Wiki+Assignment+2

 Everyday Works Of Art! ​ ** Regina Spektor: On The Radio: ** media type="youtube" key="KLofUOmvOiY" height="344" width="425"  1. I have always been a fan of Regina Spektor and I've listened to many of her songs. This one is one of my favorites right now. This song is really up beat and puts you in a better mood. Over the weekend was the first time I've seen the music video though. As soon as I saw it i thought of Asethic Education. The children in this video are learning music and rhyme, they are watching performances and then bringing it back to the classroom to learn just like we do using instruments and dance moves. Already knowing the words I wasn't sure what to excpet from the video, this wasn't it though. I was surprised when it started off with a classroom full of students with instruments, but as the song kept going it started making sense. The song is about not having any regrets in life and to live life to the fulliest. For Regina, being a musican it makes the most sense that she wants to pass on what she knows and has learned to the younger generation like in her video. 2. The beginning of this song starts and then almost seems like it is going to stop. And the first words you hear, aren't words to the song but her humming along and improving in the beginning. This is the style that can be found in many of Regina Spektor's songs. Its interesting and different and it defiantly catches your attention. In class a couple weeks ago we talked about music and improvisation, we even got to make up our own songs following a pattern. The pattern of this song is Introduction, A, B, C, A, B, C, improve, Coda (which is the same as the introduction). I can also hear inflection in her voice throughout the song. At the beginning and at the end she claps along with the steady beat to the music but we can hear other instruments still playing in the background. After learning this in class, I can see that I actually have been listening to music better and listening for the improvisation sections and relating to the dancing we had done as well. 3. Some of the lyrics from "On The Radio" are,

you peer inside yourself you take the things you like and try to love the things you took and then you take that love you made and stick it into some-- someone else's heart pumping someone else's blood;**
 * this is how it works

This verse reminded me most of the Booth readings we have done. From part one of Booth's book, he states that showing students that they are all kinds of artists he says "To engage fully in the work of art, all you really need are the skills you already have" (5). Having every student play different instruments or dancing different dances shows them that there are many different ways to be creative and use art. In this video I see them playing drums or piano, they dance, and also clap along to the music in the beginning. Another Booth quote that I think fits good here is, "If we can acknowledge and honor the art we perform, if we can stay aware of and develop the skills of art we use daily, if we can borrow appropriate and useful trade secrets from artists, who are the experts and exemplars of this field, we can dramatically enrich the quality of daily life" (3-4). Relating Booths quote to this verse fits well together. They both state the same thing, that after you take something you know and change or alter it to fit you, you can make a masterpiece without even knowing. With this new found 'talent', this love that you have just found, you want to share it with others. They then take it in and the cycle starts.

**Fall Trees**  

1. I walk past these trees multiple times a day, everyday, on my way to and from classes. The other day I noticed for the first time how red the leaves looked. I cannot remember them looking this red before. After seeing these red leaves I looked around on the ground and saw how most of the leaves were darker red and how many leaves have already fallen out of the tree and onto the ground. The weather was rainy and cold but noticing these new colors made me forget about how bad the weather was and how cold it was outside and made me notice all the other trees around campus that had started changing, too. 2. After noticing this tree and the others around campus, even when the weather was bad, I wasn't too worried about the weather any longer and more interested in the trees outside. I now look at this tree everyday on my way to class and from class. I'm not a fan of fall but I guess I never realized how pretty all the colors become in fall. The surround environment adds to this tree since the grass is so green and some trees still not being fully changed yet it brings out the colors even more. Knowing that all the trees were slowly changing around me and I never noticed them before is funny to me. These colors are so "warm" that it makes even rainy days in Erie better. While looking at all the leaves on the ground I could only think of putting them all, after they all fall off the tree, and jumping in them. I then though of how Mercyhurst's campus has many beautiful trees but around the world people are cutting down trees to make into materials that we buy. The changing of the trees are so pretty but many are getting cut down and if more and more get cut down, less and less leaves will fall each year. 3. Booth ends the chapter titled "World Exploring" with this quote; "Extend yourself into a world you are making, and you yearn to experience similar worlds well-made by others" (24). Once I realized how beautiful this tree was, I started noticing more and more trees around campus. I now know that I should pay attention to my surrounds more, since I did pass the tree everyday and now many of the leaves have already fallen and I wish I would have really noticed it before because it would have been even prettier. Booth is all about experiencing and learning from your experiences. "Beauty is an invisible skill of experiencing; a kind of dialogue" (138). I missed this tree everyday but now that I have experienced it, not only will I know what it looks like in the fall when the leaves start to change but I am also going to be looking at all the trees in the winter when there is snow; and in the spring when they become green and full again.