Hi everyone, My name is Mahpara Elahi. I am currently a senior majoring in English. This is my last semester at Queens College. I am originally from Bangladesh and my plan after graduation is to get my master’s in Early Childhood Education. Since I have changed my major last semester this class was one of my requirements and was also recommend by professor Karen. I love listening to music in general. I mostly listen to Hindi and Bengali music. I believe music is such an important aspect of life. As a future teacher, it is very important to use music in our classroom and I am very excited to learn more about it from this class and everyone.

Hi, my name is Salia. I’m a senior majoring in English at Queens, after 6 years of off and on school I will finally be graduating in the fall. I was working in film production as a camera assistant and editor since I was 14 and had trouble deciding if I should continue that or get a degree.

My music taste has changed so much over the years. In high school I thought it was lame to like what everyone else did so I refused to listen to popular music out of principle. I would listen to oldies like Frank Sinatra and Bobby Darin, then I fell in love with Otis Redding. OKGo has been my favorite band for years; they’re the ones with the crazy music videos like the treadmills back in 2006. They have the best live show I’ve ever experienced, and I’ve seen them a few times. Amy Winehouse is one of my favorite artists of all time and I want to make music like hers.

I play a few instruments and I just got into making music with a MIDI controller (musical instrument digital interface) below is a picture of my minilab midi. It’s a whole new experience and helps me appreciate the art of music composition on another level. Taking this class was a no brainer for me, if I can connect to music in another way I have to.

Something else about me is that I struggle with bipolar disorder and I think it’s something that has driven my creative and artistic abilities my entire life. Music has been one of the best and worst tools for dealing with my illness. There was a time, that I’m still working my way out of, when I would only listen to podcasts because music makes me feel so intensely that it will cripple me. I don’t mean that in an over dramatic way, I mean it in a very serious way. There is a tie between mental illness and art that has been known for years. It’s something that I can certainly feel deeply.

Hey everyone, my name is Muniba, i am currently majoring in early childhood education and minoring in english which is why i’m taking this class. it is the last english class required for my english minor. This is my first semester in the Edu program and have two more semesters to go. Before the pandemic i was working in a program where i would help elementary school students with their homework after school. i would go to multiples school throughout the week in nassua county. but since the pandemic the program has shut down unfortunately. I listen to all sorts of music depending on my mood, i mostly listen to indian and pakistani and punjabi music. i’m excited to learn more about diffrent genres and types of music in this class.

Hey everyone! My name is Chris Latortue. My last name means “turtle” in French which is pretty much what everyone calls me instead of Chris or Christopher which I kind of feel is a little too government for my liking! I joined this class mainly because I love free and or creative kind of writing where you can just freely express and put all your feelings into an essay or any kind of writing. I am a senior at Queens college in my last semester and wanted to get involved in different kind of classes outside or the “norm” and mandatory classes just to graduate. Some of my interest and passions are writing, photography in the form of polaroids, reading, anime and music of course. During this pandemic I gained a new love and want to learn how to draw and do paintings which I still am working on getting better at. In regards to music I listen to everything besides “screamo” which I kept getting confused for heavy metal until recent. and “country”. I mainly listen to hip hop, r&b, rap, rock, and a small amount of heavy metal here and there. I’m excited just to get to meet and know everyone and just share a love and passion for the art of music this semester.

My name is Dominique Morgan. I am a junior majoring in English. I was instantly interested in taking this class as soon as I saw the name. I love music and love talking about it, so I took the chance to write about it. If I had the talent, I would definitely be in a girlband. I listen to music everyday and love finding new artists. My favorite genres of music would be pop, hip-hop/rap, r&b. Although I have favorites I still listen to a large range of genres. One of my favorite things about music is the way that the same song can mean something different to everyone based on our life experiences. I am looking forward to seeing new recommendations or even talk about songs I already love.

     Hey everyone, my name is Nathalie 🙂 (My preferred pronouns are she/her). I’m a senior here studying English Literature. Some of my favorite passions include writing, illustrating, and cooking. This will be my last semester in college. I’m looking forward to applying to the area of animal rights work after graduation. I initially chose this course because I love the style of English Lit. workshop classes. I’m excited after learning the focus of this course because I am a music lover and writing is my passion. So this seems like the right place to be. I enjoy music from different eras, mainly from the 70s to early 2000’s. Some of my favorite music genres include pop, rock, hip hop, latin, Caribbean music (raggaeton, dancehall, etc.), R&B, lofi hip hop, K-pop, disco, musical numbers, electronic, and ambient instrumentals. One of my most memorable musical experiences include seeing Panic at the Disco perform their Pray for the Wicked album at the Pepsi Center in Denver, Colorado. It was such a blast! Brendon Urie and the team of musicians were fantastic performers. I’m also a mush for musical theater and was so appreciative to see the following plays on Broadway: The Lion King, Fun Home, Kinky Boots, and Wicked.

     In all honesty, I’m expecting to be challenged by this course because I’ve never written about music before (do texts and verbal rants count?). There is going to be a lot of learning and expanding because this topic is outside my comfort zone. I’m not a musician or singer but listening to music is a part of my daily life that I appreciate a whole lot. Listening to a song can feel like having a friend embracing the emotion you’re experiencing at the moment—whether it be joy, anger, or the specific experience of feeling betrayed or falling in love. Music is also so powerful in its ability to story-tell. Sometimes I don’t particularly relate to the experience described in certain lyrics. Hell, I may not relate to the mood portrayed by sounds in a song at a particular moment. But that’s the fun. I get to travel to someone else’s emotional landscape and the experiences that make up their personal world. I get to feel what someone I’ve never met has felt by taking in their story. And let’s be real, music is simply magic to the ears. That’s enough of a reason to love music—it just feels right! Find below some of my art works, including memorial pieces for George Floyd and Larry Kramer:

Hello everyone! My name is Pete and I am an upper senior majoring in Elementary Education and minoring in English here at Queens College. I recently started an exciting, albeit challenging, new job at a District 75 school which aims to support students with significant cognitive delays, autism, sensory impairments and multiple disabilities. This, admittedly, is a far cry from the minutiae of my previous jobs that took place in an office setting. Musically, my taste runs the gamut from rock (Joan Jett, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Jefferson Airplane, St. Vincent, et cetera…) to country (Dolly Parton, Shania Twain, Kacey Musgraves, Brandi Carlile et cetera…).

I have always had an affinity towards all things feminine, which extends to whose music I choose to listen to. My favorite genre of music is pop, which I now understand as being pretty nebulous and ever-changing. So I’ll just say that the pop music that I enjoy listening to is from a certain era, namely, from the 90s and early 2000s from artists like Madonna, Mariah Carey, The Spice Girls, and Britney Spears among others. I believe I have pop music to thank for helping me come to terms with my sexuality. After all, it’s been these powerful and influential women that have shaped my perception of how important self-expression in all facets of life is.  I did not just want to be like these women, I wanted to be them. And now, as a thirty-year-old, I credit these women for providing me with a foresight to express myself openly and honestly while following their evolutions throughout their careers. (I’m probably rambling, so I apologize if I am not making a coherent argument.)

Some fun—and perhaps superfluous—facts about me are:
1. I’m non-binary and use they/them pronouns.
2. I legally changed my name from Pedro to Pete after graduating high school for the simple fact that I feared that certain job opportunities wouldn’t present themselves to me with a name like Pedro Medrano. In retrospect, I wish I hadn’t changed it at all because I now know many successful people with diverse names who have gone on and literally (and for lack of a better word) made a name for themselves while embracing their cultural identities.
3. I read a lot and enjoy memoirs especially.
4. I am currently working on my first children’s book entitled I Can Too, which I hope will decimate the arbitrary gender norms that we adopt at an early age like boys cannot wear pink or show their emotions because it is a sign of weakness et cetera… My goal for this book is to have children embrace every aspect of their being in order for them to unapologetically express themselves without external criticism and berating from both their peers and adults.

I’m so excited to get the chance to work with you all and wish you a successful semester.

My name is Erik. I am a junior at Queens College majoring in English. My goal is to be a junior high school or high school teacher. I am currently employed with the New York City Department of Education and recently celebrated my first year working as a Paraprofessional which is just a fancier way of saying “teachers assistant.” I work with children who have special needs. It’s a challenge but I have no complaints. On my spare time I play video games and collect comic books. I am open to all types of music and look forward to this class.

Hey! I’m Ryan. I’m currently a junior at Queens majoring in Media Studies. I took this course at the recommendation of one of my best friends after I ran into some trouble finding a class to fulfill a requirement following my other class filling up. I chose this course largely because of how much music impacts me on a daily basis; how as I’ve gotten older, its become more and more important to me. It calms me, hypes me up and any chance to take a class oriented with music is a class I wanna take. I mainly listen to R&B, rock, hip hop and some pop music, though I have no problem exploring other genres. I’m excited to see what I learn in this class!!

Clipping. are Daveed Diggs (rapper, Hamilton) and producers William Hutson and Jonathan Snipes. As you’ll have heard in Song Exploder and seen on Needle Drop, they experiment with unorthodox intstruments and sounds. They tell elaborate stories, often creating whole worlds or mythologies based on both history and fantasy. I particularly love their song “The Deep” (below).