I took MUSC 224: Honors Music Appreciation, taught by Dr. Christopher Swanson in the fall of 2018. This class was somewhat out of my comfort zone, even though I enjoy all kinds of music and I come from a relatively musical family I did not know much about the subject myself. The attached assignment’s objective was to compare a work of classical music to your major. At the time of the assignment I hadn’t delcared a major which provided an initial challenge in writing the paper. I chose to connect Richard Strauss’ Also Sprach Zarathustra, Op. 30 to the political and social unrest during the 20th century. The paper was written by me, and turned in on December 7th, 2018 and is titled “Political Unrest in the 20th Century and Richard Strauss”.
I felt that my strengths were represented in my writing abilities, and that I was able to complete a six-page paper on a subject that I was not extremely well read on. I felt that, after overlooking my work I could have made more in-depth connections between the music and lessons of history. I am very proud of how far my writing skills have improved since my sophomore year of high school, but am conscious of the many areas I have to improve on. One of my main goals is to become more detailed and have more in-depth insights when writing.