Week Three: Brother Ray

Cite: "The Last Days of Brother Ray"
Paraphrase: The Last Days of Brother Ray was an article on Ray Charles life including his dark side. Ray Charles was a famous blind pianist credited for starting soul music for the most part.
Analyze: When i think about about Ray Charles, I always just marvel at how incredible it is that he learned to play music so well considering he was blind. He is so much better at the piano then the average person with in my opinion less tools to learn with. It does make sense though that he would be so drawn to it. If I was blind and enjoyed playing music, I would play often because that is probably the second main sense (behind site) and so rather than how the most of us watch t.v. he would listen/play music. And if i had a disability like that i would probably strive to be incredible. There are so many things that are limited to his disability so it would make sense that he would be a perfectionist when it comes to music. It makes sense why its such a good "kid's story." Well the nice happy rainbow version at least. Blind man practices and overcomes disability to become one of the best pianists ever. To a kid that is probably just another story that you can do what ever you want if you put your mind to it. Its sort of funny to think about all the half truths that we were told as a kid like how George Washington founded this country on equality yet he owned slaves. Although if I could go back and had the choice whether to be told the mushie half truths or the full story I would prefer the half truths because they do inspire you and i think morally set you down the right path as a child. I mean if you were raised being told about all these hypocrasies, you would probably grow up to be a pretty cynical child with a lot of trust issues.

10/21/2011 Entry on Hit Songs

Cite: The Science of Hit Songs by Bjorn Carey
Paraphrase: The article was about how our music choices are so influenced by others and its popularity in the world.
Analyze: The article is definitely right on some things. Listening to music can be similar to meeting people in that fact that you can't meet everyone. Therefore we categorize people and judge them based on things already experienced in life. If a person looks similar to you best friend then you are much more likely to talk to him than someone who you have had bad experiences with, due to the fact that there is a higher probability of having the connection with the guy you have positive experiences with. In an ideal world we could meet everyone and judgement would not be necessary but we have limited time and its important to try to spend time with the good people rather trying to give everyone a fair chance and wasting time with people you don't like. Now i know that is a pretty abstract comparison but its the same with music. In an ideal world opinions wouldn't effect my choice and i would listen to the 10 million songs on itunes and pick my favorites, but unfortunately I don't have that much time and so I have to give priority to the ones that are rated highly or the ones my friends recommend. So as sad as I am to say it, it really doesn't come down to what music is strictly the best music... but its more the music that is popular will just continue to get more popular regardless of whether its actually the best music or not.

Week Four: Survey and their correlations

So in class we are starting to move on to a research paper. the research paper has to do with making a hypothesis and testing it with a survey and disscussing the conclusions. In class we read about a similar idea of a person disscussing his results for his survey on music. he made many conclusions that many people did not agree with. it seemed they were based off of stereotypes such as all people that listen to country are republican or that people that like dance and electro are obama supporters. My first reaction was laughter. Stereotypes can be funny and the fact that he included it in his paper was quite comical. Next I felt that it was sortof valid for the most part. In order to save time instead of getting to know every specific person, you can stereotype and if your good at it, most of the time your right. Judgements are just a way to speed up the process of catorgizing and getting to know a person. For the most part they are helpful in my life. i can tell whether or not a stranger is likely to be my next close friend are not with a few quick judgements rather than getting to know his life story. its impossible to get to know every single person and i can easilly sort through so many more people if i stereotype them. now you are probably thinking, "you will be wrong some times and miss out on cool people" i agree and cominsate in 2 ways. by judging i get to meet more people so i can find more cool people that im compatible with even if i miss out on a good one here and there. Also i dont let my judgements affect how i treat a person. I act the same towards all people as much as i can. I dont like the idea of judging and sorting people... it just seems so cold but its sortof required to in society.