Weekly Sprint Logs
Copy this section for each week. Keep entries brief — one to three minutes each.
Week 1: Enter the 12-Bar Laboratory
Deliverable: Baseline 12-bar recording — pulse and simple support only.
Sessions completed: ___ / 5 planned
Recording completed: Y / N
Self-evaluation — listen to the recording and answer these questions:
- Did you complete all 12 bars without stopping? If you stopped, which bar?
- Did your tempo stay consistent, or did it slow down or rush at any point?
- Can you hear a clear pulse — a rhythmic foundation — throughout the entire chorus?
- Was there at least one moment of silence (not playing) that felt deliberate rather than accidental?
- Does the recording sound like a musical beginning, or does it sound like someone figuring out what to do?
One thing to improve:
One thing that worked:
Week 2: Call, Response, and Groove Gravity
Deliverable: One 12-bar chorus with call-and-response spaces.
Sessions completed: ___ / 5 planned
Recording completed: Y / N
Self-evaluation — listen to the recording and answer these questions:
- Did you feel the 12-bar cycle as three four-bar sections, or did you lose track of where you were?
- Did your tempo stay steady, or did it rush in the third bar?
- Was there at least one moment of deliberate silence — a space that felt like a musical response was expected?
- Did the silence sound like a pause in a musical conversation, or like a mistake?
- Can you hear the difference between where the phrase calls and where it responds?
One thing to improve:
One thing that worked:
Week 3: Triad Support and 027 Color Object
Deliverable: One 12-bar chorus using triad support plus one optional 027 color moment.
Sessions completed: ___ / 5 planned
Recording completed: Y / N
Self-evaluation — listen to the recording and answer these questions:
- Does the triad support make the form clearer, or does it create confusion about where the chord changes are?
- Was the triad functioning as support (backing the harmony) or as a display (showing off the voicing)?
- Did the 027 color moment appear in a natural pause, or was it forced into a moment where the harmony needed clarity?
- Did the groove stay consistent while you were navigating the triad changes?
- Can you identify, in the recording, one moment where the triad support and the groove were coordinated simultaneously?
One thing to improve:
One thing that worked:
Week 4: Month 1 Integration
Deliverable: Month 1 anchor-song study recording and brief written reflection.
Sessions completed: ___ / 5 planned
Recording completed: Y / N
Self-evaluation — listen to the recording and answer these questions:
- Are form, time, groove, and one clear musical contribution all present simultaneously in this recording?
- Can you hear a specific Aim, Route, and Complete in the chorus — a musical intention from start to finish?
- What is the clearest evidence in this recording that Month 1 material has been installed?
- What is the most obvious gap — the thing that Month 2 should address first?
- If a patient, honest musical friend listened to this recording, what is the one thing they would say you should work on?
Written reflection (three sentences minimum):
One thing to improve:
One thing that worked:
Week 5: Role Awareness and Tension/Release
Deliverable: Two versions of the same chorus — support role and answer role.
Sessions completed: ___ / 5 planned
Recording completed: Y / N
Self-evaluation — listen to both recordings and answer these questions:
- Can you hear the difference between the two roles? Would a listener who didn't know your intention hear them as different?
- In the support-role version, was there any melodic activity that crept in? (If yes, it was not full support role.)
- In the answer-role version, were there genuine silences — spaces that invited a response?
- Where in the 12-bar form does tension accumulate? Where does it release? Can you hear these points in the recording?
- Which role felt more natural? Why?
One thing to improve:
One thing that worked:
Week 6: Placement, Anticipation, and Stops
Deliverable: The same rhythm cell placed three ways — on-beat, anticipated, stopped.
Sessions completed: ___ / 5 planned
Recording completed: Y / N
Self-evaluation — listen to all three recordings and answer these questions:
- Are the three placements audibly distinct? Could someone identify which is on-beat, which is anticipated, which has a stop?
- Did the form stay intact through all three variations, or did the placement changes cause you to lose your place?
- Which placement felt most natural? Which felt most uncomfortable? Why?
- Did the anticipated placement create a sense of forward momentum, or did it feel rushed?
- Did the stop feel like a dramatic choice, or like a mistake?
One thing to improve:
One thing that worked:
Week 7: Functional Triad Placement and Motif Development
Deliverable: Four-bar motif developed over a blues phrase.
Sessions completed: ___ / 5 planned
Recording completed: Y / N
Self-evaluation — listen to the recording and answer these questions:
- Can you hear that the motif is the same seed throughout, even in its varied versions?
- Do the triads sound like they are functioning differently over the I and IV chords, or do they sound interchangeable?
- Did the motif wander (adding new notes, losing the original idea), or did it develop (varying only the rhythm and placement of the same core material)?
- Was there at least one moment where the motif landed clearly on a strong chord tone?
- Did the motif feel like it was saying something, or did it feel like it was filling space?
One thing to improve:
One thing that worked:
Week 8: Month 2 Integration — Multi-Chorus Route
Deliverable: Two- or three-chorus recording with a clear energy route.
Sessions completed: ___ / 5 planned
Recording completed: Y / N
Self-evaluation — listen to the recording and answer these questions:
- Can you hear the route — a progression from chorus 1 through chorus 3 — as a purposeful arc?
- Was the variation controlled (one dimension changed at a time), or did multiple things change simultaneously in a disorganized way?
- Did the form stay intact across all choruses, or did the variation cause you to lose the structure?
- Does chorus 3 feel like a resolution or completion, or does it feel like the recording just ran out?
- What would you name the route if you described it to someone? (e.g., "sparse to full," "answer-seeking to resolved," "tight to open")
Written route map (three lines — one per chorus):
One thing to improve:
One thing that worked:
Week 9: Subsystem Leadership and Arrangement Roles
Deliverable: Same section played as groove lead, harmonic lead, melodic lead.
Sessions completed: ___ / 5 planned
Recording completed: Y / N
Self-evaluation — listen to all three recordings and answer these questions:
- Are the three leadership roles audibly distinct?
- In the groove-lead version, did any melodic material creep in? (If yes, not pure groove lead.)
- In the harmonic-lead version, was the rhythm minimal and supportive, or was it competing with the harmony?
- In the melodic-lead version, did the fill have a clear shape (beginning, development, landing), or was it a scale run?
- For each version: what did PDC identify as the musical reason for that leadership choice?
PDC notes (one sentence per version):
- Groove lead:
- Harmonic lead:
- Melodic lead:
One thing to improve:
One thing that worked:
Week 10: Density, Register, and Genre Lenses
Deliverable: Three recordings — sparse, medium, full.
Sessions completed: ___ / 5 planned
Recording completed: Y / N
Self-evaluation — listen to all three recordings and answer these questions:
- Is the sparse version actually sparse — one or two elements maximum — or does it sneak to medium density?
- Is the full version controlled — multiple elements coordinated — or is it cluttered?
- Do all three versions maintain stable form and time, or does density change affect your navigation?
- Which density level sounds most like your natural default? Which is hardest to sustain?
- Which density level sounds most like The Thrill Is Gone's aesthetic?
One thing to improve:
One thing that worked:
Week 11: Mini-Composition — Fill, Solo, and Chorus Shape
Deliverable: One chorus where every fill has a discernible shape.
Sessions completed: ___ / 5 planned
Recording completed: Y / N
Self-evaluation — listen to the recording and answer these questions:
- Can you identify, for each fill: where it begins, where it develops, where it lands?
- Did any fill end on a note that felt unresolved or accidental? Which one?
- Does the chorus as a whole have a sense of direction — a beginning, a development, and a landing point?
- Was there a moment where a fill felt like a genuine musical statement rather than an obligation?
- If you removed all the fills and listened to just the groove and support, would the underlying structure be solid?
Fill inventory (list each fill and its ending note):
One thing to improve:
One thing that worked:
Week 12: Capstone Week
Deliverable: Capstone A (primary instrument), Capstone B (secondary instrument), Capstone C (written reflection).
Sessions completed: ___ / 5 planned
Capstone A completed: Y / N
Capstone B completed: Y / N
Capstone C written: Y / N
Self-evaluation — listen to both capstone recordings and answer these questions:
- Is the Internal Band present? Can you hear PDC making decisions, Blues Root grounding the feel, Rhythm Cells providing groove, TPS supporting the harmony, SHAPE contributing melodic phrase, CAS-ARC shaping the arc?
- What is the strongest element in the primary instrument capstone?
- What is the weakest element — the thing that would be the first Semester 2 priority?
- Does the secondary instrument capstone reveal the harmony and form more clearly than the primary instrument version, even if it is simpler?
- If someone who understood AMF listened to these recordings, what would they say about the state of your Internal Band?
Capstone C — Written Reflection (complete this page):
What the music needed:
What role you chose and why:
How each Internal Band member contributed:
- PDC:
- Blues Root:
- Rhythm Cells:
- RXP:
- TPS:
- SHAPE:
- CAS-ARC:
What Semester 2 should target first:
One thing you discovered about yourself as a musician in Semester 1: