Entering the fall, the idea of sound to me was rather abstract and flowery in a meaning sense. Listening to “I am Sitting in a Room” by Lucier for our first assignment further added to this preconceived bias–I heard the work as meaningless, overly intentional in its abstract nature, and blatantly insane. I wondered why the constant drone of Lucier’s voice had any impact on my own listening routine, methodology, or attention. Unknowingly, however, listening to Lucier’s voice, its simplicities and intricacies, made me a better listener because it forced me to actually listen. I believe that studying different types of sound around us, whether it be music, natural sounds, or other composed sound made me a more aware person as a whole. I am more keen to the world because I listen for purpose in sound.
My effort in listening heightened greatly because of the Lucier piece. Under normal circumstances, there is no way I would have sat and listened to the whole 45 minute piece consciously. Listening intently to Lucier opened my ears to the intent listening of music as a whole. While I would love to say that I walk around campus listening intently to the natural soundscape around me, analyzing each chirp of a bird and honk of a horn that I hear, this is frankly not the case. In reality, my realizations about the purpose of sound transferred to some of my favorite music, and the idea that those songs might have meaning past the goal of generating hits and money became apparent to me. This became most present for me with Kanye West and his sampling of other musicians, most noticeably with Blood on the Leaves. I focused my second writing project, entitled “Strange Fruit and the Racial Context of Rap,” entirely on the social significance of Kanye’s sample within Blood on the Leaves, and how the musical and lyrical aspects of the song contributed to that message. In that project, I wrote the following.
“At a basic level, the song describes the unfortunate situation the protagonist is put in when he is surrounded by other women, becomes disloyal, and suffers the consequences. He raps, “Now you sittin’ courtside, wifey on the other side, gotta keep them separated I call that apartheid.” Here, Kanye directly addresses the stereotype that successful African American men often cheat on their wives, using the metaphor of a very real racial separation, apartheid, to describe the stereotypical actions taken by such a man to keep his main and side women apart. This metaphor underscores the ironic tone of the problem faced in the song. The hypothetical or even imaginary “blood on the leaves” that Kanye describes compared to that of Holiday is laughable when looked at in context. Kanye lays out the consequences of a disloyal black man, whereas Holiday lays out the consequences faced by a black man solely by being black. One set of consequences is controllable, the other is not. Blood on the Leaves is initially attractive because of its sound. The build up from slow to fast pace and the intense beat make the song inspiring and appealing to the ear. The underlying meaning in the sound is not as accessible; the audience only understands the racial context if they listen closely. Kanye, outside of his ironic use of the Holiday sample in Blood on the Leaves, clearly raps about socially significant issues in Yeezus.”
In his book entitled Rhythm Science, Paul D. Miller AKA DJ Spooky That Subliminal Kid examines the idea of tradition in music from a cultural standpoint while telling his own story. He cites different musicians, thinkers and essayists throughout the piece, and his discussion of Ralph Waldo Emerson challenged my idea of sound studies. Spooky summarizes Emerson’s writing in “Quotation and Originality” in the following way: “the central premise of his essay was that people’s minds were so burdened with the weight of previous creative work that they were too often forced to simply take elements from the past and reconfigure them to their own, contemporary” (Miller, 68). He even quotes Emerson saying that there is “no pure originality” in this type of work (Miller, 68). I would argue that this idea is flawed in that it disregards the possibility of being original while using old creative works. Kanye addresses a longstanding baseline social issue in Blood on the Leaves. This issue, racial division and bias against African Americans in the United States, was the very basis of Billie Holiday’s Strange Fruit when it was originally written in 1939. The issue has evolved over time, but its base is the same as it was 80 years ago. Kanye’s music is creative here in that it is musically contemporary as well as socially significant for people of a wide range of ages and backgrounds. The process of reaching a wide audience, one that understands the premise of the message being sent by the artist as well as appreciates the musical qualities of the art itself.
I have never been a “musical” person: the only instrument I ever played was the recorder in third grade, I do not know how to read music, and I would not exactly call myself a savant of songs, especially compared to some of my peers. Yet, I am now able to understand that composed sound always has purpose. A bird chirping is composed sound, and its purpose is communication. A speech is composed sound with a purpose of conveying an argument or educating an audience. Most notably to me, a song is composed with the purpose of artistically enlightening the audience. I would say that most people listen to music not with the intent of understanding the underlying message that the artist is sending, but with the purpose of being entertained. I argue that listening for meaning within music is an entertaining process itself. The more we open ourselves up to different genres of music with a purpose of understanding the meaning within that music, the more we will begin to understand the world in which we live. Imagine if a “country bumpkin” from West Virginia took an hour to listen closely to Kanye West, while someone from the Bronx took the same time to listen to a bluegrass or country album. It is extremely idealistic to say that everyone should go out, listen to different music, and the world’s social problems will be solved. But, being exposed to the benefits of listening to music intently allowed me to first and foremost gain a new appreciation for one of my favorite songs, and I believe I now have the tools and ideology to understand society as a whole a little bit better because of it.
Miller, Paul. Rhythm Science. MIT Press.
