My name is Reuben-James, I am doing an internship placement at Pie Factory Music for 4 months to learn the ins and outs of how to run a business. This blog is of my first experience at Pie Factory Music, talking about what I did and what I learnt.
Day One
On my first day of my Pie Factory Music internship, I arrived at 12pm and was introduced to Zoë, an employee at Pie Factory Music. Zoë interviewed me in order to learn more about me and my traits. I learned that Zoë is a singer and runs different youth operations in Thanet. I was told about different events the Pie Factory Music are hosting, such as a youth club every Monday and concerts at the Ramsgate Music Hall. Once the interview and induction was complete, I sat down in the office and began to work on a SWOT analysis of the Pie Factory Music social media presence. I found that they have clear branding and with a few changes can improve their social media greatly. Whilst I was making my SWOT analysis I spoke to Caroline, who I met last week, about her role in the Pie Factory Music business. She has been working at Pie Factory Music for 17 years now. Furthermore, I learned that she is the finance manager, she works on invoicing, payroll, banking. She has to report the finances to the company house. She is a member of the senior management team. One of her responsibilities is maintenance around the building. She also has other responsibilities such as writing policies and HR management. She told me about the history of Pie Factory Music and I learned that it was created 17 years ago by Caroline and Brian (an ex-trustee). The Pie Factory was originally named TYMAZ, which is a cool synonym. TYMAZ was located in the council offices until it was renamed Pie Factory Music and moved to Ramsgate.
After I was finished speaking to Caroline, I spoke to Luis. He is a youth work team leader, Luis works 5 days a week and hosts different sessions for young people. On Mondays he hosts 3 sessions, a volunteering group, a Duke of Edinburgh and a live band group in the evening. On other days of the week he does a variety of functions. Luis also attends meetings, he makes sure sessions go as planned, he answers emails. Even though Luis has a wide range of things to do at Pie Factory and is very trusted, he has only worked here since July of 2017 which shows he is a quick learner and can adapt to situations.
On Monday, I returned to Pie Factory Music for a youth session in which the studio is available for young people to record their music and express themselves. I sat in the studio with the engineer, Matt, who was mixing all the sounds and making edits to the song. It was fascinating to see how much knowledge of Logic Pro X he had, making edits effortlessly. I got to learn more about how the whole system works with Matt talking to the rappers in the recording studio and them talking back even though they were in separate rooms, and I also learned how Matt records separate takes, and can take the best parts from each take to make sure the final product is perfect and exactly how the rapper wanted it. I began to further understand how frustrating it can be for an artist having to record the same part of a song again and again. One rapper had to repeat one line over 20 times until he got it perfectly, once comparing this perfect take to his first takes where he made errors, you could hear the frustration in his voice, but it wasn’t an issue in the end as with a click of a few buttons Matt had levelled the audio to sound more energetic.
Day 2
On my 2nd day at pie, I began by learning about their upcoming projects such as their masterclass at Dreamland Margate. I was given the task to make a post on their social media platforms to promote the event. I could see that Zöe had taken on board the tips I gave her last session about using emojis to boost the colour and appeal, as Zöe was making sure I used emojis.
Once I had posted online my next task was to reformat the poster to a certain size in order for Dreamland Margate to also post about the event on their website. I used an online tool to help me edit and make sure all necessary information is in the post. From this I learned that even when you have a specific role at an organisation, sometimes tasks may come out of the blue that you have to deal with. Although I have little knowledge of photo editing, I used an online tool and figured out a way to make it work. Once I had finished making the post for the Dreamland Margate website, I sent them to Zöe, who then forwarded it to Dreamland to post. I felt like I had learned a new skill that will stay with me, and in future I will know what to do if I have no software available.
Once I had completed those tasks, me and Zöe started talking about interesting topics, and I showed her a video about online privacy.
By Reuben-James Gilbert
