What Music Means To Me...- Reflections

Today we presented our ' what music means to me' choices from childhood teens and now. It was really interesting to see everyones choices of tracks and videos and major patters occured with each presentation. I liked that the music tracks everybody chose were each really original and personal to us however throughout we shared common links.

• Music- When do you listen to music, where, who with?
  

I think this question is really personal to everyone and depends completely on you. I listen to music everyday, I listen to the radio every morning while getting ready for school, I listen to Kiss 100 and Capital FM mainly.I rarely use my ipod except for on holiday and in the gym, mainly because I dont own itunes. I love listening to music with my friends mainly when were getting ready to go out and when im in different places i listen to different types of music. I mainly consume my media from the music channels on the TV just because I can enjoy music more when im on my own if theres something to watch with it. I also love listening to the radio in the car for background noise. Music to me isnt about finding the latest band and constantly downloading I just like consuming it for entertainment, with friends and for escapism.

• Pleasures of listening to music?

For me, listening to music is to give me escapism and different genres of songs can give me different feeling and emotions. Music can really cheer me up and get me in the mood if im going out for the night. I think sharing music with others can help people socialise it can create an atmosphere and help release tension

From hearing others presentations today I feel alot of people listen mainly to music to realease many different emotions. I think the lyrics of songs can help express peoples feelings and can perhaps remind you of a memory or a time in your life which is why people like listening to the music. Depending on different places the pleasure of music reflects that for example if your in a club the pleasure of the music is to express happiness and socialise in a group. Whereas if you sat on a train you would prefer to listen to music indvidually for company and to entertain you.

• Our choices of music- did they follow any patterns?

When presenting our music choices numerous patterns came up. Firstly a main pattern that came up was memories. Lots of people including myself choice tracks that reminded them of something in their lives, something that realy stands out to them, whether that be a holiday, a trip or a song that reminds them of growing up.
Most of our childhood tracks werent chosen because of the lyrics but mainly because they were targeted to appeal to us. We also saw gender difference with boys choosing football songs and the girls choosing disney films and pop music. People said that the music was influenced by people around them such as siblings or what their friends listned too. The music industry itself influnced many of us with CD covers such as 'Now that what I call music' appealing to the younger audiences and making it something we would all want to listen too.
Alot of tracks that out class chose were from a ceratin occasion such as holidays, summer, gigs, festivals, school trips,first CD.
With out childhood tracks many of us liked songs because of the look of the band, particualy the girls. Groups such as S club 7 and Steps had a look that we wanted to be like and so we were instantly attracted to them.
The tracks that were then presented for early teens and now showed patterns of us all growing up and growing into music genres and types of bands I think as we have got older we all grow into our own tastes. Many people also widened theit music tastes and become more open minded.

• What was the relevance of this task to our project?

This taked allowed us to really start thinking about the audience involved in music and how they are targeted. This will be crucial for our upcoming video as we need to target our audience in order for tehem to listen to it. We will need to create a genre and visuals that will suit that audience and allow them to recognise it. It also showed us that a music video must draw on peoples emotions and ther must be something in it that makes it so memorable and plays on peoples feeling. Overall it really got me thinking more carefully about the project in order to create something that will really work