Music can be used to create and express social change because it has a very big impact on different people. This can be because of the style, language and lyrics. Some bands promote anarchy, drugs, and rebellion (Dope, Three Days Grace, Sex Pistols). Some people might just enjoy the song, whereas others might take it more personally, and be very affected by it. These types of things can create social change.
Lyrics are also very easy to use to express social change. Many blues songs were about how you had to work and how unfair it was if you didn’t have white skin. Then, when they were freed and it was more fair, their songs started to be more upbeat, and the tempo could express the change in society.
Music can also influence society by influencing the children, that stays with them for life sometimes. Of course you know some things you did might not have been that good, but it surely does influence you a little.
Music can also express social change by highlighting what is different about the different generations. For example, not many adults enjoy bands such as slipknot, Avenged Sevenfold or that type of music, whereas many kids do.
Not all songs have lyrics that affect the society however, and I can’t imagine how they would. Daft Punk are a great example of this, since they hardly use 10 different words in each song but still manage to make it sound good. Here the “instruments” more affect the listeners by the beat and style.
Personally I think it’s quite cool how music can affect people so much, how sounds can have such and influence on people, but to be honest I rarely get affected by music, I just enjoy the song. This could be because I like many different types of genres, ranging from No woman no cry to God Hates Us.
Examples of songs that create/express social change:
We are now starting probability which I enjoy. Probability is used to measure how likely something will occur. We did some dice throwing in 7th grade, which wasn’t the most efficient way to measure probability, rolling a dice 100 times each and recording the result, but it was still a nice relaxed group activity. I have played some poker which is probably ( ) related to probability.
In this unit I would like to see if it’s possible to create the same ‘probability’ on a man-made device (computer) as it is in real life. For example, is a winner already decided in poker? Is it possible to create ‘randomness’?
I think probability is pretty important to learn about, although I’m not sure why. Learning about it might help you estimate what could happen according to calculations, but not when it’s completely random.
I don’t want to do something boring in this unit. (bookwork)
My best was the improvisation because I think it went quite fluent. It was improvisation so it went quite well and good pace. There wasn’t a lot of stumbling on sentences, and I think I did well on planning on what to say meanwhile saying things. I should improve on standing still and concentrating more, not looking out the window for example.
This is a speech by Marshall, and I think it was good because he was standing fairly still, and kept it concentrated. He was using good pace, projection and volume, and kept eye contact most of the time. Marshall also used inflection and emphasis and his information seemed accurate.
I am not sure wether copyright hinders or cultivates creativity, although I think that it keeps people back from doing what they want to do. I think that copyright is good, hinders people from copying, obviously, and it doesn’t hinder people from doing too many things. I don’t think songs should have that strict copyright rules, that you should be allowed to use a whole song but it has to be background music, and not the complete song by itself. For videos and such I think it’s good, you can use a little part of it, but not the complete thing, although things you can get from youtube should have no copyright, since everyone can get it for free anyways.
In art we have had a unit on cartoon characters, where we basically got assigned a font from the computer (word fonts such as ‘Comic sans’ or ‘Arial black’). I got assigned ‘Rosewood STD’ which basically looks like a cowboy font. We had to make them very stereotypical to portray the character’s culture. This could easily flip over and become kind of racist, so it was a challenge to keep our cartoons okay. For me it wasn’t very hard, since cowboys aren’t specifically related to anyone, it’s more just a style of life.
I had two options of what to do, because as I watched ‘Monty Pythons flying circus’, I saw they used that font in the beginning little clip with cartoons, so I could do something in that style, like a cowboy in Monty Python style, or I could just do a simple cowboy. I went with the easier, which is a simple cowboy, because I thought that people wouldn’t recognize the Monty Python style anyways. Now when we have completed the project I think I should’ve done Monty Python style, even if it was more challenging.
The simple cowboy turned out pretty good still. I emphasized the hat and the lasso to show the is from the ‘wild west’, and I also added a big mustache to show that he is manly and proud, just like a stereotypical character should be. I think I could research the font more in order to understand more what it is about and such, because I just did a stereotypical cowboy.
I think that some of my strengths during this unit was proportion, even if it didn’t look realistic (which it wasn’t supposed to be) but still had the same lengths on arms, legs hands etc, so it didn’t look all distorted. I also think my choice of colors were very good, especially on his button-shirt but I don’t really know why, but I just like it. I think that the rope is good, since I added lines since a rope is normally made with smaller ropes twirling around it, making it look more realistic, which in this case was good, because otherwise it could look like a snake or a hose. I think my weakest part of the drawing is the gun he has strapped to his leg. It was too small to be done digitally (we colored everything digitally, only used sharpies by hand).
I think as goals I should research the font more, it’s history and uses, to get a more in depth understanding on what it is all about, making my character look more interesting. If I did this again, I would probably include a background since I had some time left, making the character more interesting to look at and include a pose, signifying what that character does. I could set my character in a saloon or in the wild. I would need some more planning on it.
I think stereotypes kind of aided the creating of my character, since it helped me to get ideas of how to make my character look like, and cowboys are very stereotypical but still it won’t hurt anybody, with a hat, guns, jeans and the lasso.
This is my speech and I think overall I did pretty good keeping in mind that it was impromptu. I think my pace was good and it was quite fluent. I think I could focus a bit more on inflection and emphasizing key words etc. Another thing I could’ve done to improve my speaking was to stand still, when I look at the video I see that I am leaning to the sides and such, and I have mind that next time I do a speech. I could also speak louder.
We are now on semester two in school. The first semester has been good and it has been fun.
My first goal for the next semester is to try to share my ideas more in class. In my report card almost every teacher says I’m quite so I guess I should speak more often. I think this is important since you learn from you mistakes.
Another goal is to check over answers. One maths project I had became much worse because I did a silly mistake on one part, therefore making it impossible to do the next questions since they are based on the first question. This is not just important for projects but also in the future, for example exams, where it is really important that you check your work.
I could also try to join after school activities, but it is quite hard since now in the winter and spring I want to go skiing on most weekends. I’m thinking of joining track and field for sprinting, but I do not know much about it yet.
Finally I could also try to learn katakana and hiragana fluently, since that would make my time in the Japanese class easier. Since I got moved up I feel I should work on it.
Kai started off with reading the poem out loud. I noticed at the first two slides that they were all designed well. After reading the poem he analyzed some interesting sentences, and I think that was good because it was pretty in depth. He also spoke about the features of the poem. After that he showed (and read) his poem in response that he had written himself. I think it was very good. Overall I think that Kai did well, good slides, good analysis and good poem in response.
Nerissa started with reading out her poem. I think that she read it really well. Nerissa also designed her slides well. After she had read the poem she told us why she had chose that poem. She talked about it inspiring her. Nerissa then analyzed the poem a bit and introduced the author. The thing I remember the most is the slide that was going to compare the poem with something, but since Nerissa didn’t find anything to compare to, she had placed an image with a green apple and a red apple next to each other, which was pretty interesting.
Katie started her presentation by reading her poem, which she did well. After that the analyzed the poem which also was done very well. She then compared her poem to another poem called ‘The Wolf’, which I think was a really good choice since the two poems were very similar, almost the same except the animal. She then talked about similarities and differences. I think her slides were designed well so it kind of increased the spooky feeling you got from the poem. After comparing the poems Katie concluded her presentation.
Markus started his presentation by sharing his poem. Personally I like the poem since I’m quite interested in basketball. He also explained what was happening in the poem to the people that did not know all the basketball terms. He then talked about what he thinks about fast breaks (exciting etc). After talking about that he shared his opinion on the poem, where he said he liked the vivid images you get, which I agree with, because the poem had some very good smilies. After that he talked about each stanza, what is happening etc. He then talked about literary features and concluded with a poem in response.
In English class we have made our own book trailers on a book we have read during this year. I made my book trailer on the James Bond books (by Charlie Higson) which I have enjoyed reading. In my trailer I have my dad (with the Martini glass and shooting you in the end). The poker and Aston Martin are actually from youtube since it was too hard to get my own footage of.
We have now completed our performances in music class and I played ‘Eye of the Tiger’ by Survivor. We had to play a classic song and I think that that would be a good song. I played it on bass.
I think I did pretty good. It sounds weird without the other instruments but overall I’m happy with what I did. I think the most difficult part was to know where you were on the piece of music since bass parts are normally quite repetitive. I also found sliding quite hard but I practiced that more than the other parts. I think that one of my stronger parts were the chorus and keeping a steady beat. I think in the future I should practice more.
) related to probability.
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