Reflection

I had a great time remixing these songs using the contents of the class material. Right when we were assigned this project, I knew I wanted to do a more creative and fun approach to the project rather than a more traditional way. In a lot of ways, I attribute that to many things learned in this course: just as the stories we learned about are all different aspects of the journeying to another place yet highlight the process of migration, my medley of songs vary across genres and sounds, yet still inform the class about migration through the lens of musicality. Coming up with the songs I wanted to use was rather easy — I just picked songs that I like with original lyrics meaningful to the class topic. Remixing the lyrics was for sure my favorite part of the assignment; I loved getting creative and seeing the work fall into place before my eyes. The rhyme schemes and different melodies could be tricky at times, but I honestly had so much fun working on this project. I gained some confidence singing in front of the class because that is way out of my comfort zone but I am really proud of myself for doing so! Additionally, I got to review almost all of the stories and class material again, so it really wrapped up the great semester for me and allowed me to reflect on how much I learned in this class!

When referencing Rocco and his Brothers, I pinpointed the key aspects I remembered from the story, which were how both Rocco and Vince’ went after Nadia, and how Rocco had a lot of pressure on him — especially when in the boxing ring.

During my remix of “Perfect” I kind of included a hodgepodge of stories and terms because it fit the beat really well and I thought it would be cool to have a song that wasn’t necessarily exclusively about one song. My favorite line of the project was discussing Peppe because that class was a huge inspiration for my performance.

Other great lines were in “Halo” when I referenced how Steve was going to get a halo (because he dies at the end) so I thought that was a clever line and way to keep the integrity of the original song but still incorporating in my own way.

Works Cited

Donato, Pietro Di. Christ in Concrete. Esquire, Inc., 1937.

Madalena, Lorenzo. Confetti for Gino. Guernica, 2011.

Visconti, Luchino, director. Rocco and His Brothers. Titanus/Les Films Marceau, 1960.