Due to the fact that disco music received many reviews on how it enables people to express themselves freely and show their sexuality, this paved the way for other genres to later on come out and produce the results. Overtime, different music genres have come out and many people are starting to learn more about these genres and are starting to expand out of their comfort zones, because people are trying to be more open minded, overall. Nowadays, in music festivals such as coachella, or any EDM concert, we will see a similar effect. Many people are expressing themselves freely and they are enjoying themselves without the fear of being controversial or anything of that sort. Such concerts and music festivals are very far from traditional musical festivals, and lean away from conservatism. These new music genres and events are on the more liberal side.

Music has always been a significant part of my life and it has been a major help for me as well. With all of the advances made in technology, I can say we have come a very long way. From sound quality, to the new rhythms, etc. I remember when I first got a walkman and an iPod, the sound quality and just overall use was so different from the devices we use now such as iPhones, iPads, etc. We can listen to music through wireless headphones such as air-pods. Who would have thought that we would be walking around listening to music that sounds almost crystal-clear, back then? At the time, I did not know it could get any better than that. Even though the sound quality of the music I was listening to with my old devices wasn’t that great, it was still so interesting and great to me that I was able to listen to music on the go, whenever I wanted. The thought of it was just fascinating. These devices made it so much easier for people to find out about artists and listen to all their songs because they would be able to do so while on their way to go do something. This must have been very therapeutic for people as well, as it sure was for me. If we are already so advanced when it comes to our technology and the benefits it brings in the world of music, I can only imagine how much we are going to progress in the future and what new inventions are going to be made to make listening to music easier and more exciting.

In “Living with Music,” Ralph Ellison reflects on the significance of music in defining his life through shaping their unique cultural and social identity. His experiences with music affect his attitude towards the various social spaces he lives in. Later in life, when he again met up with music, he had different experiences from his childhood music experiences. Ellison had a neighbor living on top of his apartment who practiced music. The neighbor’s notes were always off, and he bought a speaker system to cover and contradict her music. After moving to his new apartment, he realized that he missed the music he heard in his old apartment. Therefore, based on his experiences, music is a reminder of the past and future aspirations, as well as helping one move past their problems. According to Ellison, music is a source of inspiration for the troubled.

Oliver Sacks’s “A Bolt from the Blue” highlights the association between music and psychology. An example is a lighting-struck doctor who then had a passion for music. Dr. Cicoria, who was not a music fan pre-accident, suddenly developed a passion for music in his post-accident life. Another example is Salimah, who had a brain tumor. After the brain tumor was removed, she had a changed personality. Therefore, from these examples, it can be resolved that musical identity formations are related to brain science to a significant degree. In the case of Cicoria, the lightning strike might have open his brain to his passion and hidden music talent. Therefore, musical identity is hidden in the bran, and it may take an incident to experience their positive musical identity formations.

In “In the Empire of the Beat,” Walter Hughes argues that disco music reorganizes the dance-floor in a contradictory manner. Disco music disciplines the bodies of the dancers while providing the dancers with a ground for free expression. Disco dance music is a form of popular music for dancing that is recorded with complex electronic instrumentation in which a pulsating and heavy rhythmic beat subordinates the repetitive lyrics. This form of dance music emanated from the urban nightlife scene of the United States. The participants were allowed to freely express themselves through dance and were the foundation for contemporary dance music culture. Disco music allowed individuals to express their queerness freely. Another example of dance music that will enable people to express themselves freely is house dance music.

House music, like disco music, is a genre of electronic dance music which is associated with a four-on-the-floor beat and typical musical tempo. Similar to disco music, house music does not also have a specific dance pattern. The dancers are allowed to express their queerness through dance freely. Another similarity is in the instrumentation of the music genres. House music and disco music genres apply a typical four on the floor musical instrumentation. The main difference between the two music techniques is that house feels more mechanical and inhuman and does not consider the warm and organic references considered in disco music and other EDM music genres. Free dance patterns allow us to express who we are and illustrate the restrictions we have on our minds to dance.

Walter Hughes pretty much shows how disco was used as a way for those of the LGBTQ community to show pride in who they are and fight against the stereotypes. However, they made were attempts to get disco pretty much mainstream to where they will show how anyone can participate in disco, but in this attempt, they were still trying to put down those of the LGBTQ and minorities. They couldn’t stop those parts of the community from living their true selves and loving who they want without the opinion of outside factors. Disco is not, in fact, dead I personally feel it just goes under a new name, club music. Both are just a bunch of songs mixed together in matching the beat, and there’s no telling when it’s going to end.
Similar to the backlash disco faced, it made me think of Hip hop and R&B. I’m not sure where these stereotypes came from, but anyone associated with it was labeled as being a “thug”; however, the music genre was based mainly on expressing hardship individuals faced specifically minorities in their community and home life. Now Hip hop and R&B are more normalized, and many admit to getting inspiration from the genre of music and those who represented it.

With the advancement of technology making our lives more convenient, music also is changed with it. It gives us a way to get even closes to music. When you think of ways people used to listen to music back then, the first thought might be a jukebox where people share the music and listen to the same thing; however, my first experience with music was a big stereo in my living room and a TV. The Tv was pretty much used in the mornings when music videos will play on the channels, and the stereo was mainly on for parties and whenever there was no other way to access music. The point I realized that music was advancing along with technology wasn’t until I learned to use a computer and was able to go on youtube and listen to anything I wanted to and started to get portable when the iPhone 4 came out.
Now in the modern-day, our iPhone allows us to do way more than just listen to music. Now people don’t really need fancy equipment to edit or alter songs they can do it off a simple app called GarageBand from the iPhone in addition now recently there settings to alter the way music sound through your headphones or speakers where you can turn a feature on in order to get more of a better hearing quality out of the music you listen to so you can notice more details in the songs.