I’ve been thinking all semester about the best way to articulate my understanding and interests in the class. When you assigned the music project I thought I was going to hate it, but I really enjoyed working with the text and the music. This starting me thinking serious about trying to adapt my final project into something similar and I’ve come up with an idea.
First, I want to pick a series of songs that for me illuminate and highlight some things I see in several of the novels. I want to work with Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, Frankenstein, House of Leaves, and particular chapters from Marcuse.
It’s not necscarily an extension of the last essay I wrote but an adaptation of the assignment. Because I’m not a music composer or a songstress of any kind I’m going to have to take existing songs end edit them into a soundtrack. For each track I plan to write two pages or so about what each of my edits brings to the piece. I haven’t picked tracks yet but each one will have a tentative argument about the pieces separately. I have a working knowledge of GarageBand and its editing capabilities so I will be able to upload the tracks and edit them
The essays have been a struggle for me throughout the semester and I think that this will really help give my arguments a boost and help me to articulate things about the novels that may seem flat without the audio as a backup.
I think the final format will look maybe like a jewel case insert, that would accompany any CD. This work will be better than my previous work, first and foremost because I enjoy the mixing and editing process and I think sometimes that using other people’s music says things better than I can say them on paper in an argument. I also think that this work is ambitious because it is going to require a lot of insight into each of the novels as well as my ability to explain why the tracks are appropriate. It is not always easy to get people to make the connections that seem obvious to you and this is where my greatest struggle with this project will lie.
1 comment:
This is a really cool idea. Your explanation of that idea, though, is a little hurried (maybe very hurried), which is the basis of my response.
Issue #1: Why do a sound track to *everything*? If Marcuse is where you most want to go (because you agree with him, or struggle with him, or a combination of both), why not just create a soundtrack to Marcuse, or even to a subset of chapters within Marcuse? That's already more than ambitious enough. At the *most*, incorporate one other text.
Issue #2: So is this part soundtrack, then part essay explaining the soundtrack? I'm fine with that, and I guess I can't really ask what the essay section is about in more detail until the soundtrack at least partially exists. Just be sure not to shortchange the written component (which might be partially in the form of lyrics, or alternative lyrics, or potentially lyrics, whether sung/spoken/or simply presented as possibly being sung/spoken).
Issue #3: I really like the idea, but this is a rough beginning to it. You have two weeks - for this to work, you need to start moving on it, so you can nail it down. I would really like to see this work, but I think it will require a lot of effort to make it work well - so weight that, and consider whether you need to do something less ambitious (again: I *want* this project - I just want you to be sure that it's feasible, and that you can define it more clearly as you progress).
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