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The Implosion of a Flute's Melody

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My object is my intermediate flute, which I have had for about four and a half years now. I chose my flute out of everything else because music is an important part of my life, in particularly in regard to music that I play and create with other people. I chose it for the project because it was the most meaningful object that I own and have with me at Knox, as well as an object that I thought would work well for the project, because the production isn’t as difficult to trace as, say, a phone. It matters to me because it is my main instrument. I play piano as well, which was started mainly by my mom. I alone decided to start playing the flute. It also brought me to the music department, where the majority of my friends are from. I picked my “expert” based on the only person I knew who knows a lot about flute. My flute teacher does not identify herself as an “expert”, however she does identify herself as very knowledgeable about the instrument. She acquired so muc...
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A Reflection on Anthropology

I have noticed over the course of the term in relation to our discussions that we are influenced by many more things than we are usually aware of, even such normal concepts as time or the organization of a classroom. Humans, their behaviors, and their habits show up constantly, to the point at which, if people were asked why they did or said something, they wouldn’t have a clear answer. It was also startling to realize just how much the world occupies everything in our lives. I had never considered how much of the world was in my flute, or my backpack for that matter. On another note, I wasn’t aware of the term “cultural cohorts” and how present silences are in our history-despite having been to many a museum in my life. I’m not sure if I’m noticing anything different in comparison to the start of the term on a regular basis, but I’m definitely noticing all of the influences in my life and how they interconnect, such as how my home environment and community has deeply influenced wh...
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Pierogi Day

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One food I always eat on Christmas Eve is pierogi, a Polish food made from special dough and filled with a variety of food. Between Thanksgiving and Christmas, all of the available females on my mom’s side of the family come together for what we call Pierogi Day. On this day, generally starting soon after lunch, aunts and female cousins come to my house-and my grandmother, who sadly is no longer with us-bringing various snacks and drinks. My aunts bring along aprons, and our counter is laid out with all of the ingredients and equipment necessary for making pierogi, the Pierogi Board most important. Our kitchen table is cleared of place mats and tin pans are placed down along with ceramic bowls and Tupperware bowls-the pierogi filling already in them, pre-prepared-and spoons. While a couple of the aunts work on making the pierogi dough and cutting it into the properly-sized circles, the rest of us chat and joke around, enjoying the company. My mom puts the radio clock on s...
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A Diary From Cyberspace

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                                        My main uses of media technology involve watching videos on YouTube and checking my emails. I use YouTube as a distraction when I’ve worked for a long period of time, as a tool to keep my brain occupied when I’m mentally having a low-functioning day, or as amusement. Otherwise, more recently, I have been going on Pandora, which is a music website that lets people listen to music for free. It also tailors your music to what you choose as a “station” first song and which songs you thumb up to indicate you like it, thumb down to indicate you don’t like it, or don’t thumb and therefore are neutral about. I was not at all surprised that YouTube and Gmail take up so much of my time, although I’m upset that I go to YouTube so much. I’ve used it a ton for years rather than reading and I’ve ventured into the dark and weird corners ...
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Notes Into Music

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              In class, we've recently been discussing body techniques, and we always relate our discussions to the concept of habit. These two concepts vary throughout the world, and Mauss comments on such in his reading about body technique. In our society, there are specific techniques and habits created by musicians that create the cohesiveness of the group and the music they produce. In order to study these more in-depth, I went to a live music performance in Knox's very own CFA.           I attended and participated in a choir practice session. It was an all-female group, with fourteen people including myself. There were about four soprano ones, six soprano twos, and four altos, and the director of course, who is a tenor. We were in a room with tiered desks, which is where we sat at for the majority of the practice. We warmed up first with Tom, the director, playing scales and chords on the piano and singing along to ...
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Making Art Out of Anthropology

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This week’s post regards two incredibly influential female anthropologists: Zora Neale Hurston and Katherine Dunham. Zora was an anthropologist as well as an author of multiple literary forms. Despite a difficult upbringing due to her mother dying when she was very young and the money being tight, Zora still fought for her education and her writing. Due to her hard work, she managed to get into college despite not finishing high school, and then moved to using her literary talent to try to help others understand African Americans’ struggles in the South. Katherine, on the other hand, used her dancing abilities to keep Caribbean dance styles alive, created a dance program (only one?), and counselled kids.                                                                        ...
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Contemplations, Discussions, and Insights into What Culture and Society Mean as Abstract Concepts

Direct Conversations : For my three conversations, I interviewed my suitemates and a cousin. While there was some variation in what they said, the core remained: culture is a part of society; they are interconnected; there are different cultures within a specific society. When I initially went up to them to talk to them, I expected three-word answers and little effort. Young adults, in my experience, tend to be lazy like that. To my surprise and appreciation, they went further than that.                         Cyan, 19, my first interviewee who is studying writing and art, defined culture as “kind of like smaller sections of bigger societies, maybe there are people from the same region, same spirituality, or same ethnic background. For example, Native Americans have traditions and laws based off a smaller community that isn’t society. They’ll conform to societal norms within that cultural ...
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