Research Log 1

Research Log Prompt 1: 

After considering the thoughts you shared in your last Digital Archive Activity in the Winter and having read the Research Project prompt, reflect more specifically on potential research topics to pursue this quarter. What primary sources, worldbuilding concepts, histories, or genres pique your curiosity to learn more about? Where could find such primary sources? Which humanistic methods of analysis could you apply to such an interpretation? How can studying them contribute to our collective understanding of worldbuilding?

As we near closer towards our research project, I have reflected more on specific potential research ideas, three of which I find most appealing: researching about Gregory Alan Isokov's folk album Evening Machines, or Ludovico Einaudi's piano piece Experience. These ideas pique my curiosity to learn more about. One of my favorite genres of music is folk/alternative indie or any acoustic music, Gregory Alan Isakov being one of my favorite artists to listen to. His music expresses soft rythmic beats, with guitar being the lead instrument, and I enjoy how the melancholy of some of the songs in the album bring an atmosphere of solidarity and peace while some songs express more emotions that relate to the ups and downs of life. The lyrics are both beautiful, comfortable, and simplistic in a way where every listener can relate to his music with their own life experiences. My other potential research project is a piece by Ludovico Einaudi. Ludovico Einaudi is my all time favorite pianist. Being a pianist myself, I have a passion for piano both listening and playing pieces, and Einaudi's piece Experience is one of my most favorite pieces to play and listen to because it immerses me into a different world through its passionate intensity and its beauty. The cover of the song helps bring out the emotion and understanding of what type of world the pianist is building, as the cover comes from the album title In a Time Lapse, which portrays a depiction of the woods, trees in red, orange and green, giving an imagination of it being fall. Since the title of the album it is in is called "In a Time Lapse" that itself portrays a collective understanding of what world it is building, as it can be interpreted in a way that a time lapse contains series of feelings, thoughts, situations, memories, and so much more, feeling as the songs in this album are going to portray this in turn. It could also be interpreted with correlation to the song cover- fall- maybe the music will be portraying feelings connecting to different seasons throughout time. 

The two primary sources, Gregory Alan Isakov's Album and Ludovico Einaudi's piece I found on the music app Spotify, but they can be found anywhere on the internet on Youtube, Apple Music, most probably on the radio as well, or on DVD soundtracks. These are all accesible in various ways but most deal with using the internet or some form of technology. Methods I would use to interpret the music choices I have is to particularly focus on it's rhythm, the changes in intensity and the softer transitions. I would interpret the lyrics and their meaning in connection to the tone the music is presented, it's effect if it is to calm the listener, if it causes adrenaline, or what imagination erupts from the listeners mind (or me) when listening to the music. I feel through studying the music and different genres such as acoustic or classical, using techniques like interpreting tempo, dynamics and the tembre (color of the music), we can see how the artist builds a world through a song, a fantasy or a completely different universe in which draws us out of our own reality into their world. Through this we can also build onto their world with our own interpretations and imaginations by connecting pieces of these songs to certain memories we have or certain settings we are in when we listen to that song. In further studying an acoustic album or a classical piece, I can contribute to our collective understanding of world building in which by studying this music- acoustic album or a classical piano piece- these can be a source that influences our imagination to become incorporated into our realities, changing our perspectives and feelings whether it be a way of coping, expressing our happiness or sadness, or inspiring a growth in our creativity to show others change our world.

Works Cited:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregory_Alan_Isakov