This is a concept album about my personal journey of my mental health throughout the different stages of the educational system. The first song 'Prime' is about primary school, 'Turned to black' is secondary school, 'College attitude' is of course college and 'Growth' is me now, reflecting about how I am now and comparing it to then. The songs are personal to me but I believe the concept fits on a larger scale - in that when we're children we're happier and none the wiser, then we tend to run into more problems as teenagers and may start to rebel before maturing. I wanted to link my story to the educational system as it's one of the main systems in life that see's us through the beginning of our lives. It can have a lot of impact or influence on us due to how we might deal in that kind of social environment at different ages. I got a lot of inspiration from 90s/early 2000s music such as Alanis Morisette, Nirvana, Avril Lavigne, Hootie and the Blowfish, Hanson and more. 
The main aim of my project was to convey my personal emotions throughout my life and the educational system. I also wanted to have people relate to this process and perhaps provoke thought or even reminice on how we might stereotypically grow as people. My story won't be the same as everyones of course but it follows quite a typical pattern and so one of my aims was to depict this process. My musical aim was to have an album that fits into the stripped back, early 2000s/90s rock/pop genre.
With all of these songs songs, I began by writing the lyrics as this was one of the most important parts for me to really express lyrically and poetically where I was at each stage. I tried to paint a picture of my life and use techniques like repeating the same words or ideas in the songs to link them together and show my progress or my downfall. Next, came the chords and I would play around with some simple sequences until I found something I liked then I would tweak the lyrics to fit the rhythm and structure. Then would come the recording and production where I would choose some extra instruments like piano and bass and create a sound that is fluent throughout.
Overall, I am happy with how this turned out and I think I successfully conveyed my original main aim which was to depict my life throughout the different stages of the educational system. The overall mood, feel and style of the album is what I originally had in mind and I feel like the lyrics and styles of each song delivered the appropriate emotions at the time. There were a couple of things I ended up not including at the end that I thought about at the beginning, one being including strings. Towards the end of making the album, I wanted to keep the true essence of a stripped back rock/pop album and although strings would've sounded good, it would've slightly taken away from the finished product I was going for. Another thing I ended undoing differently in regards to my initial idea was not having interludes or small instrumentals between songs. Truthfully I could have done this but the 4 songs came to around 16 minutes and I felt like the songs told everything I wanted to tell. 
To improve, I could definitely get better at recording and producing. I am definitely just somebody who is happy to write little tunes in my bedroom with my guitar but am not great with producing. In particular, balancing the instruments and even getting the best recording of each section.

Jess Wolohan

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