Goal 4- Artistic Achievements
Although I took band all four years of my high school career, I decided not to follow through with it in college. In order to get my three credits worth for this goal, I would have had to take a year and half of band, whereas I could get it out of the way with History of Rock. I have always been a fan of the rock genre, so I thought the class would be both easy and fun. I was correct about the latter, but not so much with the former. Dr. Karnatz guided us through decade by decade, starting with the late 1940s and leading up to the 80s. I thought the class would be strictly history, in which we would only be required to memorize artists and their most notable hits, but it was much more complex than that. Not only did we have to memorize each artist in the chapter, but define several key characteristics of rock for each decade or movement, analyze and pick apart each song measure by measure, and compare different variations and alternations rock experienced. The professor also expected us to be on our heels when it came to participation, so he randomly called names from cards to answer several questions. It was a moderately challenging class, but I learned a lot of cool tidbits about some of my favorite artists, and came out with a new viewpoint on how to examine and listen to rock music.
Enclosed is the final paper of the class, in which I had to interview my stepfather about his tastes in music growing up as a teenager.