Ethnography Results, Week 1

The initial phase of this project was to simply test out our original proposed idea and see how well it goes. My original idea was to essentially see how music affects other people in their unique way. So this means how they usually listen to music, whether they see it as an appreciable art or just a fun hobby of listening, their amount of time listening to music, if they see music as beneficial to other forms of art or activities, etc. So far results mainly come from a demographic of students, but I would love to get results from all music lovers. Especially to compare and contrast how music has evolved over these past few generations.

My initial question was how long the person listens to music in a week. I found that music is a huge integral part to the student life style. Many people walk to and from class listening to music, on the bus, within TV programs, and also while they are studying. For some people the act of simply listening to music accounted for 40 to 50 percent of their free time. Also, for many, I wanted to see if listening to music helped their mood in any way. Almost everyone I asked responded that the music changed their mood in some way. However, obviously this is not always for the better since different mood music exists. I started also looking into whether people simply listen to music as their only activity at a time. This I observed very little from people. Most were always doing something else along with listening to music. The rare times when that was the only activity was when people were waiting on the bus or something similar.

Interesting to note is that I actually am listening to music while I am writing this blog. For me personally, music is a large part of my life. My grandfather played any instrument that required air and I also love creating music. I find it essential to my life and I also believe the same in regards to all humans.