Oral Assessment

 

Aural Assessment

1)West Side Story - Bernstein

2)In The Mood - Miller

3)Worried Man Blues - Carter Family

4)Seasons of Love - Rent

5)Oh What A Beautiful Morning - Oklahoma!

6)Take the A Train - Duke Ellington 

7)One - A Chorus Line  

8)Ida Red - Woodie Guthrie

9)We Shall Overcome - Pete Seeger

10)The Entertainer - Scott Joplin 

 

Book, Score, and CD Tour

Pat Metheny - Orchestration 

I have to say this is one of the most interesting albums I've listened to, Metheny plays solo guitar while being accompanied by a rhythm section all played mechanically (humans aren't playing the instruments, done in a mechanical or electronic method). The album focuses on Orchestra Suite combined with jazz fusion which creates an amazing music atmosphere. 

 

Eagles Greatest Hits Volume 2

Really good compilation of their pieces! I enjoyed pieces like Seven Bridges Road (it has really cool harmonies and is done on acoustic guitar). The compilation has a variety of different styles, for instance, Hotel California is done with a full Rock rhythm section while Seven Bridges Road is duo guitar and voice. 

 

Guys and Dolls - Frank Loesser

Awesome musical, written in the 1950s, ran for 1200 shows and won the the Tony Award for best musical. I enjoyed listening to it because it fuses jazz and slapstick dialogue together which makes for an interesting soundtrack. 

 

In the Country of Country: A Journey to the Roots of American Music

The book has an expansive account of quintessential American country music and the musicians that made it possible. I looked at a few sections in the book and it mentions places like Mace Springs, Virginia, the home of the Carter family, and Bakersfield, California, where Buck Owens lived. 

 

Concert Review

Period Projects

A)American Roots music is a cultural blend from foreigners who migrated to the Americas. A lot of the music dealt with hard times and struggles back in their own culture. While America was still in slavery and even after, those who were racially discriminated would sign songs as a coping method to feel better and even think about their native lands. Blacks would sing spirituals, blues, and gospel tunes to help their days go by faster in the fields. Broadway and Rock & Roll are also great examples of ways to challenge discrimination. Many Rock & Roll artists wrote songs that touched on this subject, and Broadway has multiple shows that confront American audiences about racism and discrimination like South Pacific by Cole Porter. 

B)The Summer of Love was a phenomenon that happened in the Summer of 1967 when hundreds of thousands of youths dressed in hippie fashion converged in Southern California. Bands like Grateful Dead, the Animals, Jefferson Airplane, and the Byrds gained massive popularity from their psychedelic music styles. Psychedelic drugs like MDMA and LSD were also used during musicians gave concerts, and the music served as an appropriate accompaniment for someone who went on a psychedelic trip. 

C)That is hard to say, a lot of new electronic innovations are being showcased to the public every year, which gives new opportunities and exploration. However, I'm unsure of where that could lead to for music. 

 

A)One of the most important benchmark goals that I assessed myself was to learn new repertoire in each section of the course, and I was really impressed by how much content was provided to hear new styles of music. Throughout the course, I learned tons of new musical content which is what I hoped to do. 

B)One of the goals that I needed to improve on for the second semester was turning in things early, instead I turned things in right on time or the day after, so that was one goal I didn't meet. 

C)Like I mentioned before, learning new styles and types of music was the most rewarding aspect of the course, and I also had a lot of fun designing my website. 

D)Staying on task wasn't an issue at all, so I did a good job of avoiding resources that would distract me in class. 

 

A)A few of the units were turned in one day late (I believe that was units 7 & 8) so on unit 8 all the way to 9 I focused on turning those in right on time. 

B)I am aware of my intellectual strengths and weaknesses. T

I am able to know what kind of information is most important to learn. T

I am good at organizing information. T

I know what the teacher expects me to learn. T

I am good at remembering information. T

I have control over how well I learn. T

I am a good judge of how well I understand something. T

I learn more when I am interested in the topic. T

I try to use strategies or learning techniques that have worked for me in the past. T

I am aware of the methods that I am using when I study. T

 I use different learning strategies depending on the situation. T

I use my intellectual strengths to compensate for my weaknesses. T

I know when each strategy I use will be most effective. T

I slow down when I encounter important information. T

I draw pictures, diagrams and take notes to help me understand while learning. T

I try to translate new information into my own words. T

I ask myself if what I’m reading is related to what I already know. F

I try to break studying down into smaller steps. T

I ask myself periodically if I am meeting my goals. T

I consider several alternatives to a problem before I answer. T

I find myself analyzing the usefulness of strategies while I study. T

I ask myself questions about how well I am doing while learning something new. T

I ask others for help when I don’t understand something. T

I am persistent when working on a challenging problem. T

I re-evaluate my assumptions when I get confused. T

I stop and re-read or re-view material when I get confused. T

I know how well I did once I finish a test. T

I ask myself if there was an easier way to do things after I finish a task. T

I ask myself how well I accomplish my goals once I’m finished. T

I ask myself if I learned as much as I could have once I finish a task. F

28:2 = new ratio. 

C)Throughout the course there were a ton of videos that I had to watch which I found harder to obtain information from rather than reading and learning things in the listen text book (for instance), so if I had another opportunity to learn the content differently I probably would've preferred to learn everything from written sources. 

D)I learned that everyone's preference for learning is different from one another's. For an example, I prefer to learn material from written sources while someone else might prefer watching videos to obtain information. 

E)A lot of the later contemporary history (20th and 21st century) correlates with a ton of historical and political aspects in America. I noticed that music history isn't just about learning new music styles, a lot of it deals with artists' experiences during hard times and how a lot of political events have affected music for the better or for the worse. 

F)I used the strategy for watching the documentaries and it really helped with answering a lot of questions that were assessed with the documentaries. 

 

A-B)General assessment and attitude & behavior was simple enough for me, I just kept to my self and worked independently for the majority of the class or did research. In regards to turning in assignments before the due date, that is one thing that I should work on in the future. 

C)The best strategy would be to work more at my house, that was one goal I made for the second half of the semester but never did, so if I do that next time i'll be more ahead of the course. 

 

A)I think my work had just as much volume as it did in the first semester.

B)I stuck to a similar approach to the first portion of the semester (using same formats, layouts, representation of information, etc). 

 

A)-Learning new repertoire spanning from modern and expressionistic to Broadway music

-Realizing how much regular history and politics correlates with the music during a given time period (for instance, the discrimination and racial segregation in the South was a big instigator for African American spirituals and blues music)

-Finding out new information about lesser known cultures and how they interact with each other

B-C)Taking the course itself is really important because not only do you learn about new music styles, you also are presented with a lot of information about the history of America and its politics at the same time. You get to see how cultures intertwine with each other and how that creates new forms of artistic expression, and finally, learning a lot of new contemporary repertoire never hurts anyone. For the future, I'll be able to show new styles and types of music to people that they may have never heard of. 

 

Advice:I really enjoyed taking the course, its super interesting and is packed with tons of information that I never knew about before! One thing I would definitely recommend is to NOT procrastinate, you are given a lot of time to complete units but there is a boat load of information and work you have to submit (things such as watching documentaries, completing projects, and taking notes). Other than that, the course is really awesome, and I highly recommend people take it.