Ruhan Katre

SP Reflection

During the course of this project, I learned a lot about the history of music and how music

impacts people psychologically. Through this learning process, there were many things that

frustrated me, interested me, and made me laugh.

In the beginning, it was hard for me to find a mentor, so I asked around for people, but I

didn’t find anyone who had precisely the background to help me succeed at my project until I

found Mr. Levich. Mr. Levich was incredibly helpful. He helped me find places to do my

service, and also told me about his experiences working and playing for people who had

Alzheimer’s. Mr. Levich said that before he started playing, people with Alzheimer’s stared

blankly, as if they were staring into outer space, but as soon as his band started playing, their

eyes lit up as though they were experiencing something for the first time. And then, when the

music stopped, they went back to staring blankly again.

For me, the most challenging part of the senior project has been the essay. It was the

thing I put the most time into. It was challenging to find scholarly articles on my subject. There

were a lot of books I could use as resources, such as ​The Music of Black People​ by Elieen

Southern, and ​Sweet Anticipation: Music and the Psychology of Expectation​ by David Huron,

but it was hard to find trusted articles specifically about my topic. Luckily after a few days of

research, I found a few websites that had pdf copies of articles and psychological analysis’.

For me, my senior project is a culmination of many things I have learned over the course

of four years in high school. I learned more about music than I ever thought was possible. I
utilized the writing skills that I learned in all my English classes. And I got the chance to learn

more about the Civil Rights Movement, after first learning about it in my junior year, in US

history class. The senior project lets me show how far I have come since I started high school.