Proposal for Class Project
Although it’s been done before, I feel like music is always a good option when learning about different cultures and trying to find their differences and similarities. It’d be interesting to learn what traditional songs are still prominent in different neighborhoods and even more interesting to learn which “American” songs are popular in which neighborhoods. Since we have already done research and presentations on different neighborhoods that are mostly predominantly one culture, it’ll be interesting to search on song or genre from that country/culture. For example, for Woodside we would do research on one of the most popular Filipino songs and could include the song in our website and the research we have done on that song. This could include an English translation of the song, why the musician wrote it/what occurred to make the musician write it and even a small bio about the musician in order to learn more about Filipino culture in the Philippines. Even further than that, for Woodside, we can research a Filipino-born musician that has either moved to America or is expanding their sales to American. This would allow us to not only learn about music from different countries, but I would also allow us to learn about one person that immigrated to the US from said country.
Another route we can take in terms of music is researching the types of music that became popular and were even born in specific neighborhoods because of immigrants.
We could also go a more traditional way, and include songs from different countries that are seen as folk-songs or are teaching the listener a lesson. Kind of like songs for children; by listening to and learning about song like this we would be able to learn how different countries teach their children. One culture might emphasize independence while another puts importance on family and kids always going back to live with/help their parents and grandparents even when they are adults.
