I think that Podcast 11 may have been my favorite one this semester. In this podcast, Dr.Bezio discussed the relationship between music and human emotion. What really stood out to me was the way that music acts as a form of protest. From jazz that was played at speakeasies to Rihanna telling the DJ not to stop the music (there’s other good examples, but I just really enjoyed that one), music is a way for individuals to voice how they really feel about the topic at hand. Since music can be extremely catchy and easy to understand, it also makes it one of the most widely used forms of pop culture. Everyone listens to music, and has been since the dawn of time.

This podcast, along with the music we listened to and the readings, reminded me of one of my first-year seminars from freshman year. I took a class about Black vernacular (and its revisions, but I won’t go into all that) with Dr.Bert Ashe (a great professor if you haven’t met him). That entire year, we analyzed how numerous forms of communication through different mediums. Music is very obvious in the way it tells a story, but communication like this can happen in other natural spaces. One of my favorite examples of his was a description of the Black church. At Black churches, you obviously have the preacher and the choir and everyone else in the sanctuary. However, if you pay attention long enough, the hymns aren’t the only thing that have rhythm. The way the audience responds to the pastor, in “hmms” and “alright nows,” there is a rhythm present. The way the preacher may be speaking often sounds like it’s on a rhythm. All of it put together becomes a sound that is telling its own story that is the Black church. Music, and all the components that make it up, have a way of communicating what words sometimes cannot, even if it is in the simple, rhythmic call-and-response pattern of a preacher and his audience.