| I. Describe the artifact in detail. For instance, how would you describe it to someone who could not see it? [You practiced this 2-4-1 Short Answer: Seeing Your Artifact in a New Light.] |
Your response might include basic and technical details about the artifact, such as its medium, who made it, where it comes from, and what area of the humanities it belongs to: “All Shook Up” is an American rock-and-roll song, written by Otis Blackwell and sung by Elvis Presley, recorded and released in 1957. The song is approximately two minutes long.
You could also describe what the artifact depicts, what it is about: In the song Elvis sings about the symptoms that he is experiencing from being in love and how they affect him physically and mentally when he is both around and away from the woman he is in love with. |
|
| II. Choose elements of the artifact that you believe are most important to how you experience it and explain why. For instance, what particularly catches your senses or makes you want to keep experiencing it? Does the choice of medium impact your experience? [You studied elements of artifacts and how we experience them in 2-4 How Do We Study Artifacts.] |
Think about the senses you use to experience the artifact and the attributes that impact your senses: “All Shook Up” is primarily experienced aurally, through sound, by listening to it, as it is a piece of music. Most important are the lead vocals by Elvis, but the guitar, drum set, and piano, along with other instruments, are also important to the sound. The chorus, “I’m in love/I’m all shook up/Mm mm mm, mm, yay, yay, yay” is particularly catchy because of the way it sounds.
Consider the medium of the artifact, the way the medium affects your experience: When the song was released, it was originally a vinyl record, though it could also be heard as sound waves on the radio, and, today it can be experienced as an audio file on a computer. One can also locate video of Elvis performing it live. A person alive in the 1950s could have experienced the song live in person. This would be a different experience since he or she would have been surrounded by a lot of screaming fans. Music can be experienced in a variety of places, either socially (at a bar or diner) or alone, and what is going on around the listener at the time can affect the experience.
Lastly, one can experience the song to some degree as a kind of poetry simply by reading the lyrics. |
