Tag Archives: communication

Slack Communication

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Title: Slack Communication

General Information about Item:

  • Genre and Sub Genre: Customary Folklore: rituals, traditions
  • Language: English
  • Country where Item is from: United States

Informant Data:

  • Trevor Davis is an ’18 that joined X.ado his freshman year and sang in his high school choir for three years. He is 21 years old. He was born in Wheaton, Illinois. He grew up and still lives in Raleigh, North Carolina. He is majoring in computer science, and minoring in math and anthropology.

Contextual Data:

  • Social Context:

All members of X.ado participate in this tradition and use Slack to communicate with each other. This tradition has existed for at least 3 years according to the informant.

  • Cultural Context:

X.ado tries to create a very inclusive culture and members think of the group as a second family. The members are constantly communicating and as a result, they use a special application that is devoted entirely to communication amongst the group members. The fact that members use a separate application just to communicate with each other as opposed to using GroupMe or other applications that students use to communicate with most other students reflects the extremely strong relationships that have formed on X.ado and the importance group members give each other.

Item:

The group X.ado maintains a Slack team with different channels (such as 17F, random, and rehearsals) to communicate with each other rather than use GroupMe. On Slack the group has many different channels as members discuss many different topics with each other. GroupMe is the application that most college students use in order to communicate and socialize with each other.

Associated file (a video, audio, or image file):

https://youtu.be/nX9XfnT0MJQ

Transcript of Associated File:

One thing about being in a group like ours on campus that’s involved not just with something we do during a lot of hours in our week but also with something that’s such an important part of our identities is that we spend a lot of time with those people. One cool thing we do is we communicate through Slack instead of GroupMe or something because we have so many different things going on. We have like a 17F channel, we have like a rehearsal channel, a social channel, a random channel, a song of the day channel, and we have all these different things going on all the time and it really just demonstrates how X.ado’s involved in so many different aspects of our lives.

Informant’s Comments:

  • See transcript

Collector’s Comments:

  • Slack is an interesting choice for communication because GroupMe is such an ubiquitous form of communication for various collegiate student across the United States. For example: many social groups, fraternities and sororities, and sports teams maintain GroupMe groups. Slack is typically used for businesses (more specifically, it’s popular amongst tech startups), which suggests that X.ado has a different dynamic compared to other student groups on campus, perhaps a more serious tone.

Collector’s Name: Marcus Reid

Compiled/Analyzed by: Afnan Enayet/Sruthi Pasupuleti

Tags/Keywords:

  • acapella
  • team
  • communication
  • tradition

Singing Samples

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Singing Samples

The following five recordings are not folklore. These are video and audio recordings sent in by parents of either their children or them singing to their children.

Informant Information:

Mary Kate resides in Andover, Massachusetts. She has a daughter who has an undiagnosed developmental disorder. Her daughter is nine years old and participates in the” My Own Voice” choir, a choir for children with special needs in Andover.

Pam is from Andover, Massachusetts. She has a seven-year-old daughter with Down Syndrome who participates in the “My Own Voice” choir, a choir for children with special needs in Andover.

Linda is from North Reading, Massachusetts. She has a thirteen year old son with autism who has been in the “My Own Voice” choir since its very founding four years ago.

Type of Lore: Not Applicable

Language: English

Country of Origin: United States of America

Social/Cultural Context: 

The following recordings show how music is used in typical home life for these children and their families. The first demonstrates a mother singing her daughter to sleep, a lullaby is not an uncommon practice, but typically is not performed when the child is nine years old. The singing of the lullaby helps Mary Kate to connect with her daughter, who is non-verbal. The second demonstrates a child singing to her mother before bed. This girl with Down Syndrome is able to use the music to express herself, which is typically difficult for her to do with conventional language. These two recordings share the aspect of being popular songs.

The last three recordings are of Linda’s son, he over the years has found a way to express himself through songs that he writes himself. They do not have particularly advanced tunes or lyrics, but it allows him to be creative with his own thoughts when typical communication is difficult.

Sample 1: Mary Kate singing her daughter to sleep (2016)

Sample 2: Pam’s daughter singing to her at bedtime (2016)

Sample 3: Linda’s son experimenting with Rap part 1 (2014)

 

Sample 4: Linda’s son experimenting with Rap part 2 (2014)

 

Sample 5: Linda’s son’s Mother’s Day video (2016)

Collector’s comments:

While as we said before these videos are not recordings of folklore, we think that these exhibit very important examples of these children trying to both make sense of their surroundings and communicate in their own individual ways. This is especially seen in the last three clips. These videos were taken a few years apart, and it is apparent how much progress that Linda’s son has made in creating his songs. The last clip is especially touching, it is a song that Linda’s son wrote for her for Mother’s Day, a truly unique gift that he made in an attempt to express his gratitude for her.

Tags/Keywords: Special Needs, Autism, Down Syndrome, Music, Songs, Sleep, Communication, Family

Music as Communication among Peers

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Music as Communication among Peers

Informant information:

Mary Kate resides in Andover, Massachusetts. She has a daughter who has an undiagnosed developmental disorder. Her daughter is nine years old and participates in the” My Own Voice” choir, a choir for children with special needs in Andover.

Type of lore: Customary

Genre: Children’s Folklore

Language: English

Country of Origin: United States of America

Social / Cultural Context:

Mary Kate and Neal’s daughter cannot speak even though she is now nine years old as a result of an undiagnosed developmental disorder. Among the challenges this presents, she often has a difficult time connecting with her peers. This video captures how she and her peers created a methods of sharing a common act on a daily basis.

 

Informant’s comments:

The “typical” girls that [our daughter] is friends with at school also use music and songs to connect to her. They make up dances to show the teacher and even have a secret handshake which is really an elaborate high five routine with some dance moves and a sing songy recital of the moves. I would say this is the most included that [she] has been in the classroom in a long while and it is through music and movement.

Collector’s comments: 

This seems to be a piece of true children’s folklore, the girls work on songs, dances and routines like this together. What makes this particular one special is how it is in an effort to communicate with the girl who has special needs in a way that she is capable of reciprocating. At the end of the video one girl raises her hands and begins to shake them, which symbolizes applause in American Sign Language.

Tags/Keywords: Music, Communication, Custom, Special needs, Children, Dance, American Sign Language

Music as Communication within Families

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Music as Communication within Families

Informant information:

Mary Kate resides in Andover, Massachusetts. She has a daughter who has an undiagnosed developmental disorder. Her daughter is nine years old and participates in the” My Own Voice” choir, a choir for children with special needs in Andover.

Type of lore: Customary

Language: English

Country of Origin: United States of America

Social / Cultural Context:

Mary Kate and her husband Neal often sing to their daughter as a way to communicate with her. Other people in their daughter’s life use this technique as well, since her developmental disorder makes it more difficult for her to communicate using spoken language.

This use of music as a form of communication was something we found to be consistent across many families with children who have special needs.

Informant’s comments:

Music has always been used by many people in [our daughter’s] life to communicate and interact with her. As you do with all babies, Neal and I sang to [her] as we cuddled and held her close to sooth and help her sleep. [Her] grandmothers also did the same thing when holding her close. What is unique with [our daughter] is that even though she is almost 10 years old we still do the same thing.

[She] often times still drifts off to sleep with the “soothing ” tones of me or Neal (and trust me we cannot sing) in her ear. The songs vary based on her mood and how long we are singing. Neal and I both sing songs that we heard from our parent. We sing songs from movies and musicals ­ right now Mary Poppins is a preferred choice. We make up songs to melodies that she knows and use current information to keep her engaged such as what happened that day or what is happening in the future. I even sing commercial ditties ­ the oscar mayer wiener song is popular as is the oscar mayer bologna song.

Songs can be used as a reward as well. [She] has a token board at school and if she complies with the rules and expectations she receives positive marks throughout the day. If she receives enough checks she earns the opportunity to pick something from the treasure chest. When she gets in the car at parent pick up, if she has a good day (earned treasure chest) I sing this song… I’m proud of you. I’m proud of you. I hope that you are proud of you too! [Our daughter] loves this and beams while I am singing. Honestly, 99% of the tangible rewards from the treasure chest are forgotten and returned to school. She really is motivated by the song.

Collector’s comments:

We found this behavior of communicating through song to be a piece of customary folklore because it was something we saw consistently used across multiple families with children with special needs.

Because of the unique nature of certain developmental disorders, we saw the use of music to be an effective mode of communication between parents and their atypical children. This mode of communication is customary because of the way that parents of children with special needs share this technique with each other.

Tags/Keywords: Music, Communication, Custom, Special needs, family