In both readings “Living with music” by Ralph Ellison’s and “A Bolt from the Blue” by Oliver Sacks both use examples in their writing on how people define themselves through music. Starting with the story “A Bolt from the blued” by Oliver Sacks one of the main characters is Cicoria. Cicoria had almost had a near death experience and suddenly had a desire to listen to more music. On page 5 Sacks says “there was this insatiable desire to listen to piano music. This was completely out of keep-ing with anything in his past (Sacks 5). He never really had any interest in music. He had dreams about music and he just had this need to wake up and start writing what he was dreaming of. That is how he wrote his songs. As he continued to focus on music he said music has made him more spiritual. Which kind of seems like he’s come to a peaceful state with himself and his environment. So music is starting to shape him and define him as a person, show who he really is. In the story “Living with Music” by Ralph Ellison he talks about all the different types of music he encounters in his life and the music he plays. All the music that he is around shapes him as a person and you can see how interesting and important music is to him. He talks about many different types of music and singers he enjoyed hearing and talks about his life personally, an example would be him talking about the instruments he plays. Even when he just talks about his neighbor and how he did not enjoy her singing. When explaining music he goes very in depth and you can see how music plays a big role in his life and always has. As an artist you can see he defines himself as a very dedicated artist or someone who puts music as his first priority. 

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