Tia De Nora’s reading: Music in Everyday life establishes a connection and an association between music and how it “controls” one’s lifestyle or “modifies who we are in the moment” (Bigham Week 2 Lecture A). Specifically her chapter three and chapter five excerpt reveal music as a tool for concentration and focus on one’s work, a way to alter mood and tone within one’s self, and finally a device to control social gatherings, its settings, and the actions of people in it. My three days worth of notes include several examples where De Nora’s claims stand true.
The notes that I took over three days are in agreement with De Nora’s reading in chapter 3 that music tunes out one’s surroundings, and creates a new environment for the individual to focus or complete their tasks in. One of the examples that portrays this idea is displayed both on Thursday and the latter Sunday when I was doing math homework, while listening to pop, hip-hop, and rap music. The reason behind this action was for me to “get in the zone,” or to focus on just the homework and to seal off other environments around me. This, then, limited my agency just like De Nora stated, by compelling me to engage in just the one task I was doing. By staying focused with music, I was able to finish my math homework with continued concentration and less time.…show more content… One of the examples that demonstrates this idea was when my friends and I used rap and hip-hop music before and while playing basketball to get our energy levels up. Because of this, there was a change in behaviour and playstyle in each and everyone of us from a passive to energetic yet excited state. Music here also controlled the way people should act, which is why we didn’t play soft instrumental music. It, in a sense, forces us to feel dynamic, rather than mellow. The rap and the bass “got us going,” as De Nora would
