Music Tells Our Stories

In this activity, you will:

• research a song that is meaningful to you, your family, or your friends
• reflect on the song’s importance to you and/or your community
• create a presentation about the song

• Multipart Activity

Look at Alison Saar’s Torch Song

Alison Saar’s Torch Song is one of a series of prints that tell a story about music during the Harlem Renaissance. Saar was inspired by the communities who gathered in jazz clubs and speakeasies to listen to the music, sing, and dance. While these spaces were often lively and entertaining, they were about more than just enjoyment. Music held stories of identity and community, past and present. Music helped people connect with each other and share joys, sorrows, and the experience of resisting oppression. Music told stories of the African diaspora. The jazz clubs and speakeasies were like portals to other times and places.

Explore What Music Means to You

Many of us turn to certain songs or albums during different moments in our lives—to help us through a rough time, to listen to when we’re happy, or at certain holidays or times of day. Sometimes we listen to music alone, and other times we share it with family or friends. Have you ever heard a song that instantly brought back a specific memory—so strongly that it felt like you were right back in that moment? Music can remind us of our stories, connect us with our past, and share experiences with the people in our lives.

Choose a song or piece of music that holds special meaning for you. Perhaps this song is special to your family or friends, too.

Reflect on the following questions. If the song is loved by your family or friends as well, you can interview them and write their answers to the questions:

• Why is this song important to you?
• When do you listen to this song?
• What does it remind you of?
• How does the song make you feel?
• Does the song inspire or influence you in any way?
• How does this song connect with who you are and/or your community or history?

Write a brief, focused paragraph reflecting on your chosen song. Do not just list the answers to the questions above. Instead, drawing from the answers to these questions, blend your thoughts into a single, cohesive story about what this music means to you.

Share Your Song

Make a video, slideshow, podcast, poster, or artwork to share your research. Make sure to include the following in your presentation:

• the song (both the audio and, optionally, the lyrics)—be aware of any sensitive or inappropriate lyrics before sharing them with others!

• information about why this song is important to you and how it connects to your identity and/or community

• answers to the following questions: When do you listen to this song? Is it connected to any routines, traditions, or special memories?

A network or group of people, sometimes living in a particular place, who share interests, values, characteristics, responsibilities, or physical spaces.

People settled far away from their ancestral homelands.

The qualities, expressions, beliefs, physical traits, cultures, and social statuses that comprise a person and/or group of people.

Historical, organized, and systemic mistreatment of and discrimination towards a group or community. Oppression can be ideological, institutional, interpersonal, and internalized.

A hidden, secret place where alcohol was sold during Prohibition in the 1920s, when it was illegal to make or sell alcohol in the United States.