Chapter 1: The Journey Begins!

Once upon a time, there was a…

Okay, okay, you’re probably over the whole “once upon a time” thing. But hey, in my defense, my research project is about storytelling, so it is kind of fitting, right?

Alright, enough with this. Let’s actually start.

Hi everyone, welcome! I’m Janelle and I’m super excited to have you join me on this research adventure (trust me, it’s going to be a thrilling ride!). Today’s chapter (or blog) will be a rather brief one: I’ll be sharing the ups and downs I’ve already encountered with my research question, the goals I have for my project, and the final product I hope to create!

The Research Question:

To be honest, I’ve already had quite a bit of trouble with this one. My initial research question (the one on my proposal) was “how do the uses of chord progressions compare between American pop and Korean pop—currently two of the most trending music genres?” By then, I already had an extremely clear picture of my research process, my methodology, and the specific timeline. But just when I thought I had everything figured out…my brain came up with another idea. Before I knew it, I found myself tackling the intersection between science and music, particularly the effects of different chord progressions on cancer patients’ brains and the emotions they each evoke.

However, when developing my methodology, I ran into, unsurprisingly, another problem: with no prior classes taken in neuroscience, 12 weeks (probably even less than that) was simply not enough time for me to investigate this question in any depth. And again…I had to change it. That led me to my current research question: How does the lyrical narrative—the type of story conveyed through the lyrics—depend on the chord progression in songs?

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I’ve been using the word “chord progression” quite a lot, but what does that even mean? Very simply put, a chord is a collection of notes, and a chord progression is a series of chords that form the foundation of a song. There’s a lot more to it, but that’s for a later chapter!

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So, what will my actual research question be? Well, I still don’t know! I’ll be, again, attempting to finalize this throughout the next two or three blogs, so stay tuned for updates (or unexpected twists)!

Project Goals & Product:

Though some things are still up in the air, there is one skill I’m determined to master (or learn) through my research project: the identification of chord progressions within songs. As for my current research question, my goal is to identify the different emotions associated with various tonalities in chord progressions by investigating the lyrical narrative.

But wait, there’s more!

Once I complete my analysis, I’d love to create a medley; it’ll definitely be interesting to combine songs with different lyrical narratives but similar chord progressions. I even hope to perform this in the theater, but don’t get your hopes up just yet…(this is not confirmed.)

Phew, that wasn’t exactly a “brief” blog after all, but I do hope that was an enjoyable glimpse into my (tentative) research project! See you next time