The Golden Record curation assignment was a wonderful opportunity to review our musical choices against our classmates’. In this entry, I want to compare Tyler Graham’s entry, with my own. The first thing that stands out is the tool used. Tyler has used a podcast, similar to one of the resources provided for this assignment. I respect his use of sound for the golden record task, as it provides us with a way to listen to his experiences. Tyler approaches this assignment very differently than me. He looks at the class as a whole, 66% who chose Chuck Berry vs 20% who chose Blind Willie Johnson. Tyler outlines the difference between Black and White Culture as it pertains to music, the historic relevance of Blind Willie Johnson, and his influence on Chuck Berry. Tyler also does an amazing job of then connecting his curation, and the classes’ curation, to the BLM movement and the push to promote Black art and Black artists. Tyler recognizes the influence of Black Culture on the majority of music genres, including the “greats” like the Beatles. Tyler also uses a graphic to display the history of music in a visual way. Again referencing the importance of black culture on music (See below).

In comparison, my entry was written. I used a screen capture of the results of my “Group 7” and then discussed the similarities and differences of our choices. I went through each choice referencing my classmates’ blog entries, including Tyler’s. Tyler talked about the whole class, where I just looked at a subset. I think his use of the podcast when discussing music is brilliant, because he is using an aural tool for aural art. I kick myself for not thinking of it. Although the end result, makes me think he has better recording tools than I do. The embedding of the podcast is clear in terms of user-interface. The only issue may be for those hard of hearing, so a transcript of the podcast may have added to the accessibility.

Tyler’s history with the record is clear. Both in his curation post and his original post, he describes his introduction to the Golden Record assignment.  He references the “listening party” he attended at a friend’s home. The theoretical underpinnings of our post were both about Culture. Tyler focused on the BLM movement, whereas I focused on worldwide diversity. I recognize that “as a musician” Tyler probably has a lot more experience with music. Therefore the history he presents and the musical elements he references taught me a lot when I was reviewing both of his entries. I wanted to ensure that all countries were included in the capsule, whereas Tyler focused on historical relevance and the music itself.