative data-based research, and the other one a mixed method. It showed me the importance of having both for my research, as they complete each other quite well. Results Quantitative: As I said, I am apparently not a really mindful person… As you can see, my motivation score is quite good so that’s what I need at this point. I selected the most relevant facets the questionnaires are assessing. I just want to briefly digress to say that a study made by Baas and colleagues in 2014 showed a link between observation and creativity, which is interesting when we talk about music. These are the principal facets I am probably going to talk about but I will not exclude the others. For example, coping with pressure is also relevant, but I have never really experienced pressure whilst mixing, mostly because I am usually alone in a studio. Qualitative: These three quotes extracted from my notes sum up everything I wrote down. It is quite limited. Issues of the Preliminary Study The qualitative datas are insufficient. I need to put more rigour in the way I describe things to be able to get something out of it. Mindfulness is something that we acquire over time. The writers keep repeating it in all the articles I have read. The MBSR program is an eight-week program during which the participants have to practice 6 days a week. Another thing is that I feel more efficient, but am I really? I need an external point of view for this. In the end, I have found the tools to assess my level of mindfulness, but I forgot to take the productivity in consideration for the preliminary study. (it is also because I didn’t have client to ask questions to) Training Program To ensure I am practicing mindfulness right, I need to follow a specific program. I chose the MBSR since it is the one that featured in every articles I have read and the fact that I am fairly new to mindfulness. The Palouse Mindfulness website is a website created by a certified MBSR instructor. I chose it because it is free and will give me the possibility to schedule my training myself since it is not an in-person training. It features videos of multiple instructors, readings, and daily practise. If I ever seem to lack time to do my daily practice, I have read in the Jha article that at least 12 minutes of meditation per day seem enough to present good results. I will be using the JKZ app for this if I need to. Regarding the productivity,  Back to the library Further research about productivity. I found the Limphaibool & colleague article (2017) that features a good diagram that explain how they assessed productivity in their study. Of course, since it is the manufacturing sector, not everything is applicable to music production, but the majority of these elements can be useful. They split the work performance in three categories Quality of work / Quantity of work / Timeliness And define each of those categories with specific key skills. I selected Reliability / Responsivity to requests / Judgment & Decision making / Priority setting / Amount of work completed / Work completed on schedule I will be able to assess some of those skills myself by creating a schedule and fix some goals for each day/week. I also found the SAOQ, created by Anna Sutton. It is a self-reported questionnaire designed to assess the frequency with which respondents experience outcomes related to the development of self-awareness. One of those outcomes is the proactivity at work, which seems relevant to my research question. But there are some key skills I won’t be able to assess on my own. I will need a customer satisfaction survey. Inspired by Hague and Hague’s article, I selected what important questions should the questionnaire include. It is split in 3 sections…… To sum-up, this is what needs to be measured in order to answer my research question. The Larger Study Concerning my methodology for the larger study, this is how I am going to proceed: - Follow the MBSR Program - MTI: Score at the beginning & Score at the end of the adventure - FFMQ / MAAS / SAOQ: To follow the evolution of my state of mindfulness - Keep a “logbook” to collect qualitative data - Establish daily and weekly goals throughout the whole experience - Get my clients to fill out satisfaction questionnaires The Impact of my research I am aware that it is a pretty selfish experience since it is made to “make me better”, but it might be useful to others if it is conclusive. I think it may also show a way of structuring the freelance mixing engineer’s work. Thank You!