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EXHIBITION STATEMENT
The music selection can make or break a film. It has the ability to create intense emotional responses through accompanying the scene on the screen, and throughout this workshop, we have worked with various films to discover how music enhances film. For their final project, students composed two pieces of music that they paired with either original or published selections from films. Additionally, students had the choice to showcase an activity that we completed in class to demonstrate how their knowledge base and final project compositions evolved.
History & Distinction:
For example, if we hear a love song we might picture a happily married couple leaving a chapel, whereas the sound of bagpipes might give us the image of the green fields in Scotland, or the sound of muted bass notes could make us picture something sinister happening (Govtech, 2021). Additionally, music paired with film is much more impactful than one or the other alone. After all, music was a part of silent films before speech was even incorporated in order to make the audience feel less awkward sitting in the silence and giving the scenes more meaning. One study showed that listening to music in everyday life elicits perceived emotions, or feelings that we can understand what the composer intended without actually feeling those emotions ourselves, similar to vicariously experiencing the emotions (Cooper, 2020). Since we have looked at film scores since music was first incorporated into movies in the early twentieth century, there have been a variety of artists, compositional techniques, and technologies that we have learned from. Most notably, we have focused on the ways in which John Williams, Hans Zimmer, and other contemporary composers score films, such as working with repeating motifs, using different scales, instrumentation, the effects of silence, and other concepts that portray specific emotions through music.
Methods:
In developing this workshop, I pulled a lot from my background as a music education major. In these courses, we have researched and practiced ways to make a classroom environment the most productive and enjoyable through a variety of techniques, most notably hands-on activities or discussions that ask students to think critically about music. Each lesson, we typically began with a discussion-based warm-up activity that focused on collaborating with other students and sharing opinions about music. Then, we moved into a lecture activity that focused on a different time period or topic of film music, which required a lot of independent study from students. Towards the end of class, students either worked in small groups or individually to write music in unique and creative ways, and then discuss their ideas, thought processes, and compositional strategies with their peers. By ordering the class schedule in this way, students felt knowledgeable enough to be interactive with each lesson and activity, making the class accessible to students of all ability and experience levels.
Since I personally struggle with analyzing pieces of music, I have learned how to break it down into smaller pieces through focusing on one aspect at a time: instrumentation, rhythms, melody and repetition of the melody, scales and harmonies, layering, emotional impact, and the piece as a whole. A majority of the class involved music analysis in this way, with specific questions to help guide students towards more focused answers, as I have learned to do in taking education courses. Throughout the workshop, I provided many opportunities for students to provide feedback, and, in addition to my own assessment of student learning, I used this information to research more into topics that students were interested to incorporate into future lessons. Overall, I gave students a lot of agency in creating this course so that they had the option to cater their learning towards the topics they were interested in, which thus made activities more enjoyable and meaningful.
Audience and Impact:
This workshop mainly targeted the audience of Arts Scholars members who attended class each week, as well as their Arts peers who they have either directly or indirectly shared their knowledge and artwork with. A large portion of this class was focused on community building, because music brings people together in ways that other disciplines are unable to, thus emphasizing the importance of working together was crucial to my vision as the workshop leader. This way, students not only grew individually, but they shared their ideas, skills, and feedback with others to help them feel empowered in the same ways. As a future music educator, I was truly inspired by the way that students formed genuine connections with their peers through music, and their interest in learning more about music analysis and composition, and leading this workshop definitely helped me grow as an artist and a scholar. Personally, I believe that this workshop has given students the agency to express themselves and their emotions through music, a skill that I hope they will continue to carry throughout their lives as I do.
References:
Cooper, B. B. (2020, June 30). 8 amazing, little-known ways music affects the brain. Buffer
Resources. Retrieved October 11, 2021, from https://buffer.com/resources/music-and-the-brain/.
GovTech. (2021, April 26). Music makes movies. GovTech. Retrieved October 11, 2021, from
https://www.govtech.com/education/news/music-makes-movies.html.
Acknowledgements:
I would like to thank everyone in the Arts Scholars program, notably my advisors Harold Burgess, Heather Bremenstuhl, and Gabrielle Robinson-Tillenburg for all of their advice, feedback, and motivation; my TA Ellen Feng for helping each class run smoothly; and all participants in the workshop for being enthusiastic learners and talented composers every Monday night. I also want to thank my family, friends, and music education faculty, past and present, for their knowledge and support that has helped me produce this workshop. I am sincerely grateful for this incredible opportunity.
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