How Blues Can Save the Soul INTRODUCTION Our main senses are the pathways by which we understand and interact with the world. Essential to relationships, they allow us to see facial expressions, touch one another and hear words and tones of voice. Hearing messages would have a different dimension as we glean that it is not how a message is intended that determines its effect but rather how it is received. As Robert Bolton states in People Skills, the distinction between hearing and listening is important. Hearing refers to the physiological process of receiving auditory sensations. Listening is more complex and involves the interpretation and understanding if those signals.
One can hear a person without ever listening to him or her. Whether or not one can actually listenand be listened toplays an important role in the quality of our lives such as our satisfaction with friendships, the cohesiveness in our families, and our effectiveness at work. More scientifically, listening is the awareness of, the tending to, the organization of, and the operationalization of data entering our nervous system via our hearing mechanism. Unlike hearing, which is a physiological passive activity, listening is an active cognitive process (Petress, Kenneth).
This paper looks into James Baldwins story Sonnys Blues which depicts the relationship between two brothers at different times in their lives. Baldwin dexterously weaves the story to build an understanding between the two brothers. And what better way to bridge and hasten this understanding than to equip one of the brothers with a gift for music.
The Essay on Effective Listening Strategies
Listening is the way we hear someone or something. Effective listening requires us to hear more of what someone is saying instead of just hearing what they are saying. When we are listening effectively, it means we are not letting anything distract us from paying attention to what the person is saying and understanding them verbally and nonverbally. Speaking in a way that one understands and ...
The Brothers Dilemma Written in 1957, this story carries a vital social message. The older brother is a Harlem algebra teacher who serves as the narrator. The younger brother is Sonny, a jazz pianist, who has some notorious streak in him. He is arrested for peddling and using heroin. Baldwin is known to have vague delineations in time so that it is the essence of his stories that stands out. This is true for this story too.
In fact even the title has a double-meaning blues to signify woes and loneliness and at the same time refer to musical blues. The elder brother attempts to understand the ways of his delinquent younger brother. Music paves the way to this understanding and it is this element that glues the brothers together. The sense of listening into the real blues of Sonny entails a sensitivity only a person one is intimate with can fully comprehend and understand. For example, despite the ears ability to distinguish minute differences in sounds, most cultures organize the vast range of audible sounds into musical scales of only five to seven notes. Each culture learns preferences for its own way of dividing the sound spectrum. Asian music with its subtle pitch changes sounds whining and off-key to Westerners because it uses smaller divisions between notes.
Jamaicans prefer syncopated ballads, while Russians use lush minor melodies. Music plays a prominent role in our lives. Most people have an exquisite, inborn musical sense that develops subconsciously over their lifetimes. A baby responds to lullabies, and gravitates toward music. Pre-toddlers bounce to the beat of a song. We surround ourselves with music; before radios we sang as we worked and played, and in modern life we play music in our workplace, flip it on as soon as we get home, wake up to it, and play it in our ear. Music stimulates us. I always feel a surge of strength and adrenaline when speakers blast powerful music.
Music makes exercise fun during P.E. classes and has been instrumental in helping people enjoy exercise of all types. Most of our social occasions demand music, from a string quartet during a dinner party to a polka band at a wedding reception. Music enhances every party or sporting event. The tingle of pleasure we can get from music releases endorphinswe are touched physically and emotionally by music. The author describes the two brothers as this: “They were growing up with a rush and their heads bumped abruptly against the low ceiling of their actual possibilities.
The Essay on Euthanasia in the Play “Who’se life is it anyway”
“Who'se life is it anyway” is a satisfying play on a dramatic and intellectual level. The play makes it satisfying by the entertainment and the dramatic death. It makes it dramatic because of the conflict and tension of the play. The play had bitter sweet catharsis which had a resolution of conflicting emotions and mixed feelings on the play. It was also humorous that was savage and black. The ...
They were filled with rage. All they really knew were two darknesses, the darkness of their lives, which was now closing in on them, and the darkness of the movies, which had blinded them to that other darkness, and in which they now, vindictively, dreamed, at once more together than they were at any other time, and more alone (Norton Introduction to Literature 48).
Music from jazz that Sonny had known all along calms people down. In an increasingly stressful society, music, with its amorphous melodies and lulling rhythms soothes. Music therapy has emerged as its own discipline, with therapists trained to use music to reach mentally or physically disabled people. Sonnys music helped heal their relationship. Psychotherapists have found music valuable in relaxing and reaching autistic children, who may find it easier to communicate in song than in speech. Therapists enhance their physical treatment with soothing music. The narrator describes the brother as he pens, “They were growing up with a rush and their heads bumped abruptly against the low ceiling of their actual possibilities.
They were filled with rage. All they really knew were two darknesses, the darkness of their lives, which was now closing in on them, and the darkness of the movies, which had blinded them to that other darkness, and in which they now, vindictively, dreamed, at once more together than they were at any other time, and more alone (Norton Introduction to Literature 48).
Singing is an expression of ones musical sense. Cultures have songs for work, play, dance, entertainment, mourning and ceremonies. Recorded music has somehow usurped our natural songs, inhibiting many of us to think we are not good enough. When we sing, air passes over the vocal cords and causes them to vibrate.
The Term Paper on Music is Part of our life
Music is part of our lives whether we realize it or not, whether we actively participate in it or not, whether we appreciate its power or not. This is, in fact, the real power of music ? that it can affect us whether we are aware of it or not. We need only think of the music heard on the soundtrack of most movies. We may be aware of the action and the dialogue, the scenery, costumes and special ...
Additionally, the bones and air spaces in our head vibrate. Singing causes our bodies to produce a natural feel-good experience that changes our moods. Indeed, learning the simple and basic scientific facts as the ear and the essence of sounds helps us appreciate the area of humanities on Music. The characters in Sonnys Blues also desires to enlist in the army. It is one form of escape from the killing streets. Being offered Harlem college education is a great privilege.
The narrator had tried to reach for the elusive success. He returns to teach algebra but because of segregation and discrimination, he has to transfer to a rundown housing project. a parody of a good, faceless life (Norton Introduction to Literature 53).The Blues music of Sonny heals the spirit. The enjoyment of music comes from subtle interweaving of expectation and surprise. New genres of music may contain too much surprise for one to enjoy at first, but as one gains some familiarity, one will build enough expectation to make the balance right. The characters in this story may be continually frustrated to prove ones identity of Americanness.
They want to be assimilated and to exercise the privileges that the white citizens enjoy. He expresses his feelings of dissatisfaction that is also expressed by Sonny and the other artists using their blues music. Conclusion Even if this new form of jazz music which was called bebop of bop, was being developed, still this solo music evolved familiar tunes. Some traditional jazz players opposed this bebop since it focused attention on the self. In a way, the music was the for the brothers healing of spirits. It was not meant to be danced and enjoyed by audiences.
In the end, when we learn to listen well, we are able to screen out the unnecessary noises. As society grows louder and louder, noise may best be described as any undesirable, potentially dangerous sound. Knowing the real function of sounds and how our hearing functions assist us in taking care of our sense of hearing and letting the loftier things uplift our lives so that we can now shift into a quieter and nobler existence. WORKS CITED Clarke-Stewart, A., Friedman S. and Koch J. (1985).
The Term Paper on Music Affects Mood
Music is any form of sound in a synchronized pattern that affects the brainwaves. Together with many instruments, an emotional harmony is created that can single-handedly manipulate human emotion. When music manipulates emotion to an extreme degree, the practice can become an addiction. There are many causes for being a music addict. It provides an artificial sanctuary, bringing out the emotion ...
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