Project Proposal

Research Question:
Are there common sound patterns and arrangements within songs of the 1980s hard rock genre and why do those arrangements strike positive emotions from the target audience?

I feel like this research question will ultimately focus on values the hard rock genre Discourse and what about those arrangements strike positive/happy emotions out of the reader.

(Side note, I'll be using my ears for the analysis -- I won't be reading anything)

Interest:
When I first began this project, I focused primarily on academic and recreational interests. I really enjoy Discourse/discourse and I find the link between values and pathos to be interesting. I suppose in general I’d like to know if there are any commonalities between how the songs of a specific 80s genre are arranged when I hear them. I haven’t given it much thought to be honest – I just listen to the songs that I like, but I wonder if maybe there is a pattern within the songs somewhere. … I think that could be fun and cool to find out.

I suppose it’s a given that the songs within a genre should sound alike in specific ways, but some songs are a combination of different genres (at least Wikipedia says so) and so I think it would be interesting to see if there are common sounds among songs that may or may not be a combination of hard rock and another genre. I feel like maybe I could use those commonalities to piece together what a hard rock genre may sound like.

This may interest my audience because maybe it could help them understand why they listen to the songs that they do. Maybe they’ll realize that there could be patterns and similarities among the songs that they like. Maybe they'll understand more about any potential reasons for why they listen to what they listen.

Plan:
I plan to read up on Discourse Theory, read some articles that focus on values, maybe articles that focus rhetorically on values within music, read articles that focus on the rhetorical composition of music, read background material on my topic and collect/analyze about 40 songs within the 80s hard rock genre. I may read background material and mentoring material before I analyze because what I read could shape my interpretations of what I find, but I'm not sure right now. I feel like this is pretty vague for a plan, but I'm not sure how else to go about it right now -- I apologize.

I don’t know how I’ll present this …. I think it may just be easier to write a paper, but I’m curious about a video too. How long would my video be? Would it be about an hour or two? I really like the idea of a video because I think it could be fun, but I don’t know how to work with windows movie maker. I guess I can explore with it over break. … Maybe I’ll wind up doing a paper. I guess we’ll see. :).