Week 5 – Essay Reflection

1. Your chosen prompt

Music can move us, inspire us, transform us. Is it the purest mode of storytelling? Provide an in-depth analysis of either one piece of music or one album in answering this question.

2. How you decided on your approach

I wanted to select music that had interest to me, and music that I loved. I wasn’t going to explore music that didn’t personally move me. I knew that if it was an artist I loved I’d feel more inclined to research more and enjoy the writing more.

3. Where you started I started

I started by watching a documentary on John Mayer, and learning about his life to understand where the meanings and ideas behind the songs on the continuum album might have come from.

4. Anything new/unexpected you found

I found out endless amounts of information about John Mayer. His views on war, life, death etc. It was fascinating to hear about his life.

5. Your overall findings/arguments

It is pure in the sense that it is heard from the voice of artist themselves. Whether it is the most pure or not, is purely subjective to the way people enjoy to absorb information (pictures, sound, words etc). Continuum is a heartfelt album that tells the stories of war, love, and keeping yourself humble.

Throughout this experience I have learnt a lot about storytelling. After presenting my work in class, I learnt places where I could have uncovered more about my own essay, such as Dan’s suggestion to look at the Continuum album as a whole, focusing on the highs and lows of the tracks. It was interesting to hear from others who had also done the music essay question. Despite feeling slightly intimidated by the amount of information they had learnt about a more broad study of narrative through music I really enjoyed hearing different perspectives. I was interested in the “music therapy” idea, because that is a strong focus of the purity that is music. It is all about using music as some kind of therapy, or outlet for the artists and audiences emotions. I found it interesting how I worded my findings quite differently when I was retelling it as a response to the class, which makes me think it’s probably a good idea to convey it to a member of my family or someone when writing my essay to think of things differently.