"Inspiration Information" Shuggie Otis

This song gives the feel of being lazy and calm. It also just makes the listener feel joyous when listening to it. The artist made this song feel that way by putting the song in a major key, so that it wouldn't have a morbid sound. Also, the lyrics are simple and just talk about being happy.

SOAPSTone: "Semeadores" by Diego Rivera

Subject: Mexican laborersOccasion: Communism in Mexico
Audience: Higher-class Mexicans
Purpose: Shows higher class Mexicans the hardships that the farm laborers had to do
Speaker: Diego Rivera wanted to support the communist movement in Mexico
Tone: Calm, but frustrating at the same time
Diego Rivera wanted the audience to think about the fact that in communism, everyone is equal and has to share the duties equally. The laborers in the picture are not identified in any way and their faces are covered up. This shows that it could be anybody and everybody.

Wilco's "I Am Trying to Break Your Heart"

Questions:
 Summarize Wilco's approach to creating a song. What is your creative process for writing? Explain in detail the step which you go through. If there is no process then why don't you use one.

Wilco's approach to writing a song is to break it down into it's different instruments and sounds, so that the meaning of the song is conveyed clearly. The first step in my creative process for writing is to write a thesis that summarizes the whole paper. Then, I usually outline the paragraphs to follow. After doing that, I go back and fill in all of the necessary components to comlete the paper. Most of the time, I write out of order, putting sentences into whichever paragraph they fit best and rearranging them until they all flow together.

"American Graffiti"

Nostalgia is a certain longing for the past that one feels that is usually triggered by a fimiliar sight, smell, taste, sound, etc. When I listen to "Rock Around the Clock" I picture teenagers from the fifties dancing and I also picture old-fashioned diners and jukeboxes. When I listen to "Sixteen Candles" I picture a family, also from the fifties, sitting together in their living room listening to this song on the radio. When I think of my childhood, the first image that pops into my head is being outside in the fall and walking to UK football games.

The Pinch of Poverty

Some of the contributing factors of poverty are a lack of education, injuries that prevent working, addiction, and being born into poverty.The artist portrays poverty as being miserable and lonely, but also as having hope. One element of art that enhances the message are the colors. The bright yellow flowers contrast to their dark, desolate clothing and surroundings. The flowers represent hope for the family, or at least the children, of getting out of poverty. They give the painting a sense of optimism. Another element is the space around them. They are separated from everyone else, showing that they are alone and no one wants to be around them because they are poor.

"Live Free and Starve" vs. "The Singer Solution to World Poverty"

In the two articles discussing the poverty in the world, many differing opinions were stated by the authors. Chitra Divakaruni seems to be more of a realistic person, while Peter Singer has more of an optimistic look about helping the poverty situation in the world. He believes that to end world poverty, it would be just as easy as everyone who has anything to spare donating a heap of money to organizations. He says that "the formula is simple: Whatever money you're spending on luxuries, not necessities, should be given away." Divakaruni doesn't believe that it would be this simple. She has had close experience with poverty, and seems to understand more about the impoverished than Singer does.

I would say that I definitely have a reader bias between these two articles. I am slightly more of a non-moral person, who doesn't have a strong, raging urge to help others, as terrible as that sounds. This made me automatically want to disagree with whatever Singer said, because he wanted desperately to help the impoverished, even if it was at a cost to us. Don't get me wrong, I have no problem with helping those living in poverty, but I just feel that most of Singer's ideals were unrealistic and had not been thought through very well. His idea to just have every American donate all of their annual income that isn't spent on necessities can never evolve into anything more than a daydream. That is a lot to ask of us. Most of us can't give up every luxury in our lives. What we do with our money is our business, and he shouldn't be flat-out telling us not to "buy that new car, take that cruise, redecorate the house, or get that pricy new suit." Divakaruni, on the other hand, seemed to be just a wee bit more realistic. She points out that kids in other countries would probably rather be working in harsh conditions than to have leisure time, but no money for food, shelter, or clothes.

Ariel Pink's Haunted Grafitti "Round+Round"

My musical facts influenced my opinion a lot in this song. The facts that I listed about this song were:

1) The song used a synthesizer instead of real instruments.

2) The rhythm, tempo, and dynamics changed multiple times throughout the song.

The fact that this song was composed mainly of a synthesizer instead of real instruments contributed to my opinion of this song. It made the song more enjoyable for me because I tend to like music that has more of a techno/electronic feel to it. The second fact seemed to contribute less to my opinion of the song. I am indifferent to any changing of the rhythm, tempo, and dynamics most of the time. My opinion wasn't based solely on those facts however. It went a lot deeper than that. It depended a lot on the mood of the piece, which to me, had a rather creepy feel. This is what put me off of the song a little bit.