For your 2nd Six Weeks Project, your tasked with creating a mix-tape, an art that is quickly dissipating in the modern era. For those unfamiliar, us old fogies used to own dual cassette, tape decks. One would spend countless hours cuing the correct song – in the correct sequence – to impress a friend or potential romantic entity with a tasteful flow of tunes. Today y’all can skip endlessly from song to song – but back n’ the day one had to listen to a mix-tape all the way through. So as you attempt to create your playlist, be sure to pay attention to track flow. Hopefully your audience will have the decency to listen to your jams continuously, avoiding unnecessary skip-age. To the assignment:

You must create a mix-tape with a theme. The theme is up to ye’, but there must be a theme! A perfectly acceptable cop-out can be your favorite songs of all-time, but Brother Earhart would prefer something a bit more interesting: top singer-songwriters of the 1990s; top female artists of the 2000s; top songs to get the party started; intro to reggae for the novice listener; tearjerkers of the century; etc.. You name it. Just make it interesting and have some fun in the process of sharing with your peers. For assessment purposes…

• You must have a theme.
• You must have at least 10 songs by at least 9 artists. That’s right! You may double-dip once, but only once – so choose wisely. Meeting these first two requirements accounts for 50% of your project grade.
• You must provide a brief synopsis as to why each song was chosen. This synopsis is worth 25% of the project grade, and must be printed and included with the packaging of your album (make sure it fits inside!). Be sure to include the song title, album name, band name, record label, and year of release – we need full-on music geekdom!
• Your album must have artwork. We’re doing a mix-tape in form of a compact disk, so you should create CD packaging to accompany your album. You don’t have to be an amazing artist, just demonstrate that you took some time to package your tunes. Album artwork is a casualty of the modern, music era – let’s take some time to contribute to this lost art form. Album art is worth the last 25% of your project grade.
• You must bring two copies of your CD and packaging (including artwork) to class on April 3rd and 4th for the AVID CD Exchange Party! One for Attendance Records and one for a random classmate in a CD exchange game. Props must be given to former CI student Rachel for the idea of a Music Library! Once you’re done listening to the album you acquire in the CD exchange, you can return it to the library so that others may enjoy. Brilliant! (Sorry for all of the excessive exclamation marks.)
• The purpose if the project is to get some conversation simulators!

To kick start this project, I offer unto thee my autobiographical mix-tape. Having turned 31 a month ago, this project was an enjoyable reflection on my musical development. I can’t begin to mention my foray into independent tuneage without thanking my my elder brother, Jeremy, for his informed guidance. I often compare Jeremy to John Cusack’s character in High Fidelity, as I was recently prohibited from playing any of Jeremy’s records on his current record player due the his frustration with a needle that is “destroying” records. I await for Jeremy’s purchase of a $300 record player, so that I can once again take advantage of his ridiculous collection of vinyl (which he just reorganized in an effort similar to this). Read the rest of this entry »