What is Music

Theres this great story about a piano player once that goes like this. So its his big opening night and the theatre is filled with patrons. The pianist comes on stage, sits down at the piano, cracks his fingers and proceeds to do nothing for the next 49 minutes. Nothing in the fact that he doesnt touch a single key or produce a single note. The whole theatre is just filled with noise of the somewhat bewildered audience. But nobody gets up the entire 49 minutes and when the pianist leaves the stage, the whole theatre fills up with the noise of clapping of the audience. The pianist may have note played his piano but what he created was music.

Some people may not call that music but in reality this pianist was pushing the boundries of music and was trying to define music as much as possible in his work. Music is really a relationship between sound and silence that gives us an emotional response. Sometimes it will have a defined rhythym like most music you will hear on the radio, other times it will have no rhythym like avant grade music. Sometimes it will be very structure, other times it will be freeforming. Any sound or lack of sound can be music.

Everyone's a Critic (or a DJ)

Right off the bat let me say I found the peer reviews to be helpful. Anytime you get feedback it tends to be helpful, this coming from one of the most stubbornest people you will meet. But my problem is with how we conducted the peer reviews. I wanted to ask my reviewer questions face to face instead of just seeing what he wrote. I would rather have a conversation with a reviewer to get a better understanding from what he or she thought and maybe to clariy some things up. Also I feel when its anonymous the reviewer tends to be harsher and more critical, I know I get that way.

Subcultures

Jamband Culture: I would investigate the culture that revolves around the Jam Band music scenes. This subuculture's main focus is dedicated to bands like Phish, .Moe, String Cheese Incident and Umphreys Mcgee's and follow these bands around the country. They are a tight knit community that all share the same fashing style, a style like an exaggerated commune wear. They are very liberal politicality but are in many regards hypocrites to their own political beliefs. I would examine what makes these people go to such lengths to see bands in the Jam band scene, why do they connect to the music so much, why do the where the clothes they wear, and why do drugs run so rampant in the community.

Hipsters: Vintage clothing, vinyl records, counter-cultural views, Pabst Blue Ribbon, what do all of these have in common? Theyre all signs of hipsters but what is a hipster exactly. In the beginning it referred to the Jazz music scene and in the 50's the likes of Jack Kerouac would be known as a hipster. But what is a hipster in todays world? In order to find out I will scour the coffee shops, Urban Outfitter boutiques, and the vintage record stores until I get this answer.

Stephen L. Carter "Just Be Nice" Thoughts

After reading through Stephen L. Carters Essay about three times I still have no idea what his main point is. I think neither does Stephen L. Carter. He seemed just to be writing stuff that bothers him about todays generation and just goes on ranting and ranting. He starts off talking about etiquette with todays youth then goes on some spiel about how kids arent punished enough and then starts talking about offensive language. He's all over the place and none of the paragraphs really relate to each other. He seems like he maybe an intelligent man but this whole essay is just lazy writing.

Research Propasal

My research paper will be on the Patroitic Act and will cover how its was formed, how it was passed using 9/11 paranoia, how it invades on the rights of all Americans and how it pretty much makes the Bill of Rights useless. I will also discuss how the media does not report on it fully and that causes less understanding of it in the US>

Test...

One, Two, Three

My Paper

Idea #1:
Stem Cell Research: Could be very useful to medicine if those damn religious freaks werent so uptight about it.

Idea #2:
Why most major media outlest are racist?
Detroit has a murder rate of over 300 deaths a year but this is not talked about on any major news sources but one a white cheerleader disappears in Aruba, its the biggest news story of the year.

Idea #3:
Prescription drugs
Are all the drugs were prescribing todays kids helping them or making them worse off?