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

In “Living with Music,” Ralph Ellison talks about living in his New York City apartment building and the neighbors he is forced to listen to through the walls of his apartment. Ellison had hated being forced to listen to all the other surroundings of his apartment at first, but then he starts to miss it when his background noise turned into silence. He then appreciated how hearing all these sounds had helped him grow as a musician.

I think “In those days it was either live with music or die with noise…” means that people have completely different brains and feelings towards music. Like a musician can have a certain way they feel about a piece of what they’re hearing vs what a 10 year old might feel about the same noises. You can hear the honking from the streets as an annoying sound or hear it as your next inspiration for your next song.

In Ellison’s essay he writes about how hearing his noisy neighbors through the walls of his apartment building help him appreciate the background noises and helped him grow as a musician, while in episode 2 of Ways of Hearing, they discuss different ways someone might go about not wanting to hear the noises from other people, like putting on some headphones.

Ellison was trying to concentrate on his writing even though it was hard for him to accomplish such a task.
He had occupied a tiny apartment on the ground floor to the rear of his building. Ellison could hear a mixture of sounds each day because of the thin walls of the apartment.

Every morning promptly at nine, he could hear the small jukebox blasting through the thin walls from the small restaurant to his fight of the apartment. He could listen to the cats howling and dogs barking, incapable of making Music worth living with, so he ignored it.

Coming from another side, Ellison could hear various singing or preaching drunks. He had hungered and thirsted for little quiet to listen to the keys of his typewriter.
The singer who lived directly above was devoted to her art. She was not of the best voice he described, screaming on notes that had a ricochet effect bouncing down the walls of the building, sounded like whistled tenpenny nails, and the buzzing of a saw.

After a year of non-co-operation from the neighbor, he decided to call the police officers.
Ellison faced an ethical problem on how hard it is for an aspiring artist to deprive the work of another aspiring artist; he felt guilt.
Ellison had to listen, and in listening, he decided to make noise. With this, he decides to make the whole block suffer from blowing his trumpet, terrorizing a good part of the city by the sustained tones he blew through his window.

Ellison uses Music to annoy his neighbor but then realizes that Music is a constant reminder of what we are and aspire. He realizes that you live with Music or die with noise, and he desperately chooses to live. Because thou art troubled? Music will not only calm, but it will also ennoble thee.

Listening to Schafer and reading Ellison’s essay, there is no significant difference in the soundscape, as soundscape is a combination of sounds and how the listener perceives it. They both understood the sound they heard and meditated upon each one to understand their relation.

But on the contrary, Schafer appreciates each sound as soothing, enthusiastic, while Ellison finds the sounds around him annoying and disruptive.

Ralph Ellison in “Living with Music” shares his living experiences in his New York City apartment. He details his surroundings and what he hears—music playing from the neighbors being so loud and belligerent drunks. Ralph explains how living near a courtyard and a bar, Ralph can listen to everything. At first, he was annoyed and couldn’t focus on his writing until hearing the music he heard from his neighbors started to motivate him to play the instrument again, creating his own sound.

Ralph Ellison states, “In those days, it was either live with music or die with noise,” which means having to choose between two sounds. Listen to your surroundings and complain or block annoying sounds with the music you create or find.

The episode “Ways of Hearing” talks about the sounds of New York City and where you are at can impact your ability to hear. In “Living with Music” the sounds from Ralph’s surroundings help him understand music.

In “Living with Music”, Ralph Ellison describes how music affects his living experience in his New York City apartment building. After moving from Oklahoma City to New York city, he learned what the singer faced. In addition, he came to know that many famous musician’s motivation was neither for money nor frame because it was to achieve the most eloquent expression and emotions through the technical mastery of their instruments. At the beginning, his life in New York was hard because of loud noises near his apartment and everywhere surrounding him. Therefore, he decided to fight noise with noise. Since then, he started listening to music and lived with it daily. He was so passionate about music. He said that music is constant, reminding us of what we were and of what we aspire. He says, “Music will not only calm, it will ennoble thee”.

In “Living with Music” Ralph Ellison says “in those days it was either live with music or die with noise” means you need to find some kind of noise (Music) to avoid noise (unnecessary loud noise) because the neighborhood that he lived in was filled with drunk people and a singer. His apartment was next to a small restaurant with a jukebox.  And also, there was a singer, who would play music so loud every morning. Moreover, there were hauling cats and barking dogs. There was no option for him to live his life in peace without noise that is why he says live with music or die with noise.

In “Living with Music”, Ralph Ellison tells us how music has changed his living experience of New York City’s noisy life and the importance of music. Similarly, in “The Soundscape” R. Murray Schafer’s tells us how to classify sounds, appreciating their beauty or ugliness to help us become more aware of sounds around us. In addition, he says that we can avoid unnecessary background noises by listening to music using devices like headphones and earphones.

Ellison  describes living in nyc as a flood of sound windows open all the time.then he goes on to say that the noises in his four wall around him in his building there was always noise of a neighbor singing and how his rivalry with her renspired his love  and passion for music.

the sentence live with music or die with noises is pretaining to the bustle of noise from nyc .

Ellison  essay and R.Murray Schafers pertain to the noises of the city in the same way as  disturbing noise

 In “Living with Music,” Ralph Ellison describes how living in his NYC apartment building made him appreciate music. Before he rediscovered his love for music, he was living with noise that came from every side of his apartment walls, especially the singer on the floor above him. He found escape from unwanted noise by playing radio and eventually leading to buying a speaker system. After he moved away to a new apartment, he then realized how interesting that neighborhood was. He was thankful to the old environment and the singer for making him find one of the most gratifying aspects of living – music.  

 “In those days it was either live with music or die with noise.” He meant that we either die being annoyed and angry over the noise that we cannot control, or we make our peace with the noise by finding our own escape by listening to music.  

 In Ways of Hearing, Damon Krukowski mentions that with modern technology people have found limitless options to block noise and create their own private bubbles. Similarly, in Ellison’s essay, he experimented with modern technologies to block the noise and listen to the desired sound.