This task is rather cool, as I am able to see what my classmates have selected and be able to make some analysis based on the data. Here are some patterns I’ve noticed:

• We have a total of 23 students in this course; everyone participated and selected 10 pieces;
• The most popular pieces are Track 14: Melancholy Blues and Track 7: Johnny B. Goode, each gaining 16 votes;
• The least popular selections is Track 22: Panpipes (Solomon Islands), with only 1 vote.

When comparing my own selections, 6 of my top choices were shared amongst the more popular half of the class’s selections, whereas 4 of them were amongst the less popular choices.

Now onto the categories. There are 6 categories in total. Though each may share a different number of pieces, none of the pieces are shared between the categories. Looking at each group, I can see the pieces were chosen based on nodes with higher degree.

Category 1: Track 13: Panpipes and Drum (Peru) Track 14: Melancholy Blues Track 15: Bagpipes (Azerbaijan) Track 16: Rite of Spring (Sacrificial Dance)

It seems this category of choices highlight traditional or folk instruments from diverse cultural backgrounds.

Category 2: Track 1: Brandenburg Concerto (First Movement) Track 18: Fifth Symphony (First Movement) Track 2: Kinds of Flowers Track 24: Flowing Streams Track 25: Jaat Kahan Ho

This is the category I am in. This one emphasizes the classical and traditional music from Western and Eastern cultures. This group focuses more on historical and classical traditions (which is very true now that I recall the way I chose my pieces, aside from geo-cultural indicators).

Category 3: Track 19: Izlel je Delyo Hagdutin Track 23: Wedding Song Track 26: Dark Was the Night Track 5: Morning Star Devil Bird Track 6: El Cascabel Track 8: Men’s House Song

This category consists of folk songs and traditional music from diverse cultures again. The focus appears to be more on rituals and ceremonies.

Category 4: Track 10: Gavotte en rondeaux Track 17: The Well-Tempered Clavier Track 21: The Faerie Round Track 7: Johnny B. Goode

The focus of this category is clearly more on the Western culture and music.

Category 5: Track 12: Tchakrulo Track 22: Panpipes (Solomon Islands) Track 27: String Quartet No. 13 in B flat Track 9: Tsuru No Sugomori (Crane’s Nest)

This category again, appears to emphasize tradition and culture from various regions in the world.

Category 6: Track 11: The Magic Flute (Queen of the Night aria) Track 20: Night Chant Track 3: Percussion (Senegal) Track 4: Pygmy Girls’ Initiation Song

This is an interesting category. The pieces appear to focus more on singing, emphasizing on vocal traditions from all over the world.

Political Implications & “Null” Choices

There seems to be an emphasis on cultural diversity, and probably similar to my thought process (and later confirmed by reading everyone’s Task 8), the majority of us were mindful that we should include pieces from different cultures and cover more civilizations in the world. However, pieces from different parts of the globe, with its rich culture and unique context, might have very different significances. By selecting music purely based on geographical location, and not understanding the context of the pieces, may lead to misinterpretation, and therefore, misrepresentation in our selections.

Another political implication I would like to point out is the fact that we have a biased assumption towards what is understood as “universal”. For example, Beethoven’s Fifth was clearly a crowd favourite, ranking in the top three. However, this could be problematic as we could be overlooking other traditions’ significant and rich music cultures. We could have all decided to not select a particular piece into our curation simply because we do not know what it is, leading to under representation.

In addition to the issues above, an additional reason behind “null” choices is our own culture and background. Again, this is based on cultural bias. My assumption is that if we are immigrants, and we grew up in a different part of the world, we would have some of that culture as part of us. Similarly, we would be very accustomed to western cultures if we grew up in North America. Our cultural biases could heavily influence our choices in what is selected, and what is left out. Although, it is hard to say from the data and graph alone, as little data is available on all my classmates.