Although I come from a musical family and have been in a variety of music classes and choirs throughout the years, I found that this class was its own unique challenge. I thought I knew music, but this course caused me to think of music in a unique way. For example, our first major assignment of the course was to compose and score a piece of our own. For someone constantly singing and making up music in my head, this was a challenge I loved. Another unique assignment was to watch selected movies and analyze the scores for common musical themes. Months later, I pay close attention to  music in movies, and how the music can affect the story. Outside of our main assignments, the class itself also altered my way of thinking about music. Specifically, our readings and discussions in this course highlighted important interactions between composers that influenced future musical compositions.

The King of Ragtime by Rachel Boch was created on December 6, 2019. This paper discusses musical influences for “Maple Leaf Rag”, one of Joplin’s most famous pieces, relating to my major of Anthropology. This paper centered around the idea of ethnomusicology, or the study of music of different cultures, which directly relates to my Anthropology & Archaeology major.