EPISODE: 5

1. At the beginning of this episode, Krukowski asserts, “the marginal-the rejected-the repressed-is whatever the powerful have decided is of no use at the moment.” What does he mean by this statement? He goes on to ask, “But might it [the marginal-the rejected-the repressed] not be a key to alternate approaches-to art, to society-to power itself?” (“Marginalized” is an adjective that describes a person, group, or concept that is treated as insignificant or peripheral.)

When Damon Krukowski enters the record store, he finds that some specific albums/records are preserved for a long time. Also, these records are expired/out-of-date. I really think that the reason is   people usually like to download music from online music websites and not want to go to music record/albums stores. As a result, the records what only available in the record stores become valueless/unused. However, the records can give a new vision of art. Another thing is we can find much information on a music store. Such as the author pointed out that workers in the music store can provide information about music/records about many years ago that you did not know or thought. Moreover, music albums/records in the record store are in the form of physical/material and it has more attraction or attention than the non-physical music what usually on the internet. Also, we can discover a new category of music that we don’t know by visiting music stores.

2. How are the music listening experiences enabled by Forced Exposure different from those that Paul Lamere is working on with platforms like Spotify?

First of all, Jimmy from Forced Exposure listens songs what he like and what he chosen. Here he can listen and gather/find what kind of music he likes and want to hear in the future. On the other side, Paul Lamere from Spotify who creates algorithm to choose songs from millions of songs based on the category you heard before. It’s like an automatic system/process and people can’t discover new variety of music. Moreover, they will stick with the trend. Also, listening experience of music will never fulfill like the satisfying experience Jimmy had.

3. What distinctions does Krukowski draw between being “surprised” by music and “discovering” music? What are the differences between these experiences and according to Krukowski, why are they important?

Surprising and discovering has different kind of relations. First of all, when we hear a new type of music, it’s like a surprising moment for us and we eager to hear more type of music in the future afterwards. On the other side, discovering is what we are usually searching for. Such as we can get the same type of songs on the Spotify based on the songs we listened. Here technology cannot help us to get new vibes of music. In addition, we cannot get out from the same music taste. Therefore, many information about an innovative kind of music get disappeared.

EPISODE: 6

4. According to Krukowski, what is noise? What is signal? Why are these distinctions important?

First of all, the signal is the sound what we want to hear and the remainder of the sound is the noise. It relies upon our cerebrums/brains/mind. However, in the studio the musicians and producers increase the volume of signal and decrease the volume of noise, blended the music very excellently and make signal and noise sounds more clear so it can give us the full fulfillment of a song.

5. What central idea about noise does this episode convey? Why is it significant?

Producers and musicians usually maximize the volume of the signal and minimize the volume of noise. Noise is the unwanted sounds related to signal and this is very significant. Without noise the song may sound slightly better, but it will never sound like a perfect song all the time. Noise can upgrade the signal and makes the song more powerful and rhythmic. In the meantime, musicians use software to take out the noise. Nevertheless, they can reduce the noise insisted if removing it. Noise is inevitable and also carries the meaning of a song.

6. How does this episode relate to other episodes? 

The episode relates to other episodes of Ways of Hearing. Much the same as the ‘’noise’’ peoples/individuals ignore the unwanted sounds by headphones or cellphones. In addition, noise has been diminished in right now. For instance, until further notice anyone who doesn’t care for a conversation or anything can put on the headphones to ignore the surroundings or other interruptions.