Sometimes it can be hard to write about this class. But this difficulty doesn’t come from a lack of words or ideas. It comes more so from an overabundance of words and ideas as well as the reality that nothing I can write will be able to make anyone else truly understand and appreciate how …
Category Archives: MU228
Cooking, Music, and a Low Stakes Way to Practice Ethnography
A few days ago one of my spanish house neighbors asked me how my block was going. I responded that it was great and that I had just spent all morning cooking over zoom with my class. She then asked what class I was in, and when I responded that I was taking Musical Lives …
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Listening is an Art
In block 3, knowing that I was going to be in this class, I asked Professor Carrizo what it was going to be about. After all, a class titled Musical Lives of Song and Migration could be about a thousand different things. Her response, that it was a class meant to introduce many of the …
Do White People Suck at Irony?
As we enter the third week of class, a pattern I’ve noticed in our discussions of white consumerism in hip hop is a consistent misconstruing of the racial navigation of white artists. I understand that’s a mouthful. To put this issue in context, let’s go back to 1986. It’s November. Artists such as the Sugar …
Recapping Week One: Flow, Layering and Rupture
It’s 8:44 PM on a Sunday. The night has shaped up like most other Sundays past; I’m tackling a weekend’s load of homework while flipping through my liked songs on shuffle. My usual rotation of Action Bronson, Flatbush Zombies, and Mos Def is suddenly interrupted by something different. A steady four count and then…“Hey girls, …
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Lanzendorf Concert
As I mentioned int the last post, Lazendorf came and played a concert on Thursday. They call themselves an experiment, not a band. They rarely record songs and have nothing written down. Lanzendorf is made up of Bryan Devendorf, Scott Devendorf, and Ben Lanz. Bryan and Scott are brothers, both play with The National. Bryan …
Getting Indie
The past couple of days we have had the chance to meet some especially cool people. The first were Bruce and Gabe. Bruce is a graphic designer, he started a company called Post Typography. His interest in graphic design began in high school, where he published zines ( hand made magazines); he was scolded by …
Subcultures, punks, and indie music
During our first few days of indie rock and culture I was surprised to hear that some of seminal bands that began what would become the indie movement were not great musicians. Bands like the Sex Pistols were made up of 4 men who could only play a couple of power chords and were not …
I have a confession to make: I do not enjoy listening to music played by The Beatles. I am fully aware that this should result in me having my musician’s card removed, my guitar taken away from me and me being locked in a room with a TV playing “Yellow Submarine” until I can recite …
Ballet and Black Swans
If you are feeling that your brain is very happy and content and have a desire to change that, I would encourage you to watch Swan Lake and immediately follow it with Black Swan. The juxtaposition of the smooth, ethereal dancing of Tchaikovsky’s ballet– which was first produced in 1870– and the gritty and rather disturbing …
