The Bible and Music

Here is my reflection and stuff for the final project.

danyul reflection

Danyul Lyrics

On Wednesday, we began sharing our final projects, or at least the progress we had thus far on setting Biblical text or a story to music, and the results were very interesting. Everyone who shared thus far had vastly different pieces. One idea that I hadn’t thought of was looking up a children’s version of the story or a children’s Bible eve, so that it would be condensed and easier to pick out the main points.

Today in class we listened to and watched people’s final presentations. All of them were fantastic and so different from one another. I was interested to hear the process behind each one.I really enjoyed the Garage Band pieces because I tried to figure out a song on there and could not find a harmonious tune.  All of my classmates showcased a different aspects of their talents. Many sang their own song which I admire because I was too nervous to sing my own song. I admire their confidence. I asked a friend of mine to sing my song. When I present on Monday I am going to play the song in the background and display my lyrics so the class can read a long while my friend sings.

On Monday, a former Butler student Danielle came to class to share her music. I thought her music was very interesting. It was something I’ve never heard of before. I thought it was really cool that she had an installation in a museum. She was able to pair her art with her music. I think it would be fun and interesting to listen to her music and lay in the art installation. I liked how different her music was, especially the way she writes music. I have never seen music written that. It was so creative. I would love to learn to read it. If I could play more instruments, I would be interested in maybe learning to write music just like that. I like that she has her own form of writing music. It is her notation that she could read and others if they figure it out. I think it is like a secret code of some sort. I like that it makes use of drawings and colors. It is kinda like what you imagine when you listen to music.

Today’s class, was day one of presenting our final projects. I went first and I am happy that I got it over with. I think I shared pretty well and was proud of myself for going first. Today, was the best class we have ever had. Everyone was engaged and had a lot of fun. I was so impressed with the work of my classmates and how much talent can be in one room. My classmates projects were super well done and thoughtful. I think we all were more engaged today, because we were able to have fun and let loose. I am happy that this process is coming to an end and that I can feel more relieved.

Monday, Gabrielle came into our class and let us listen to some of her work that she has created over the years. Her work was definitely nice but also different. It wasn’t like anything I would normally listen to and I think that’s what I like about it. It was interesting to actually hear from a Butler Grad and learn about what she is doing so far, gives me hope for the future. I am expected to graduate in May and still have no idea where I may end up but she was definitely an inspiration. She was also able to give us a bit of advice on our final projects which I thought was really nice.

I think the book of revelation is actually very interesting because of the cryptic and dramatic ways in which it was written. It is something that has always perplexed my religion teahers growing up and something they struggled to explain to their students. Much of the imagery is very violent but also incorporates a lot of natural wonders to give power to the text. It is my theory that it was written with such strong nature imagery because nature was the most powerful thing known to man at that time. I actually chose to do my final project with a passage from Revelation that I find particularly powerful.

Hey everyone, so I decided to overcome my fear of singing the song. As I mentioned previously, yesterday I took over 10 different videos of me singing, didn’t like it, so I even tried songs I was more comfortable with but I didn’t think they went with the Psalm. So… today I just said “screw it” and took one take of me singing my original song with the lyrics from the Psalm incorporated. It’s a little rough, so bear with me. I actually have two videos, one of the beginning of the song (so you can get a feel for what I meant from presenting) and one of the end of the song so you can see how the mood switches which works really well with the Psalm 22. Thanks for bearing with me, lol.

Attached is my final project reflection paper that I completed following the finishing of my song set to a biblical text! Also I want to include the youtube links that I will be showing during my presentation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxMApS0QXcE

https://play.riffstation.com/chords-tabs/chance-the-rapper-blessings-coloring-book/BeChAs-bI3A

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm+107&version=NIV

https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/chancetherapper/blessings.html

Final Project Reflection

One thing I had wanted to share for a while with everyone but never got the chance to due to a lot of other work I had to do for my other classes is something I saw at the Indianapolis Art Museum. I had visited here for the first time when my best friend from high school came to visit about three weeks ago. One room was dedicated entirely to religious paintings and these amazingly intricate creations. I saw about 6 or 7 different depictions of the Crucifixion. I had taken a multitude of photos of them on my phone with the intent to share them with the class, but unfortunately, I dropped my phone a few days after that and it wouldn’t turn on so they replaced my phone but all of my pictures from after October 2017 went away (thanks iCloud for not backing up recently!) Anyways, I still wanted to share my findings with you all. I discovered that all of the artists portrayed this iconic event in so many different and unique ways. Some of the depictions were very dark and ominous, almost scary-looking. It looked extremely sad and devastating, while others happened to look very hopeful and refreshing, like something good was to come from the event. At the same time, others had soft lines and gentle shading, to add to this pleasing feel. The darker photos happened to have more harsh and abrupt lines. It was extremely interesting to see how differently the same event plays out for each person. Also, there was a statue of the Crucifixion as well, which was extremely cool and unique! I would highly recommend going to check it out if you haven’t already, especially in the summer when the gardens outside are beautiful! Admission is free for an entire year if you wanted to keep going back, and you get 15% discount off the café items if that is an incentive for some of you. I really enjoyed this trip and am very sad to have lost all of my photos, as the entire exhibit was just breathtaking.