This text personally affected me because I too came from less than ideal origins for playing sports. Most of my teammates and friends came from families with athletic siblings and parents who competed collegiality. Since I'm an only child, I never had siblings to look up to or compete with to better my athletic skills. When the main character described listening to Beethoven's Ninth Symphony as "the most beautiful thing I ever heard", it really got my attention. I wondered how something so little be so powerful to someone? Listening to that song literally changed his life and I think that is so surreal. Reading this text made me think about how the little choices you make can change your life.
Sunday, February 12, 2017
Response to "Rebel Music" by Daniel Felsenfeld
In the beginning of "Rebel Music" by Daniel Felsenfeld, the main character is 17 years old and is living in Orange County, California. He was attracted to music for reasons he could not explain and according to him was from "the least musical of families". Some afternoons he would go over to his friend's house and listen to cassette tapes. One of these tapes changed the character's life. His friend Mike started to play Beethoven's Ninth Symphony and this was the first time the character actually heard music. He described it as "the most beautiful thing I ever heard". He had a passion for classical music and decided to become a composer. After going to school to become a composer, he moved to New York and continued to write and listen to classical music.
This text personally affected me because I too came from less than ideal origins for playing sports. Most of my teammates and friends came from families with athletic siblings and parents who competed collegiality. Since I'm an only child, I never had siblings to look up to or compete with to better my athletic skills. When the main character described listening to Beethoven's Ninth Symphony as "the most beautiful thing I ever heard", it really got my attention. I wondered how something so little be so powerful to someone? Listening to that song literally changed his life and I think that is so surreal. Reading this text made me think about how the little choices you make can change your life.
This text personally affected me because I too came from less than ideal origins for playing sports. Most of my teammates and friends came from families with athletic siblings and parents who competed collegiality. Since I'm an only child, I never had siblings to look up to or compete with to better my athletic skills. When the main character described listening to Beethoven's Ninth Symphony as "the most beautiful thing I ever heard", it really got my attention. I wondered how something so little be so powerful to someone? Listening to that song literally changed his life and I think that is so surreal. Reading this text made me think about how the little choices you make can change your life.
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I think that it is amazing how he was able to find such great music in his life when he didn't even experience music in his own home. I think it is pretty cool that you still pushed yourself to be athletic! I am horrible at sports! I also like your last sentence about the little choices in life. I completely agree that it's the little things in life that make a big difference.
ReplyDeleteI found it interesting that you drew the connection between Felsenfeld's family that wasn't involved in music and what it was like with your family not having sports. So I liked how you picked that apart and related to it in your own way. Were your parents involved in sports when they were younger? When you first started participating in sports, did the interest come solely from you or were there others around you that got you interested? In my experience I initially did not want to do sports, but my mom insisted that I be in soccer during the year and take tennis lessons in the summer. And once I got decent at it, I was really glad that I tried it, and I decided to do other sports like baseball and football. So in my experience I resisted it, but for most people that's not the case. What was it like for you? That's cool that you posted the song as well. Out of curiosity how did you come across this rendition of the song ("The 4th movement stretched 8 times")?
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