As previously mentioned on the discussion board, I talked about my family being involved with music early on in age. Through that, I started to look back on my personal evolution of musical tastes.

I firmly believe that I wasn’t an avid listener of music until eighth grade. What I mean by avid listener was that I had no opinion on music until I got my hands on a Samsung Music Player. This was back before iPods were as dominant. At this point in life, my experience in music and songs were heavily influenced by my sisters’ tastes – in this case, a lot of rap, country songs, and Korean Pop music. I remember downloading my playlist quite frequently from torrent sites, Napster, Limewire… I had a classmate named Tay who would always come over and ask me to borrow my player so he can listen to the latest rap songs.

It wasn’t until I got into high school when my sister introduced me to Deadmau5’s “Raise Your Weapon” which basically blew my mind because that was the first time listening to an electronic song. This is the point of my life where my taste in music changed drastically. Skrillex, Avicii, Calvin Harris, Klaypex, SubVibe, and many more were artists that I started to listen to quite frequently. I started leaning away towards popular billboard artists and rather more obscure, underground electronic artists. (I know some of the names listed are big names, but at the time they were up and coming or not as big as they are now).

So here I am:

1. one side of the spectrum, I am actively listening to electronic/house/chillstep songs that prioritize beats and drops rather than from a lyrical standpoint
2. I am very active in orchestra at this point where the expression of our music is through the different forms and styles of playing and other musical technicalities

And with these influences on how to interpret music, I truly believe that may have factored into how I am today where lyrics are hard to understand for me and music becoming a form of expression with regards to my personal emotions.

I’ve posted links to several songs that were frequently played by me. Perhaps listening to these songs could better express what I mean when I say music is more of a form of expression of emotions from the soundtrack rather than the lyrics.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Hi, my name is Sunny and this is my first blog entry for UGA’s MUSI2040E History of Popular Music.

I am a senior at the University of Georgia (duh) studying Computer Science. I will actually be starting my full-time job at NCR in July, so I look forward to working and doing school work at the same time!

I grew up playing cello for 7 years, however I have not played it in a very long time. I would say I’m not musically inept but I’m not very good at it either. I just appreciate the melodies and beats to songs! Because of this, I don’t tend to listen to music for their lyrics but rather their chords, beat, and mood of the song.

I typically listen to Lo-fi hip-hop and EDM/Electronic but not very fast paced and heavy beats, but rather slower and calmer.

I hope to express myself in a new ways taking this class as well as appreciate art and work put into creating music.

Cheers,

Sunny Park