Deciding on this project:
I thought of this topic during the audio unit of our Digital Humanities course, while reading the assigned articles for the week. While looking at the “London Under the Microscope” project, I was reminded of an album I had heard about due to a viral Tiktok trend in 2020. Content creators made a challenge out of Everywhere to listen all the way through in one sitting. A rumor was spread that listening to the full project, specifically the fourth and fifth stages, would induce symptoms of dementia in individuals.
I remember playing Everywhere as background noise while playing a game on my laptop during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. As I was listening, I remember being so engrossed in how the music correlated with the provided art that I started analyzing Everywhere in my head. Music and Psychology are some of the fields I have been interested in since a young age and discovering a project that linked the two together was very intriguing for me.
Background Research:
In my background research, I wanted to find sources that discussed different aspects of dementia. The three initial ideas I had for sources were accounts from families of patients with Alzheimer’s, accounts from the patients themselves, and a general, in-depth assessment of dementia symptoms and progression. I was able to find credible sources for these ideas by searching accessible articles through ProQuest.
The first primary source I am referencing for this project is titled “Providing dementia care using technological solutions: An exploration of caregivers’ and dementia coordinators’ experiences”. The aim of this study was to look at how people who work with patients with dementia would view the experience, and how new technology contributes or takes away from their ability to provide support. I will be using this source in my project as an example of how caregivers think about the experiences they’ve assisted with.
The second primary source I am referencing for this project is titled “Psychological processes in adapting to dementia: Illness representations among the IDEAL cohort”. In this study, researchers explored how patients with mild-to-moderate dementia personally viewed their condition, and whether problem-focused coping helped mediate their adjustment process. The results indicated that people who acknowledged and viewed their condition as a “disease” were associated with better cognition and a younger age, while people who saw their condition as a part of aging and those who were unsure how to make sense of their condition were associated with better mood and well-being. I will be referring back to this source in my project while studying the albums in Everywhere, in order to think deeper about my analysis and keep in mind real examples of how patients viewed their condition.
The third primary source I am referencing for this project is “‘Just ask me what it means to live with dementia’ — people with mild dementia’s strategies and techniques shared through in-depth qualitative interviews”. This article explored the experiences of several interviewees with cases of mild dementia, and discussed the strategies they use to cope and reflect on the ways their lives had changed since their diagnoses. This source is a valuable resource when asking questions about how actual dementia patients may react to Everywhere as a project.
Working with the audio:
In order to do this analysis, I first converted each of these albums into audio files, arranged them chronologically and combined them using Audacity. I used the different waveform views in the program to look at how different tracks progressed visually.
I listened to each track while looking at the file in Audacity, and took notes on the progression and style of the music over time.
Working with the cover art:
After taking all my track notes on any given stage, I revisited the cover art of that stage and wrote my interpretations of it. I speculated on the symbolism and intentions behind each piece, based on what I observed while listening as well as Leyland Kirby’s personal description of the stage.
Overall analysis:
Once all of this was done, I thought back on the stage I had just experienced and tried to sum it up as descriptively as I could. I compared it to the stages before and after it, and summarized my thoughts and feelings as a listener, while also considering how a person experiencing symptoms like these would feel.