Week 3 – Content Research

The third week has involved me using my time to watch films and video footage based on the African-American Civil Rights Movement to gather more ideas and listen for good samples that I could take to use in my project. Most of the footage I have been looking at has come from YouTube as it is a great source for videos on the subject and many include good samples that will be useful for my piece. One problem I have found when finding good samples is that a lot of the time they have music or narration at the same time which are then no good for me to take as I cannot separate the parts from what I need from the clip. As I am now working on the first movement after the introduction, I am looking at JFK and how he came to be in office and his involvement with the civil rights movement. The 1960 presidential election saw John F. Kennedy and his campaign stating that they would tackle the crucial issue of civil rights and fight for ‘full legal equality’. Through the use of sound I hope to portray this during the first movement of the piece with samples and a recorded narrative of JFK coming to be president, his views on the civil rights subject and his assassination.

John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy

The research that I have been looking at to enable me to create this movement in my project is mainly reading transcripts of some of JFK’s famous speeches about civil rights. I have also been thinking of the type of music that will go behind these samples and I have been thinking of using a quick tempo to symbolise how the civil rights issue was a movement that was happening at a very fast pace with the election campaign. Next week will involve me starting to compose the music and also look at starting to put in some sample recordings. The instrumentation I am thinking of using for this movement is drums and keys/piano.

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