Assignment #1: Personal Listening History

Listening to Music (MUZA99H3S)

Winter 2025

Assignment Details

Key Details

Submission    Quercus, PDF file

Words            500 (i.e., two pages double-spaced, 12-point font)

Weighting      5 points (i.e., 5% of your total grade for the course)

General Description

This assignment is designed to engage your personal listening history through reflection on your musical experiences and preferences. The pedagogical goal of this assignment is to prime your mind for the learning and listening we will do throughout the course.

Specific Tasks

Answer each of the following 10 questions, in order. Write your answers using complete sentences (i.e., not point-form). Please make it clear that you are answering each question in your writing (i.e., re-state each question, then write your answer underneath the question), so that the   TA grading your work doesn’t deduct points because they think you haven’t answered all the questions.

Prompts have been provided under each question in order to help you generate ideas. You may choose to incorporate these prompts, or take your answers in another direction.

Question #1: What is your earliest sound memory?

Prompts: Music? Someone’s voice? Another sound?

Question #2: What genre(s) of music surrounded you in your childhood?

Prompts: Where you lived? At school? In popular culture?

Question #3: What was your first experience witnessing live music?

Prompts: At a family gathering? A concert? A religious event?

Question #4: What is your experience with formal music education?

Prompts: At school? In a choir? 1-on-1 lessons?

Question #5: What is your experience with informal music education?

Prompts: Learning from family? From friends? From social media videos?

Question #6: In which situations do you currently listen to music?

Prompts: In transit? While studying? While eating at restaurants?

Question #7: What is the most powerful silence that you have ever experienced?

Prompts: At a memorial service? During a speech? In nature?

Question #8: What is your current favourite song/ piece of music?

Prompt: …Iknow it’s tough to pick just one!

Question #9: Who is your current favourite musical artist?

Prompts: A band? An individual performer? A producer or songwriter?

Question #10: What is your current favourite musical genre?

Prompt: Be as unspecific (e.g., metal) or specific (e.g., mid-1980s instrumental London doom metal) as you’d like.

*Note that you only have to respond to the  10 questions; you DO NOT have to respond to the prompts below each question. Prompts have only been provided to help you better understand the 10 questions,and to help you generate ideas for your answers.