EDCP 305 Phaidra Ruck

Wherever we went this summer, the ice-cream truck seemed to follow us around. Down our street to the small east-Vancouver China Creek skate park, along the road behind warm sand and picnics on Locarno Beach, around a small Main-street city park in the heart of the overlyidyllic sounding Mount Pleasant. The tones of the truck were the same theyve always been, but the song had changed from The Entertainer to the Music Box Dancer. Before my 6th birthday, the Music Box Dancer became my favourite song on the kitchen radio. I started asking my Mum to turn it up so the happy sounds could fill the whole kitchen. I think the song may have inspired me to try out the electric organ which nobody played beside the dining room table, but I couldnt put together a melody. I guess I couldnt play piano, I thought, though I did enjoy flicking the rainbow of buttons to try and distinguish the difference each one made in the sound of the organ. I slid off the bench one day like a horse which I never got back onto, and my parents traded the organ for a credenza and china cabinet. Lately, the catalogue of loops Garage Band has reminds me of the many tones from that old beauty electric organ. On Saturdays my Dad would blare Queen or the Beatles from the record player in the recroom while working around the carport or yard. Hed put on stuff for my Mum, too; Abba, BeeGees, The Carpenters, Neil Diamond, John Denver and Gordon Lightfoot. Id go to the basement to watch movies and eventually I checked out the record player and silver radio receiver. I found a record with a song that sounded interesting, so I put it on. The Crocodile Rock was an instant hit. So I played it again. And again, and again. I read all the lyrics. I played it and followed along until I thought I knew all the words. I got all nostalgic about the people in the song, since about the best kick they ever got being young was the Crocodile Rock, and it was my

kick as a kid, too. After awhile I wanted to change it up. Daniel was the first song on the other side of Elton John album, and I liked it, but it was a bit mellow for me so I tried out some BeeGees, Abba, Queen, and John Denver. I was pretty upset when I wanted to go see Abba and my parents told me they broke up. Same with Queen and, worst of all, the Beatles. John Denver left on a jet plane for good. Neil Diamond looked way too Vegas to ever come play a show in Vancouver. I gave up on the BeeGees and forgot about Gordon Lightfoot. On the news in 1993, Michael Jackson freaked out my grade 4 peers and I by grabbing his crotch in front of millions of fans at shows, and the pedophilic sex scandals which followed seemed to be another sign I wasnt going to get to any awesome shows in a superstars heyday. The next time there was a band Id like, I would definitely try my best to go see the show before they stopped playing, or the band went weird. I did eventually make it to shows - hundreds of them, in all sizes, shapes, and flavours. Im just now slowing down on concerts in my life. I also played in concerts in school, and achieved some success learning several instruments, but I was always a player rather than a creator. I was much better making mix tapes, moshing, crowd surfing, or sneaking into shows for free. At Christmas we played another set of music, which to me seemed like everybody played Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra, Nana Mouskouri, and the best one of all, The Salsoul Orchestra Christmas Jollies. It turns out nobody really knows the Salsoul Orchestra, but it is just not Christmas in my house without it. When I moved to Boston in 2004, my first internet shopping purchase ever was the Salsoul Orchestra CD. Wed play it for everythingbringing up the

decorations, decorating the tree, opening presents, making breakfast. It defined the holiday for me growing up. When I think about putting together a social studies class which talks about history, I cant help but think about the soundtracks that defined peoples lives. Songs for the seasons, songs for war, folk songs, religious chants, holidays, protests, baroque, pop, jazz, rock, electronic and experimental. Like the records my parents loved, I wonder what songs I think are so familiar and define my times might at risk of being forgotten about in history. Ive decided that rather than discount my exposure in late 20th century popular music culture as no big deal, to take it as strength in experience which has influenced my life and understanding of history of the last century. I can bear a pop-music torch as a way for students to access and experience the past. And, its an important kind of social history history from below, an everyday experience, from top 40 charts to malls to kids dancing in rec-rooms. Knowing that I wont have time to play all my favourite clips in class at full length, Ive become interested in mash-up, sound clip and soundscape design. I have a general working knowledge of popular music from the last 50 years, which I used to love to make mix-tapes of for friends. Mash-ups are like a fun re-interpretation of a mix tape of classic hit songs. The possibilities of adding speech clips and sound clips can add more layers and complexity into the telling of history. Its possible that programs like Garage Band and Audacity have evolved to a point where I could render and clip sounds in a time-efficient manner enough to present to my social studies classroom. I could also assign students the task and see what their interpretations would be like.

Pedagogy of Digital Arts is something which I didnt think would apply to history and digital media in general, but Ive been pleasantly surprised with the insights and common threads I have noticed so far. The act of curating, editing, and delivering information appears to be a type of universal design that seems to be a sign-of-the-times skill of Information Age environments. Just as a collage and painting are both types of media and expressions, I would hesitate to call mash-up curation a type of pure artistic creation of art. Its more like art with a safety net, until it can stand a test of time (and space) on its own terms. For me, these personal, curated suitcases need to be utilized in the present to afford cultural capital enough to participate meaningfully in society. Plus, they really are fun to unpack and share with friends. You might even find a Salsoul Orchestra CD in there every now and then.