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.)

What is he trying to get at with this question? How does music indicate the differences between the powerful and the marginalized?

Krukowski would like to tell us when he visited the record store, he found many music albums and records are being left and forgotten for such a long time.And they are not used even on the day they are expired.After digital music emerges, more and more people prefer music apps than CD. We can easily see how music indicates the differences between powerful and marginalized. With more people use , it’s more powerful, and if nobody uses it , then it’s marginalized. However, Krukowski also mentioned that we might lost lots of valuable experience and information in the record store, therefore we should pay more attention to this forgotten treasure.

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

The music listening experiences enabled by Force Exposure is quite different to those that Paul Lamere is working on with platforms like Spotify. In Force Exposure, we can pick up the songs we think good to a playlist. It also has a huge amount of music and songs in its database. And in platforms like Spotify, they are always built by programmers.Taking Spotify as an example, it has algorithm in the app which can expose us different kinds of music and provide the opportunity for us to explore on unfamiliar fields in music.

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?

Krukowski states the point that surprise is not the same as discovery to a huge digital corporation eager to change every one of us and as much of our time as possible with their product.He gives the examples of Google , Facebook and Spotify. He compares the way how these three company provide our information we would like to know.Certainly, we want true and exact answers when we searching something in Google, on the other hand, we want some surprising songs or information when we use Spotify or Facebook.It’s quite significant because as a customer we want different experience when using different apps.

Episode 6

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

According to Krukowski, noise is the signal we are not interested.On the other hand, signal is some sounds we would like to pay attention to.It’s very important because literally they are two different concepts.What can attract our attention is signal, and we are interested in it.Noise is sound that we don’t want to pay attention and it’s also easily to be ignored.

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

This episode mainly conveys the idea of the difference between sound and noise.For example, when musicians try to produce a song, they will always maximize the volume of the signal sounds and minimize the noise. Also, when a producer would like to create a good TV show ,he needs to control all the recording sounds well and makes them harmony.We can create wonderful music with many instrument,however we should combine all the sounds well, make sure they will not become noise.Sometimes too much is not the best.

3.How does this episode relate to other episodes?

In this episode, Krukowski distinguishes the differences between noise and sound.It’s crucial for us to better understand the meanings of the other episodes.What’s more this episode is like a summary of the series of Way of Hearing.