Course Description: Development of Personal Style is designed to enable students to synthesize elements from all of their musical and non-musical influences, enhancing the development of their unique personal voice. This class will challenge students to realize their innermost musical passions, forge a plan to program live performances and recording projects using the music you love, and recognize how to convey their music to audiences in the clearest possible way, musically as well as verbally. These goals are achieved through an in-depth study of great artists as well as intensive self-analysis. Assignments challenge students to explore works of model artists chosen by both Ran Blake and by students, to recreate those works in students’ individual voices, and to create entirely new works. It is important to recognize that while too much self-scrutiny and self-consciousness can inhibit the performance itself, both are essential in developing a sense of cognition.