Using Music as a Political Voice
For my project, I researched and am writing a chapter that could be used as a substitute chapter for the textbook Resonances” Engaging Music in its Cultural Context That we used in our honors Music as a Social Experience class. My research project was Using Music as a Political Voice. In this chapter, I wrote about how music is used to convey political advocacy around the world. Choosing three topics to focus on, I use 3 pieces of music as evidence for how people have used music as a political voice in the past. I provide a contextual cultural context for each piece and write a listening guide for how to hear this music in terms of political advocacy. My topics include music from a popular, Western, and world sphere. I use Lady Gaga’s Born this Way, Christy Moore’s A Long Way From Dublin, and a collection of Chinese protest songs, Songs of Freedom to demonstrate the way that music can be used to speak your voice and opinions.