Music and Family

This will be another blog where your turn the gaze of ethnomusicology back around your direction.  Most of us have our first musical experiences with our families, and you can often give credit for some of your personal musical taste to those experiences--whether you share those opinions or rebel against them. Too, one of the Big Points of this class is to explore how music and culture are interrelated, and cultures are built out of families. So for this blog, you're going to find out more about how someone in your family relates to music.

Specifically, I want you to pick someone that's at least one generation older than you and interview them about their relationship with music. You might talk with them about the music of their childhood, or as teenagers, or what they listen to today, or all three. There are a couple of lists of potential questions on Canvas--read through them and select ones you like. You're also perfectly welcome to add your own questions that seem appropriate to your interviewee. If possible, resist the urge to email your mom a bunch of questions and have her send the answers back to you--I'd like for this to be a conversation between you and your interviewee, and email doesn't really lend itself to such things. You'll want to record the interview, so that you can use it as a reference.

As to how to present this interview on your blog, you can go a few directions. You're welcome to post it as a video on your blog, but, if you do, please do some light editing--make sure you introduce your interviewee, clip out any bits that seem irrelevant, perhaps have their name or topics appear in writing on the screen--basically do any clean up that you wish your classmates would do for you. You can also type up the interview in a couple of ways: you can formulate your blog entry as a narrative ("Grandma said that her favorite musician was Lawrence Welk, and that one of the high points in her life was getting to see him live when his train was delayed in Abilene.") or as a dialogue (Me: Who were some of your favorite musicians when you were growing up? Grandma: Oh, I just loved Lawrence Welk--he had such a great show and was quite attractive! And I actually got to see him do a live show when I was about nineteen! You see, his train got delayed when he came to visit Abilene, so they decided to just make the best of it and put on a show. It was so exciting!) Shoot for 400-500 words, but be prepared for the possibility that it might actually be much longer--sometimes folks have a lot of opinions and stories to tell.

A word about "family." Families are tricky, and they come into being in many different ways. For this assignment, you may define family in the way that seems the most appropriate to you. If you want to go straight for folks related to you by blood, go for it--mom, dad, grandmom, Aunt Ruth, Cousin Mathilde, etc. If your family is one that you've assembled out of folks that don't share your genetic pool, though, that's fine as well--your step-father, "Auntie" Melanie, your mom's best friend that practically raised you, etc. One thing I do want you to make sure and do, though, is pick someone from a generation older than you--the idea is to get someone who's connected to you in some way, but who's had the chance to have more experiences and experiences from a slightly different time. Finally, if you pick someone who's naturally loquacious, you'll have a lot more material to work with.

And yes, my Grandmother Lucille McElrath really did get to see Lawrence Welk when his train was delayed in Abilene. He had such a great show and was quite attractive!


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