Response to the Spotify Playlist

This is so exciting to explore everyone’s favorite music! I enjoy a lot of the same songs as some of my classmates. I’ve been listening to 1st time by Bakar constantly the past couple months. I also enjoy the artists Artic Monkeys and Marvin Gaye. Some new discoveries included the wonderful remake of Mama Mia and a couple songs by Electric Light Orchestra that I hadn’t heard before. It was perfect to listen to this while we all worked with clay on Thursday and see people dance/sing to some of their favorite songs.

The Magic of Music

For week 14, we were asked to write about music. I’m not sure how to capture all of my feelings about music in one blog post because music impacts my life in so many ways.

One of my first memories of music was with one of the first generation iPod Shuffles. I would spend an hour before going to bed looping through the 10-15 songs we had downloaded on iTunes. I think music has always been incredibly soothing to me. One of my first CDs was Jack Johnson’s In Between Dreams and I listened to it non-stop through middle school which would always relax me. I’ve always been amazed by music’s ability to control how you feel. I also think it provides a way to sit with and accept your feelings. When I’m feeling upset about something, it can help to listen to a sad songs and just accept that I’m sad in that moment instead of trying to force myself out of it with upbeat music.

My first concert was a really interesting experience. I was in middle school and went to an Avett Brothers concert with a friend and their older sister. We were the youngest people that we saw and the grown ups around us were doing lots of grown up things. Aside from the interesting environment, the music was fantastic. I fell in love with live music and started going to smaller live shows to appreciate music in person when you can see and feel the emotion an artist puts into the song.

Lastly, I’m certainly not very talented, but I enjoy playing the piano as a stress reliever. It can be exciting to learn a new song or try to be creative and make one up on the spot.

Overall, music has played in instrumental part in my life and it’s so exciting how vast it is because I know I will continue to discover music that impacts my life.

Here are the Avett Brothers, the first band I saw!

References:

P. Valys, “Avett Brothers: The real heartbreak behind ‘True Sadness’,” sun, 17-Dec-2018. [Online]. Available: https://www.sun-sentinel.com/entertainment/music/sf-avett-brothers-interview-pompano-amp-20170125-story.html. [Accessed: 30-Apr-2021].

Spotify Music Playlist

For this weeks assignment we had to add music onto a Spotify playlist that was shared with all the students in our class. Each student was to add 3 to 5 songs to the playlist to get a wide variety of genres of music that students could listen to when they worked. Today we worked outside the Moss Arts Center listening to the playlist while we sculpted a shaker out of clay. There were some songs that I had never heard of and a few that I had. I don’t think any of my songs were played during the class period unfortunately. I added a lot of country and 80’s music such as Van Halen. Country music reminds me of summer and with only two weeks of school and the weather turning warmer, it is very fitting. Some other songs I heard that I really liked included artists such as The Weeknd, Kendrick Lamar, and Fetty Wap which are all ironically rap but I still like this genre of music very much. Country will always be my favorite but I am a wide listener of music.

Music

Although I am mostly a hip hop/rap fan I am a pianist. I have played for around 12 years and stopped as soon as I got to college. A typical rap fan likes Drake or Future, but I like artists that have driven beats and I can really hear the influence in the background. I also like to listen to the actual meaning of the piece. I feel that my influence from being a classical pianist has affected my taste in music and has looked for different things. That being said, I prefer artists such as Kendrick Lamar, Benny the Butcher, and OutKast.

Music

Music has been a huge part of my life for as long as I can remember. I listen to music almost every day of so many different genres. One of my all time favorite bands is The Lumineers they specialize in Indie and Folk music and have some big hits like Ho Hey and Ophelia. Their music is some of the most relaxing music I’ve heard and I love listening to their music. Before the Covid-19 Pandemic I actually got to go to a concert of theirs at the UVA (Oh no!) Stadium and had an amazing time. Their lead singer is actually really really nice and walked through the crowd it was an amazing time. Each of their albums tells a story I even have one of their CDs for their III album. This is some of the bands albums.

My Favorite Book: Ender’s Game

One of my favorite books I’ve read so far its got a really interesting story and main character named Ender. It was originally written by Orson Scott Card. It set in a futuristic version of Earth where they travel into space quite easily while at war with an alien species. It shows the development of Ender as a leader and his training through a program he gets inducted into as a kid. I’d rather not spoil the ending but the story has an amazing plot and really interesting. They have a movie adaptation as well which was mirrored the book quite well in my opinion.

An interesting 2D Fantasy Artist: Irina French

A 2D artist I like quite a lot is digital artist Irina French. She’s a UK based freelance digital artist based upon the game Dungeons and Dragons a game I quite enjoy playing myself. She uses digital art to create images of fantasy characters and maps. Reading her bio on her page she says she claims to tell a story with her artwork which by looking at more and more of her art definitely shows.

My Favorite Music

I like to think that I can listen to anything, but my all-time favorite bands are Arctic Monkeys, Fall Out Boy, and The Neighbourhood. The other artists I constantly listen to are similar to those three bands like Alexandra Savior, The Brobecks, and Jesse Rutherford.

I notice that I don’t really stray too far from alternative, emo, or rock since a lot of artists I listen to are all connected or related to each other somehow. However, I sometimes listen to video game soundtracks and musical theater recordings like sea shanties from Assassins Creed: Black Flag and different cast recordings of Les Miserables.

I’ve been to three concerts and they’ve all be really fun experiences. I saw Journey in 2012, Twenty One Pilots in 2016, and The Neighbourhood in 2018. I was 10 when I saw Journey, so I did enjoy spending time with my family but I didn’t care too much about seeing the band live. Twenty One Pilots used to be my favorite band and seeing them live was a really exciting experience. The venue was outdoors and pretty big, so I didn’t see them up close, but it was still enjoyable. The Neighbourhood concert was in a small, indoor venue and I got a nice spot in the front of the balcony. I remember leaving not being able to hear properly from how loud it sometimes got.

Video Project

I wanted to bring awareness to the injustices to our wild and supposedly protected lands.

Yemen Humanitarian Crisis: You Better Listen.

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