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In our final week we discussed a review of the themes of the course as well as the overarching goals:
- Did you do the readings and pay attention in class?
- Can you manage DAW software?
- Can you think critically and synthetically about working with DAW software?
The themes we reviewed were: the problem of attention – does digital media alter attention span?. displacement – immigrants/space and time/meanings and music, racial categories, enclosure vs. openness, individual vs. openness, generational divide, question of authority (over meaning) and restructuring due to the digital age, disembodiment of music (identity and recordings, people are turned into information), the medium is the message, and many more!
The two themes I identified with the most were the lectures on displacement and racial categories. Particularly discussions on Claude Shannon and how information theory ignores meaning, the disembodiment and displacement of sound throughout music, how the music industry was segregated by marketing, Miller’s argument of how southern music was reduced to racial identities and stereotypes, and the parallels between Carr’s theories on construction of self and how music making has evolved from a physical experience. I hope to touch on all of this in my paper, and through the process of constructing a song. While I have completed a significant amount of my song I’ve realized that I have began to make something that sounds like the music I listen to, eclectic, lots of harmony and layers, but not quite country which is my ultimate goal (as mentioned in a previous entry). I, like many, have found myself stuck in a box of comfortable consumerism, but instead of marketing putting me here I did it on my own!!! Regardless I need to adjust somethings in order to complete my original goal.
All and all, as a music lover and big fan of history I enjoyed this class in its entirety. I learned so much about the origins of the music I listen to, making me a more aware and conscious consumer, and in a way it ruined somethings for me (for example: White Christmas, once a beloved holiday classic, glorifies the minstrel show and is filled with racist sentiments), but in a good way!
Thank you for a wonderful semester, there was never a dull moment, and I hope you enjoy my song (and annotation of the experience)!