Music & Lyric Project
Students are to take a song listed here, and explain the figurative, literal, denotative and connotative meaning to the best of their ability. In short, what is the song about, and how do you know it?
We've talked in the past about how words are have multiple meanings. There's the denotative, what you can find in the dictionary, and the connotative, or the ideas that are connected with that word. For example, yellow is a color, but it's also short hand for cowardice. The literal meaning (or denotative meaning) of yellow is a color on the color wheel near orange and red. Most of the colors have multiple meanings, (green = envy, red = rage, blue = sadness) but no meaning is universal. What it means to one person might be very different for someone on the other side of the planet. Red for Americans can mean danger or aggression, in China it means good luck.
Take the words and read them. Listen to the songs and see if you can describe the mood they seem to be encapsulating. Is it an upbeat fast tune? A slow one? For those of you who have played an instrument in the past, is it in a major or minor key? Does it sound sad? How? When? When you add the lyrics, does that change the meaning of them?
Students are to take one song, and analyze it up and down, as best they can without any outside assistance save for dictionaries or encyclopedias. It should be your thoughts on a piece of music.
These things can be pretty esoteric. A famous example (that students can't use) is Rush's YYZ. The song is played against a backbeat of morse code. The code for YYZ is -.-- -.-- --.. pronounced dah-dit-dah-dah dah-dit-dah-dah dah-dah-dit-dit. A dash is three times longer than a dot, so if the dots were eighth notes, the dashes would be dotted quarters. There would be an eighth rest between each dot and dash. YYZ is the airport call letters for the Toronto Pearson Airport - the airport nearest to where the band grew up.
Most of your assignments won't be anywhere near so obscure, but I point it out to show you that artists can draw inspiration from anywhere, and your ability to understand one another is pretty heavily reliant on being able to piece disparate ideas together. In short, can you pull all of these things together and make sense of them? Do you see how it's not just what is literally said that conveys meaning, but also how it's said?
Your work should be about a page long, but if you find inspiration and want to keep going, extra credit points are available. This assignment is only open to 8th honors at the moment.
Students are to take a song listed here, and explain the figurative, literal, denotative and connotative meaning to the best of their ability. In short, what is the song about, and how do you know it?
We've talked in the past about how words are have multiple meanings. There's the denotative, what you can find in the dictionary, and the connotative, or the ideas that are connected with that word. For example, yellow is a color, but it's also short hand for cowardice. The literal meaning (or denotative meaning) of yellow is a color on the color wheel near orange and red. Most of the colors have multiple meanings, (green = envy, red = rage, blue = sadness) but no meaning is universal. What it means to one person might be very different for someone on the other side of the planet. Red for Americans can mean danger or aggression, in China it means good luck.
Take the words and read them. Listen to the songs and see if you can describe the mood they seem to be encapsulating. Is it an upbeat fast tune? A slow one? For those of you who have played an instrument in the past, is it in a major or minor key? Does it sound sad? How? When? When you add the lyrics, does that change the meaning of them?
Students are to take one song, and analyze it up and down, as best they can without any outside assistance save for dictionaries or encyclopedias. It should be your thoughts on a piece of music.
These things can be pretty esoteric. A famous example (that students can't use) is Rush's YYZ. The song is played against a backbeat of morse code. The code for YYZ is -.-- -.-- --.. pronounced dah-dit-dah-dah dah-dit-dah-dah dah-dah-dit-dit. A dash is three times longer than a dot, so if the dots were eighth notes, the dashes would be dotted quarters. There would be an eighth rest between each dot and dash. YYZ is the airport call letters for the Toronto Pearson Airport - the airport nearest to where the band grew up.
Most of your assignments won't be anywhere near so obscure, but I point it out to show you that artists can draw inspiration from anywhere, and your ability to understand one another is pretty heavily reliant on being able to piece disparate ideas together. In short, can you pull all of these things together and make sense of them? Do you see how it's not just what is literally said that conveys meaning, but also how it's said?
Your work should be about a page long, but if you find inspiration and want to keep going, extra credit points are available. This assignment is only open to 8th honors at the moment.