This document outlines the key topics and activities to be covered in a music press unit. It includes analyzing genres and conventions of music magazines, exploring students' and communities' music listening habits through surveys and charts, building media terminology knowledge through ongoing vocabulary exercises, examining typical magazine contents and formats, and assigning homework that involves purchasing a music magazine and interviewing peers about their music tastes. The goal is to help students develop understanding of music magazines as a media genre.
A musical ethnography is a piece of writing that explores some asp.docxmehek4
A musical ethnography is a piece of writing that explores some aspect of a particular music-culture through fieldwork.
The main goal in doing musical ethnography is to come to an understanding of how an “insider” experiences their own music-culture and then to write up your findings in a way that communicates this perspective to your readers.
To gain an “insider” perspective, ethnographers must seek out first-hand experience with their subject, usually by conducting interviews with musical “insiders” and by spending time participating and observing the music-culture.
For this assignment, you will have the opportunity to choose a music-culture that interests you and research it in two ways: first-hand (via an interview and/or fieldwork) and also via secondary sources (traditional library research).
The first-hand information is the most valuable to an ethnographer, but library research will provide you with the necessary background information to design your project, formulate questions for your interviewee, and write up your findings.
Basic Requirements:
- A one-paragraph to one-page proposal of the project (which must include the name of your interviewee, your subject, and your topic)
- A 6-8 page paper (double-spaced, 12 pt font) with properly formatted bibliography, which must include at least two outside sources, one of which must be a print source (book, journal article, newspaper or magazine article).
Project Steps:
Step 1:
Choose a Topic/Write a Proposal
Read the article “Doing Musical Ethnography” on BB—it provides excellent guidance for choosing a topic for your project. A good way to start is by brainstorming people that you know who are involved in music (musicians, teachers, producers, students, also active listeners and fans) or thinking of musical organizations (bands, clubs, radio stations, dance troupes, fan clubs) that you have some connection to.
Consider your own family or group of friends, and don’t be shy about asking around.
You might assume that no one in your family is musical, but a few questions can turn up some very interesting information that may lead you to your topic.
Once you choose your
subject
(the music-culture you want to explore, broadly speaking), you need to narrow down the
topic
that you want to study within that culture. For instance, let’s say you want to study the music-culture at your church, and decide to interview the choir conductor.
You will soon discover that you could talk for hours with your interviewee about numerous things:
what happens at a choir rehearsal?
Who chooses the songs that will be performed?
What is the relationship between the musical program and the religious service? Or you might ask the conductor biographical questions, or about their training, education, etc. Soon, you will have too much information and no way to organize it into a paper.
The solution is to narrow down the scope before you conduct the interview, and let your questions rel.
2. • THE MUSIC PRESS: Print and Online
What is ‘the press’
What is it we will be
studying ?
How can you research
this?
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3. To analyse genre and conventions
To explore music listening habits (of the
class and wider community)
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4. Media Terminology
• Every lesson during this topic we are going to
try and build up our terminology.
• Make a glossary at the back of your book.
• Why is it important we use ‘Media Words’?
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5. GENRE + CONVENTIONS
• Can you define these?
• Could you give an example for the ‘Fashion
magazine’ genre?
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6. Music Genres
• What styles of music do you know and
understand? (apart from Rnb!!!!)
Genre Conventions
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7. Music habits
1. Create a pie chart for how long you spend
listening to different genres of music each week.
2. Name some of the places you actually listen to
your music.
• Which genres would you say are the most
popular?
• If we had asked 100 young people in hackney
what would the percentage be?
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9. What do you know already?
• This topic has raised some concerns with
teachers. As a genre for study its an are that
you might not know too much about
• Do you guys know much about music
magazines ?
• Lets find out!
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10. Music Magazine Genre quiz
Where does the word magazine come from?
How many genres of magazine could you name?
Could you name 10 music magazines?
What does a typical magazine contain?
How confident do you feel about this topic so far?
Could you complete the
information audit ?
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11. Find Someone Who...
Take one statement from the list.
Find out how many people in your class this
statement is true for.
Keep a tally or a list of names and think of a
way to present your findings to the class.
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12. To analyse genre and conventions
To explore music listening habits (of the
class and wider community)
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13. Homeowork / Questions
1. For homework YOU NEED TO BUY 1 MUSIC
MAGAZINE (choose your genres)
2. Ask 5 people to describe their music listening habits
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