Discussion questiona5&6

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?

 

1: In the beginning of the episode when Kruwoski says” the marginal-the rejected-the repressed-is whatever the powerful have decided is of no use at the moment.” He means that music isn’t being appreciated through CDs anymore. Everything is so advanced now that everyone downloads music instead of going to music store and buying it. The CDs and tapes are being less appreciated.

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

 

2: Music listening experiences from the Forced Exposure are different from listening to Spotify because during the forced exposure listening moments  they had the opportunity to listen to all the music they could and if you wanted to contact the artist there would be a long wait. Fast forward to modern days with Spotify, you can have your music chosen for you. Spotify can direct you to music according to your mood, contacts etc. Spotify has a variety of music and there is no way you can listen to every song on Spotify.

  1. 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?

 

3: When you hear new music you’ve never heard before you are surprised by the things that your hearing. When your surprised its nothing that you expected. On the other hand, when you’re discovering music your expecting what you’re looking for. This is important because you are using these tools to gain more of an understanding to music.

 

Episode 6

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

 

1: Krukowski describes noise as the thing we are listening to in the background. For an example when you’re listening to two things at one time one becomes the signal and one is the noise. The noise being the sound in the background and the signal being the sound that has your attention. Your brain is more focused on the signal while your listening to the noise but not so much.

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

 

2: Noise and signal are important to our everyday life. You can hear up to millions of different signals and noises, noises are the sounds you hear in the background. Signal being the sound you’re hearing first and paying the most attention to. Producers and musicians make music with signal being louder sound then the noise.

 

  1. How does this episode relate to other episodes?

 

3:  Episode six was based on noise, which Krukowski described as the unwanted sound in the background.  The author uses podcast to explain to listeners the importance of each episode. Listening to different noises and signals is apart of our everyday life, the author wants us to understand sound noise and signals. Throughout the podcast we listened to him speak about listening and understanding music. Music has noises and signals and that’s how this episode relates to the others.