The way I see it, “good” music is anything that creates a connection to the listener’s emotions. The piece of “good” music that I choose to talk about today is “All Too Well” by Taylor Swift. This song was originally written and released in 2012 as a 5-minute song. But this year Taylor Swift rerecorded the song as a 10-minute version. The purpose of this music is to connect to the listener’s emotions of going through a breakup by Swift sharing her detailed personal experiences. The original song had such a significant impact on her fans that they requested Swift to release the 10-minute version she’s been keeping in the vault for 10 years. This piece of music has the expectation to tell a story in detail, and that’s why the music video for the 10-minute version has won a handful of awards already due to meeting those expectations. This song is “good” because of how personal it is. Swift talks about her own personal experiences about her breakup with Jake Gyllenhaal, while making the poem she also made it original. Her poetic lyrics and ensuring everything ties in together make her a skillful composer and all of her lyrics have a big impact on her fanbase and new artists today who write personal songs like her. This song would fit best under Unit 2: What is Music? and the unit we are in right now Unit: 13 What is Good Music? This song would help people understand how to judge good music since it targets all 5 questions a person asks when grading what a good song is like. This would also help a student understand how to categorize music in Unit 2.

The song “光亮 (Guang Liang),” directly translated into “Brightness,” is the theme song for the documentary “The Forbidden City,” and is sung by the Chinese singer, Zhou Shen. Chinese contemporary lyricist Gou Lin and composer Qian Lei incorporated parts into the song that originated from a poem written by Northern Song Dynasty poet Su Shi. What makes this song special is the way Zhou Shen sang it. Zhou Shen is able to switch flawlessly between a wide range of pitches, which allows him to freely arrange the harmony at different parts of the song. In the second part of the song, there is the incorporation of the chants and arias of the Peking Opera at 3:25. With the incorporation of this traditional Chinese culture, the lyrics of the song contain a message that expresses an open-minded and optimistic attitude towards life. The homophonic texture of this song also makes it special as one of the instrumental accompaniments used is the ancient Xun (古埙), which is a globular, vessel flute, and is one of the oldest musical instruments in China with its use dating back to approximately seven thousand years ago.

A unit in which this piece of music can be featured could be Unit 7: Sung and Danced Drama. In this unit, we mentioned upon Beijing Opera, and this song “光亮” contains elements of this traditional art. Important concepts this song would help teach include how composers and artists today are able to incorporate traditional forms of music into more modern styles, which in this case, is electrical music. It can act as a modern example of how the Beijing opera tradition is being kept and delivered to the listeners of the song.

the question “what is a good music” keeps popping up. for me, never ever should music generally be categorized good or bad. as a matter of fact, there are different type of music. some music are for fun, while some are to send a message.

I will be discussing about this music titled Mariamo. the music is used to send a message and to appreciate the creator grandmother. the history and content of the music includes the artist Qdot speaking about his grandmother raising him in poverty until the day she died. I perticulaly love this type of music that connect send a message of appreciation to people. the music lyrics is in Yoruba so therefore some native Yoruba instruments was used. I can hear shaker, bata, piano. all the instruments was recorded into electronic beat then added to lyrics Socrates the music outcome.

the music piece connect to instruments and music technology. the instruments used are not too popular. the use of bat, shekere, gangan are interesting instruments that that the west aren’t familiar with. this instrument will teach other instruments other than the ones the western people use.

The music I chose is You Belong With Me by Taylor Swift. Taylor is an American singer-songwriter whose songs come in many different styles. Each of her songs is like a little story, creating a picture in my mind when I listen to it.

This is country-pop music, with banjos and electric guitars. The song is adapted by Taylor Swift based on the experience of a friend. It tells the story of the girl‘s unrequited love for the boy. Finally, the boy leaves the girlfriend who doesn’t love him and gets together with the girl. The song opens with a banjo melody, followed by catchy lyrics from Taylor Swift. The lyrics “But she wears short skirts/I wear shirts” show how she sees the difference between herself and the man’s girlfriend. “If you could see that I’m the one/Who understands you/Been here all along/So, why can’t you see? /You belong with me. “It can show a girl’s unrequited feelings of insecurity. At 2:25, the melody of the electric guitar solo takes over, along with the drums.

I think the song is related to American popular music and the influence of this song is huge. The song has been played 1.3 billion times on youtube, and the story in this song can resonate with many people. It is a representative pop and country music in the United States, and it also adds the innovation of electric guitar on this basis.

A Piece of music that I am familiar with and find good is the song “buffalo soldier” by bob marley. I grew up listening to Bob Marley on the beach with my family. I live on long island by the water, so all my summers were spent by the ocean, on my grandparents boat, or in fire island with all my cousins. The go to genre of music my mom and aunts would put on was always reggae. It’s the perfect music to listen to in the sun on a beach day. Reggae originated in a small Caribbean island in Jamaica hence the tropical feel of the music. By the 1970’s it became popular around the globe.  In the song Buffalo soldier, the term “Buffalo Soldier” was used to describe a group of black American soldiers who were used to fight Native Americans during the border wars. In other words, they were slaves, that is, “stolen from Africa,” as Bob himself put it.” The song has a laid back tempo as most reggae songs do, and a syncopated bass line. 

The unit this song would fit into is Unit twelve “Music and political expression”. In this unit we learned how reggae is connected to politics. Another one of Bob Marley’s songs was used as an example in this unit, so this song would fit perfectly in the unit. A concept this song would teach is one we already learned about. That would be that reggae was used to stand up for beliefs and fight for your rights as learned in this unit by the song “get up stand up”. 

A song that I believe is good music is “I’m Good (Blue)” by David Guetta and Bebe Rexha. It uses the same melody as “I’m Blue” by Eiffel 65 making it a remix/cover of the original song. The dynamics change throughout the song. It starts a little soft then it reached a crescendo because it got louder, she started singing higher pitches, and more instruments were added in the background. The song also has a consistent piano melody in the background of the whole song. Furthermore, it’s electronic music which I believe makes it different compared to other pop songs. It can be a part of the “US Popular Music” unit because it can demonstrate how different genres are popular in the US. It could also be a part of the “Instruments and Music Technology” unit because this song has electronic music embedded into it. It can show how electronic music can sound different.

In My Time Of Dying is an 11 minute song written and released by Led Zeppelin in 1975 on their album Physical Graffiti. It is a gospel blues song that was originally released by Blind Willie Johnson in early 1928. Originally recorded in 1927, the song was played in open d tuning and was originally 3 minutes long. It was recorded by Willie singing and playing his guitar by himself, making this a solo accompaniment. Led Zeppelin recorded the song in open a, with vocals, drums, a fretless bass and slide guitar, basically instrumental accompaniment, which was drastically different to what the original song sounded like. The tempo changes throughout the song, starting slow in the beginning and gradually speeding up faster and faster, until the end. It was recorded in a similar style to their other cover song, When The Levee Breaks, with an instrumental jam in the middle of the song. This song would fit in Chapter 5 of this unit, Song, because it is a story that is being told with instrumental accompaniment. The story itself is of a man on his deathbed praying to Jesus to take him to Heaven. It’s the same story as Blind Willie Johnson’s, however the chorus is much longer than his, which takes up 1-2 minutes of the song. The song is very different than what WIllie Johnson recorded in 1927 and it shows. Despite that, both versions of the song tell the same story, albeit very differently from each other, so it would also be able to teach more about cover songs and how they can be different from the original song.

“Good music” can be defined in many ways. However, good music can be whatever can get people singing along with bringing people together as a whole. One piece of music that really fits this category is Bob Marley’s “One Love / People Get Ready”. This song talks about people getting together as one, signifying “one love”. Marley and this song stem from a reggae genre of music in Jamaica. What makes this song interesting is that Marley composes multiple people to sing this song. As he is the main and lead singer, there are times (such as the chorus) where people come together and sing the main melody, which gives it a very heterophonic feel. The tone of the music was also very upbeat, giving that sense of popular music to spread to other people. This song can connect to music and political expression because within this song Marley conveys a deeper message. Bob Marley is also known widely for his connection and influence on politics and movements across the world worldwide with his song reaching national stardom. With the influence Marley has, he was able to get his message across to multiple nations.