Diana Ramlal

07-21-2021

Blog Post # 3

            In the essay “In the Empire of the Beat”, Hughes describes disco music as a way for gays to express themselves freely. The beat of the music, the lyrics of the songs and feeling that comes over them helps to feel like they belong and identify with their fellow peers alike. Thinking back to Hughes defense of Disco another type of music that came to my mind was pop, and to be more specific the song that kept replaying in my mind is “it’s raining men” by The Weather Girls in 1983. This song was specifically directed to the gay community and was quickly embraced in gay dance clubs. Like “Y.M.C.A.” by The Village People, it became a gay anthem and later, a mainstream hit. Even though the song was sung from the perspective of women, it objectified men in a way that was rarely heard in popular music. This message was not lost on gay listeners who heard it as a celebration of their culture.

Diana Ramlal

07-16-2021     

Blog Post # 2

Technology from day one has made a significant impact on everyone around the world. It has paved a way for us to be more independent and it allows us to experience new cultures. As a teenager I remember getting my first Walkman and how excited I was. It made me feel like a grown up when I was only 12 years old. Growing up I was an only child and was bored most of the time. After I got my Walkman it became my new best friend. I would fall asleep listening to music and wake up with the headphones still attached to my ear. In my neighborhood there were a lot of young people who though that playing loud music in their boom box was hip, but to me it was annoying. Imagine studying or just relaxing after a long day and all you can hear is base from their loudspeakers, and it just wasn’t one person it was like a competition to see who’s was the loudest or had the most bass. To me it was annoying and disturbing. Having a pair of headphones helped me to phase out any unwanted sounds and I was able to listen to what I wanted without being disturbed or disturbing anyone. Matt Alt said “Even prior to extended quarantines, lockdowns, and self-isolation, it was hard to imagine life without the electronic escapes of noise-cancelling earbuds, smartphones, and tablets. Today, it seems impossible”. His quote is in fact true as headphones are necessity for many people in today’s society. Headphones allow a person to listen to music without disturbing others; therefore, people are listening to music all day while they eat, sleep, or work. With the amount of technology, we have in today’s world we even have a wireless headphone where we don’t have to worry about walking around with a devise or worry about getting the wire tangled.

Even though headphones are what today’s kids will call a life saver in reality and what Damon Krukowski wrote about, it can be in fact dangerous to our life. When we have our headphones on it is distracting. It takes use away from the things and people from in front of us to a faraway place. People naturally pay more attention to music they strongly like or dislike, hurting their ability to focus. Listening to music with lyrics while trying to read or write can be a distract by overtaxing verbal-processing regions of the brain. Even though we know it is dangerous, and in the world we live in today with all the noise and distractions all we want to do is put our headphones on and listen to our favorite band and let the music take us away from it all.

After reading “Living with music” by “Ralph Ellison” and “A Bolt from the Blue,” by “Dr. Tony Cicoria”, it shows how powerful and inspirational music can be towards one’s life. In “living with Music” Ellison’s experience as a child and his living conditions an having to deal with so many distractions when it comes to music left a bad taste throughout his young childhood. For him music was a distraction and not a good distraction, instead of music bringing joy and love to his life it brought on misery. Music was just noise to him, noise that him as a writer got distracted and wish for silence. Over time his disgust for music change when a neighbor from a floor above sang and sang with her notes off, in his way to get back at her he decided to get a speaker and play his music to tune her off. It is only when he moved then he realized how much he missed her off note singing and wished to hear it again. He realized how music could relax him and help distract him when he was frustrated when he couldn’t write. At first it was just noise to him, noise, and a big distraction, but overtime he came to realize how much music meant to him and the joy it brought to his life and writing.

In “A Bolt from the Blue,” by “Dr. Tony Cicoria” shows how people with no great love for music suddenly became music lovers. After Dr Tony got stuck by lighting and had a near death experience his love for music was extraordinary. He went from not remembering certain things right after his lightening encounter to becoming if not obsessed with plaining the piano and any music relating to the piano. His first encounter with music he said was in a dream, when he dreamt, he was onstage dressed in a tux and was playing to something he has written, even though he never wrote music in his life until then. Tony decided to go to a Cardiologist and a neurologist but after both doctors tested him all his test came back normal. The only diagnosis they could give was that Dr, Cicoria had a near death experience and an out of body experience, “there is some evidence that both the visuospatial and vestibular aspects of out-of-body experiences are related to disturbed function in the cerebral cortex, especially at the junctional region between the temporal and parietal lobes”.