For paper #2, I will be attempting to give a go at comparing the differences in the interpretations of the significance of music as described in Living With Music by Ralph Ellison and episode 2 of Ways of Hearing: Space by the podcast host Damon Krukowski featuring writer/activist Jeremiah Moss and historian Emily Thompson. The appraisal/interpretation and the environment like one’s neighborhood in which sounds become synthesized ultimately affects the recipients’ experience with those sounds. Space reveals how sound-space dynamics can alter sounds and in turn alter one’s subjective experience to those sounds. Reporting from New York City, sounds on the street generations ago were louder, more abundant, more blended, and of course, more unavoidable. Nowadays, sound has the ability to be manipulated like never before which means there are more auditory dynamics in numerous places and the people there’s subjective experiences with them. One’s home is the last place in which they would like to hear noise and it is their conclusive perception of that noise which will ultimately guide their experience with those sounds. Living With Music is a first person narration on the effects & influences of growing up with musical bombardment in you guessed it, the inescapable New York City. The author shows the audience different effects music can have on a person and the practical applications it can produce under certain conditions such as deliberately using it to improve one’s own mood when feeling down. Ellison assures the audience that if one were to live under similar conditions to his, it would either incite an unlivable, drowning in noise or lead to an acceptance and harmonious relationship to those tunes. This is one way how interpretation can alter one’s subjective experience with auditory stimuli as the author evidently chose to “live with music” as opposed to “[dying] with noise.” Interestingly however, in choosing to accept living with music, the author later describes himself in the story putting strenuous amounts of effort into creating a contraption that would ultimately manipulate his subjective auditory environment for his liking or in response to his neighbor’s inevitable sounds.

1. There’s something powerful in re-cooperating what power rejects because it feels like something sacred. There is the uncertainty in finding value & meaning; “finding treasure in another man’s trash.” Meaning that may have never been found.
2. Specific preferences and social agendas vs. what other, less powerful people find meaning is how music indicates differences between the powerful and the marginalized.
3. Surprised is coming to find something you might have never given the chance to feel actually turning out to be something you may come to enjoy. Discovering is more feeding an existing preference or “sounds like something [you’ve] heard before.”
4. Forced Exposure allows you to find novel cross-breeds of stimuli that one may come to appreciate. Spotify is more algorithmic in supplying a certain pattern of music a user tends to already come to like on a concurring basis. We can not get out of our sensational comfort zones if it’s never left or explored.

1. Ralph Ellison stated that as a child, he sang awfully and frequently, but now his neighbor sings awfully out loud just like him and it makes him hesitant to call the police. Both her and the jazzmen reminds him of the desire to express an affirmative way of life through musical tradition. But when his neighbor does sign well he says he will become upset that he wouldn’t be able to type so well again after they stop. He had also created a music system that would attempt to override the signing noise from his neighbor, but it could also be used to record quality sound as well. Then as time passed, he started to use music less as a defense and more as a way to control his mood and memory.
2. What I believe live with music or die with noise means is that you can choose to listen to music which can uplift your mood or spirit, “Art thou troubled? Music will not only calm, it will ennoble thee” or you can drown in the endless stream of city noise-pollution.
3. During Ellison’s time in New York, and the 1970s New York that Krukowski talked about had some similarities. Music from different cultures poured into atmosphere and no would merge together, people were more willing to interpenetrate through each other’s world, and it wasn’t easy to simply put on headphones and listen to your own sound waves in order to block the incoming noise.

1. The difference between hearing and listening is that hearing is simply filtering sounds in the peripheral awareness while only giving awareness to those sounds that we deem worthy of our attention like our name or a violent group fight outside your house. Listening is active and it is the effort to absorb and retain a sphere of audio. Listening is an intention which means the majority amount of choice is in our control. By simply engaging your curiosity or by being determined to listen, more retention is able to be attained. The more intense, the more retention. Perception can influence how we listen; if we were to perceive someone as lower status, we might not want to listen to them as much. If we have a bias towards a gender or certain races then we could also listen to them less or more. When it comes to structural features, I believe context and preference is key. Logistical elements such as temperature, volume of external noise, sitting positions, distracting smells and views can all affect listening.

2. Krukowski says we use hearing to map where we are in relation to where the sounds are coming from. However if your ears are covered in public, then you’ll be less aware of what entities could be nearby. Both him Krukowski and Schaefer discussed how if you own a space, you could dictate how people interact with it thus having some control over the auditory output in that space. Concert halls had microphones deliberately placed in areas where performers like the Rockettes would go about in order to deliberately amplify a small concentration of certain sounds for the entire auditorium.

Although the news reporters wouldn’t have secured certain financial gain, it would have been best long term if they took a different approach in capturing the civil rights protests. Berger is right about the media using African-Americans as victims doing as much harm as it did good, however I disagree with the statement that it was to soothe this concept of “white anxiety”. The idea of white anxiety is used as a poor interpretation by mainstream media and some political narratives to gain leverage on “white America”. Berger’s claim that  the African American social image was tainted due to the necessity to portray them as victims in order to sooth white anxiety rests on the questionable black & white common ways of that X can’t happen without Y being affected negative. If the media didn’t frame African-Americans protesting as victims, then the alternative photographs would be of those depicting African-American civil rights activists trying to overthrow an existing system right? That’s exactly where the attempt to avoid “white anxiety” would arise, so no. Instead, it would do civil rights activists more justice if a timeline of photos were posed on media outlets rather than a picture taken out of context. If a society integrated with African-Americans could have been a certain possibility, then it would have been better to cater to a more fair depiction of the world events objectively rather than to anyone’s favor.

1. By giving consumers a dream, by engineering desire, by creating an sensation of glamour, one party can successfully profit off of another’s attention. In this way, it makes the consumers believe they are gaining when in actuality, they are withdrawing their money and fulfilling the desires of the advertisers.
2. The shift in focus goes from imagery produced for or by a person who has happened to be born as a high ranking member of society to appealing to modern dreams of becoming that someone who is living an enhanced life. This modern ideal invites potentially the entire populous this new imagery targets to live similarly to the higher status individuals in their society. This reveals the notion that publicity is made to satisfy a probable desire of the society it targets.
3. The dream of buying your way into a happy life, attracting people, and easily obtaining desirable social circles is one Berger states that is offered by publicity. Playing on the desires of consumers can get them to act in ways which they could regret doing down the line, but is effective at fulfillng their immediate “needs”.

Many are aware of how some of the classical art/Renaissance paintings that depicted women in a crude way, but has it the objectification this day and age? Some people say that women are able to express themselves more freely as there is more variety and diversity than ever seen in historical media. Women can reach into their more creative side now more than ever which is a behavior that can bring joy and satisfaction. But I say that women are absolutely objectified now and even more so nowadays. With the modern era consisting of shocking advertisements in attempts to get as much attention or publicity as possible, in many ways, the female impression is under more control by the societal/male gaze than ever. Women are expected to keep up with the high expectations set by present-day media and culture (especially in the west). A long with an array of different shapes and shades is a hike up in getting women to become more “nude” as John Beger would put it. It has becomes the new normal to have an exterior perfect “nude” version of self because you’ll get more validation and reward in our current time. If a women were to be truly naked, she would get plunged into the valley of mediocrity/lower standards.

1. The advantages of using the “entering a conversation” model in writing is that the writer’s message will have meaning, a point, and a “why?” Contrast this with conventional writing which is stating cold-hard facts with no sides, layers or forks to the thesis. Although some forms of writing consists of a counter-claim, this model states the counterclaim before the writer’s claim giving immeditate purpose to the argument.
2. I agree that learning to look at art can help with analytical skills because they exercise our abilities to give attention to detail, detail that can be overlooked unless given intense curiousity. Finding whats present, and whats not present/unusually can tremendously help during complex situations life bestows upon us. Questioning inconsistencies can achieve an array of inferences which can further advance a case or a lead, or draw near a conclusion.