In living with music, Ralph Ellison describes how music affected his experience living in a New York City building by illustrating how the noise his apartment would have was such a regular and frequent thing in his life. Still, at the same time, it influenced him to become part of the music world because sounds provoke emotions that lead to inspiration even though at first he found it annoying.

The sentence “In those days, it was to live with music or die with noise ….” means the world revolves around noises, and it’s up to the person whether they want to take it and appreciate it or neglect it.

The comparison between Ellison’s essay and Episode 2 by Damon Krukowski’s supported the idea of different ways to avoid disturbing sounds. As technology advances, we come up with new ways to ignore them and stay in our bubble.