Throughout the research project my role wasn't quite as important until we begsn finishing each individual component of the website, such as the reports and transcripts, as I in charge of editing the final products. However, I during the time I didn?t
have much of job to do on the project, I learned much throughout the preparation of the website and the progress that others made and my own research. Until now, I had always thought of Tango the way America portrays
it, in a very sensual and romantic way with stiff movements in the dancing and sharp staccato notes, and I always had the picture of a man dressed in nice clothes with a red rose between his teeth, and through his
dance, he basically ensues "hitting" on a beautiful woman. This is the scene I had always associated with Tango. But since reading and researching, I realize that this is not at all how it started out when it originated
in Argentina, and that in fact it began in the rough part of the country and was considered to be low-class! That just shocked me.
Throughout the project, I have also
learned how much goes into making a website. Hannah is so talented and has knowledge way beyond what I ever even thought about with technology, so it has been very interesting to see all that she has come up with
from scratch. I also had the job of writing the About blurb for the website, which hopefully gives an adequate summary of what there is to explore on the page. Throughout this project and the beginning of editing,
I have also been forced to not worry about hurting the writers' feelings when I give criticism or offer a better way to phrase things, which has definitely been a challenge for me because I'm always worried about
hurting feelings, but this project has allowed me to understand how to be professional in delivering criticism, which will surely be very beneficial in the future. Another thing I have found so interesting throughout
the project was the transformation that the art of Tango has undergone. As I researched old Tango I came across some old footage on YouTube from an Argentinian film. In the film, which I'm guessing took place after
the romanticizing of Tango began, there are many couples dancing at what resembles an old dance hall and there is a Tango Orchestra band in the corner playing. Although there is a taste of romance the song is more
about the music and there is less focus on the dancers themselves. At this time in the video, very traditional style Tango music being played. This is opposed to the Tango of today's culture as seen in America,
where Tango is a dance that can be performed to many different songs and genres of music including the example I found from Dancing With the Stars, in which the popular song "Can't Keep My Hands to Myself" by Selena
Gomez is used for the Tango Style Dance for the week. One thing I did notice that comes through both examples was the level of exaggeration and drama that comes across. Tango is a very theatrical performance. It
is just crazy to me how Tango has evolved from its humble beginnings to its stance of such beauty and expression as its portrayed in the world today, and I look forward to learning even more about the history and
art behind Tango.
In this tango project, I learned an incredible amount of information about the music and culture of Tango, and developed experience and understanding in web design. I worked with a team of four people in charge of the website
for this project. My role specifically included researching and planning the layout for the content of the site, planning meetings for our group, and developing a logo for the project.
This project has taught me an incredible amount of knowledge over tango music that I would never have received in a typical classroom setting. Even as someone on the website team, I have learned interesting information
over the background of tango music, the traditional instrumentation of tango, other cultural influences in tango music, and the differences between traditional tango music and the modern tango music we know today that
has spread across the globe. I have a newly developed taste for tango music now, whereas before, I paid little attention to the music. Now, after listening to the Double T Tango Orchestra and researching the traditions
behind tango music, I have respect for the culture, and enjoy the music even more.
After viewing countless websites made for companies, music ensembles, colleges, etc. I found that making a good website that is both easy to navigate and aesthetically pleasing is no easy task, and many people
even fall short in doing so. Through this project, I've learned to better appreciate a well-made website, but I've also began to more frequently notice poorly made ones as well. I more closely analyze the overall look
and feel of a site, and found that this is something crucial to the success of a company. If a website is clunky, and the layout is ugly, the company behind it looks unprofessional. With that in mind, we made sure to
focus on a minimalistic design with our site. This was to avoid bombarding the user with too many options, and to make the site run as smooth and simple as possible while still displaying all of the work by the students
in our class.
Before the start of this project, I knew about Tango music, but I had never truly appreciated it. Afterwards, however, I have a new-found appreciation and respect for the music and culture associated with Tango
music. If it weren't for this tango project, I would have never gained the respect I have for Tango, and might not have ever enjoyed it like I do today. Thanks to the Double T Tango Orchestra and this project, I have
learned a great deal of knowledge over Tango and gained important experience in web development.
For this project, I primarily worked with the web design team. I wanted to contribute to the aesthetic of the website, ensuring that it looked attractive and that it was easy to navigate. Because I have some amateur experience
in photography, I decided to utilize my skills and interest by taking some photos and by editing some pictures for the website. This included both atmospheric photography and photos of the Double T Tango ensemble. My
atmospheric photos were primarily compromised of pictures featuring Lubbock sunrises and pictures of Texas Tech's beautiful campus. For my photos of the ensemble, I took pictures of them both performing and practicing.
I learned a great deal about both photography and web design through my work. I was sometimes frustrated by my inability to take pictures that I was satisfied with. I often found it hard to take pictures of the whole
group during practice and performance without sacrificing a certain amount of aesthetic to the pictures. I overcame this challenge by changing my expectations of perfectionism, as well as by getting advice from skilled
photographers that I knew. I used their advice to better capture the group, and overall I am very satisfied with the result.
The website design team comprised of Hannah, Tatum, Josh and I all were all able to
learn from each other's experience, and we built off of everyone's interests and skills. I was very impressed with Hannah's extensive previous knowledge of web design, and I learned a lot from her work and input. I
am very satisfied with the website, and I believe that it has an appropriate aesthetic and utility, as well as a plethora of good information regarding Tango and the Double T Tango orchestra.
As for what I learned,
I attended one of the Double T Tango orchestra's performances in order to take some pictures of the group. I appreciated this experience because it allowed me listen to them perform in a professional setting, and it
allowed me to have a greater understanding of the music involved with tango. Attending their performance changed my perceptions of tango from my original idea that tango was compromised of over-sexualized music and
dancing. I learned in my Music and Globalization class as well that Tango has a much richer background and culture to it, that accounts for its unique sounds and rhythms. I appreciate tango so much more for what it
is through my experience, and I enjoyed the opportunity expand my knowledge and grow my skills in photography.
During this project, I have really enjoyed being a member of the web development team because it has allowed me to utilize and improve my web development skills as well as learn more about Tango music. User interface design and development has never been a strength of mine compared to my other programming skills, so this project has been a challenge for me. However, every time I have created a website, it has been under the direction of someone who was very particular about how the site looked, whether they knew how much effort it would take to make the change they wantd or not. Every time I have developed a website, I have always had someone with more experience helping me- but in this project, I have been the expert. This has pushed me to do a lot of research and learning, and has also forced me to take a bit of a leadership role over this portion of the project. It was really intimidating at first, but when I realized how well our team works together and how much everyone's skills offer different benefits to the project, I knew we were going to put together a great final product. I have also enjoyed a lot of freedom over how the website is designed- for the most part, I get to design the website based on my own vision alone, something I have never done before. It has made my job a little more difficult, because I have to do a lot more of the design than I am used to, but it has also made it easier to overcome challenges, because I can change the design to accomadate any issues that arise. I think the work our team has done is so unique because it is our responsibility to make sure everyone else's hard work is accessible, easy to navigate, and pleasing to look at. I know I have learned so much about Tango simply by seeing all of the work the rest of our class is doing. As we near the end of this project, I cannot wait to see everyone else's accomplishments and bring them all together to form one cohesive product.
As a first-time director, I knew that this project would be a challenge to me. I had never put together a video before. The first thing I did was go observe a Tango Ensemble rehearsal. It was interesting to see how this ensemble rehearsed compared to the other ensembles that I've been in. It seemed much more relaxed, especially since the conductor is also playing an instrument in the ensemble as well. What most people don't realize is how unique tango music is. It can be very sweet or very rough sounding. I liked being able to see the music side of tango versus the dancing side of tango that people focus on more often. Although there is more focus on the tango dance, both are very important to each other. Charles, the director of the tango ensemble, had placed importance on the musicians trying out a tango dance class to better understand the style. I had tried to play a tango piece before on my flute but I could never quite get the style down... maybe I should have taken a tango dance class! Working on the video has been a great learning experience as well. I've gotten to learn a lot about how putting together a video works. There are a lot of details that go into making a video look and sound professional. It has been great working with Noah on this project. I've learned a lot from him! Being a co-director is great because I get to see a lot of different parts of the project come together into one, and I get to learn a little bit from each one! For example, I've also learned how to film in addition to being a director. Listening to the interviews has also taught me a lot about tango. It was cool to hear about the genre from the perspective of a musician instead of just reading about it online somewhere. I'm glad to have been able to learn so much about the tango ensemble here at Tech as well as Tango in general! I hope everyone will enjoy watching the video that we all put together!
I came into this project with several skills in video production and audio editing, but no knowledge of Tango music. It's been a great journey discovering the history and origins of the music, dance, and culture, as well as working with colleagues and ensemble members. I have improved my skills in audio and video editing, and gained valuable knowledge and experience behind the camera. The documentary has been a huge undertaking, but I am proud of the hours that I, and the rest of the team, have put into it. Our experiences and education this semester have culminated in an incredible display of what Honors College, and Texas Tech Students, can produce. As well as working together for the class project, we have made close friends in this short time, and I look forward to working with many of my classmates in the coming semesters.
The documentary project has been a long and grueling process that has consumed much time. When we first began the project, I severely underestimated the amount of time it would take to complete the documentary project. I often collaborated with Noah and Lillian while they constructed the basic structure for the documentary. I particularly enjoyed discovering the experiences that both Noah and Lillian brought to the storyboard discussions. It definitely strengthened the vision for the documentary by combining multiple opinions and viewpoints. Additionally, I contributed to the documentary by tracking down third-party media sources that would enhance and heighten the quality of our documentary. I drew from the atmosphere that Texas Tech University creates and the schism that separates traditional tango from the sensationalized version that is present today in the media. It has been a trying time this semester. Juggling the adjustments to college while pouring hour outside of the classroom has made for a very strenuous and hectic semester. The hard deadline for the documentary has created a sense of urgency that has pressed myself and my fellow classmates to create the best documentary possible. To summarize, this semester-long documentary project has allowed me to research a very interesting subject. But more importantly, the documentary has forced me to grow as an individual. The things I have learned from the collaboration with my peers will apply to every aspect of my life in the foreseeable future. I hope you will enjoy the documentary, for it has been a labor of love!
Being apart of this project has been such an enlightening experience for me! For this project, I was apart of the film crew and I had the opportunity to film Texas Tech's very own Tango group. It was quite interesting as I felt I had experienced what makes Tango music very unique on its own part. Studying this genre throughout the semester, I was able to see how Tango has picked up components from different cultures as it travels around the world. For the documentary, I filmed interviews of some members of the Tango group and also of random individuals on campus, who had very little knowledge on Tango. It was interesting as those who had little knowledge of Tango, thought it was an interesting genre of music but had misinterpreted its general concept and where it takes its origins. It was wonderful seeing how the musicians part of the Tango group took great care to pay homage to the genre's roots and how Tango instilled within them great passion for music. Learning about Tango music has been a great experience as I have been exposed to different cultures and I get to understand the true meaning of globalization and music.
As this semester draws near to an end and the due date of the tango class project, I have begun to remember all I have learned. For the project, I took part of filming interviews and footage from around the campus for the documentary. During this experience, I have begun to see how much Americans take music from different cultures and countries and make it into something new. This is especially true for the tango. There is a huge difference between what most Americans, including me, think about tango and the original tango. During this project, I recorded interviews for the most part which is when I did most of my learning. I mainly learned that Tango is not from Spain like I previously thought, but instead comes from Argentina. I also learned that tango is used for dancing, but it is not as sexualized as Hollywood makes it out to me. Even when I went and recorded random interviews of people asking about tango, most people would consistently think about dancing being associated with tango, but people's guesses about where tango originated is all over the place. My time working on the class tango project has been very eye opening about how much American don't know about music in other countries, but instead make up their own explanations.
Over the past three months my honors Music and Globalization class has been working together to help the Texas Tech Tango ensemble create different medias to become more known throughout campus. My position in this team effort was to be a field worker. My responsibilities included attending the tango ensemble rehearsals, making a timeline of a normal rehearsal and interviewing some of the members of the ensemble. I chose this position because I knew that my weaknesses were mostly related to speaking to strangers because I am an extremely shy person. I wanted to force myself to "come out of my shell" during my first semester here at Texas Tech University, and I figured this position as a field worker would do just that. My first step was attending the rehearsals, which was actually not bad at all. I enjoyed listening to the music that they were making and I also made many connections to how rehearsals run in band. Since I am in band, I quickly picked up on the cycle of the rehearsals which is as follows: Charles, the director of the ensemble, would have the ensemble play through an entire piece and then they would go back and fix the problem areas. During one rehearsal, I recorded the events that occurred and the times that everything happened. I used this to create a time sheet of the typical rehearsal for the website. The most difficult parts of my job were the interviews. As I said before, I am extremely shy. It was so difficult for me to actually set up interview times because I was dreading it so much and, therefore, I procrastinated until I could no longer put it off. However, once I did the interviews, I found that it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Through this experience I learned that speaking to people is not bad at all. I just have to push myself to get what needs to be done done so that it'll be finished sooner and then I won't be stressing about it when the project is almost due.
In the beginning of the project I had always wanted to get the chance to be a field researcher. I had expectations of it being a unique learning experience. It would expand my professionalism in communication. This was a new environment for me to go out
and interview a person while filming and recording with professional equipment. The job came with responsibility of coordinating with people I worked with and the ones I was planning to interview. I'm glad to say
the major problem was finding an available time for everyone to get together. We had troubles with finding a good spot to film and record. Every option had a lighting, a sound problem, or both. The day was saved
when someone from the Student Union Staff let us into the faculty lounge upstairs. So, we ended up in a quiet and bright room with a great window view of the gorgeous Texas Tech campus. It was perfectly functional
for what we were trying to accomplish. The interview went smoothly and we all executed our roles perfectly. It was interesting leading the conversation topics and taking the role as an interviewer. It was a new
experience for me and it sharpened skills I will use for the rest of my life. The experience was a new to me and I'm glad I got the opportunity. It helped enhance my communication and leadership skills. In order
to make this run smoothly I had to make sure the group of us interviewing were all set and the guest was too. I learned to be as prepared as possible. We came in with backup questions and different topics to go
over. In my future as an architect, I will be required to communicate my ideas with people. Sometimes this will become difficult and I will have to use my knowledge of the subject and experience to create a clear
picture. This project helped prepare me for that reality in my future career.
I really enjoyed working with the class of honors students. We all got along great and
planned around all the busy schedules. There were a lot of different and important jobs required for the website to come together. I can't wait to see all the hard work and great minds involved in the creation of
this website. We all had a role to play, and all of it was done punctually and impeccably. I'm very proud to have worked with this class on such a big project and hope others enjoy the website too.
I would like to start off by stating that I enjoyed participating in the project very much. At the beginning of this project, I was uneasy about this because I do not have a musical background. In fact, I have no musical background at all. However, I learned very quickly that a music background was not needed, simply just interest in learning more about the topic of music. I signed up for the position of field worker because I felt like going out into the ‘field' and ‘investigating' would be something best suited to my skill set and my personality. At the beginning of the project, the field workers primarily worked as a group to form a plan for interviewing. I contributed with helping out at the first rehearsal to pass out our information cards. I also helped with the creation of our list of questions for the interviews we would be conducting. We decided to not interview each and every tango member because that would more interviews than an audience would be interested in. I helped with three of our group interviews over the existence of the project. In addition to the interviews, I performed an individual part that correlates to my field of study which is science. I had the idea to do a brief statistical analysis over the tango group here at Texas Tech. I made a small five question survey that I used to create graphs/ tables in order to present the information to our audience. Between the interviews and statistical portion I did, I learned how to be a field worker. I also learned a lot about the tango and am thankful for the opportunity our class had to do this project.
Tango. The word resonated within my head as I tried to conjure up any information that I could regarding that word. The sole thing that came to mind was: dance. I grew up dancing from an early age so of course that is the first thing I could conceptualize. I never actually danced the tango, but I was always fascinated by Hispanic cultural dances. After the class shared some ideas and collectively analyzed what we knew about tango as a whole, we established that our initial presumptions were rather far from authentic. The start of our education on the captivating style and history of tango having just been initiated, our class was assigned an assignment to learn more about tango as well as create a visual compilation of all the information gathered. At first, the project seemed somewhat overwhelming and the class, myself included, did not know where to start. We divided amongst ourselves into different sections to equally allocate the work and worked as a team to get what was needed to be done completed. It took time out of class as well as an abundance of communication amongst the class to be able to pull a presentation like this off. My contributions include doing several interviews alongside my classmates, being filmed while asking random people their thoughts and background knowledge of tango, coming up with a series of questions to ask people that we interviewed, and helping to organize times to meet, interview, film, or anything else that the "field workers" needed to accomplish. This project has taught me so much regarding tango. This includes the genre and its history, characteristics, and musical elements. Most importantly, the way that this specific genre of music has touched and influenced the lives of those who perform and are exposed to it.
Going into this project, I was unsure of what to expect. It appeared to be very intimidating to me at first but after reading quite a few books and doing some deep research, I was instantly intrigued and dove head over
heels into my paper. I learned not only about the music and dance of the tango but also learned a lot about the culture of Buenos Aires and Argentina as a whole. Through my research I have also developed a greater sense
of the world and America during the early 1900s and how social structure and culture has changed since then. All the information I personally gained I put into the format of a paper with examples and even a video, hoping
the reader will be intrigued and will also be able to tie it to examples of the modern society. From what started off as very intimidating became extremely interesting and I have benefited greatly from this project.
Although my role was one of individual nature, it has also been interesting to watch the other teams work together to form their portion of the project. The work ethic put into this project has been amazing
and I am very excited to see all parts come together to form the final project.
When we decided to do a class project about the topic of the Tango, I chose to do a research paper to fulfill my part in the class project. I had researched a couple topics about the spread of the Tango and its Origin, but nothing ever clicked with as something that I want to talk about. Soon I had myself wondering about people interpretation and perception of the Tango. Basically why does America see the Tango as very sexualized and Argentina does not? Also it got me to wondering why the Tango was played or danced slightly differently as you look from region to region. I thought of many things that would help contribute to these observations. Finally, I concluded that in order for the Tango to spread and to have different interpretations, there had to be some type of mix of cultures that went on in the world. So, I thought of the many ways that encouraged the mixing of cultures or caused the mix of cultures. Then I realized one of the few things that could influence the spread of the Tango over huge oceans across the world would have to be the Slave Trade. The Slave Trade was a great catalyst for the mixing of cultures and people into foreign lands. So that link I made in my head made me want to write about the Slave Trade's influence of the spread and interpretation of the Tango. I've gotten great progress on my paper. I've gotten a lot of support from others when I needed help editing my paper. I feel that the final project will be very informative and will come together very nicely. My experience of collecting this information to write this paper was very awesome. It was cool to be able to link different ideas from specific occurrences that happened in history.
When we first embarked on this project, I was unsure as to how I might approach my role, as I have no technical experience in filmmaking and journalism, nor do I have extensive knowledge on music techniques in general.
I decided to write a research paper, which seemed a most plausible choice to me, but even in this area I faced some difficulty. Frankly, I had absolutely no idea what aspect of tango I wanted to write about, but in
retrospect, what I wanted was to portray tango in a more accessible light, outside of its definition and variations of technique and history and culture. Outside of those aspects, I wanted to explore why tango music
is significant, to those of us who are not musically inclined.
Sure enough, I stumbled upon a few studies about tango's therapeutic effects on Parkinson's disease, which conveyed a different side to what we typically perceive as medicine. There are many studies that
replicate experiments involving the use of tango music and dance as a treatment for Parkinson's disease, and even more studies that suggest music's overall ability to heal. It turns out there are neurological implications
behind why we find comfort in listening to music, which then begs the question: if music can be used as a treatment for a wide array of disorders, then why don't we readily integrate music into the healthcare system?
I, for one, would love to enter a clinic one day and have a live orchestra playing the works of Mozart. Of course, this seems bizarre now, but there's no telling what the future holds and there certainly is no telling
what direction the medical field takes. After all, as the old saying goes, anything is possible.