After reading Living with Music by Ralph Ellison and A Bolt from the Blue by Oliver Sack, I determined that music can actually have a life-changing effect on you. Starting with Living in Music started with music being spoken about negatively and referred to as simply being nothing more than just noise that distracted him from his work. In the essay, later, he discusses his own experience with music about learning to play the horn and the embarrassment associated with it and swearing off using the horn. Showing Ellison’s experience with music was associated with fear/trauma, causing him to stay away from music. The real turning point is when he begins to have this battle with his upstairs neighbor to cancel out her bad singing by bringing out an old radio of his. Eventually, it becomes frequent, and he starts developing a love for music again after hearing Kathleen Ferrier causing him to buy a whole new stereo just for music. He praises the singer for her courage, that she still kept up with her music even though her singing was terrible. He even states that he begins to use music less as a weapon to cancel her out and show more appreciation as a form of art. Looking at A Bolt from the Blue, music could be used as a symbol of being reborn where Tony found himself in a near-death experience and pretty started devoting his whole life to music. You can say he discusses how he would play before work and then play right after work, and even then, with the divorce from his wife continued to play and eventually attempting to make a career out of it. In a way, I feel like Tony’s obsession with music was also a way to show appreciation for having a second chance at life, causing him to spend so much time on it.

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