The Sound of an Emotion

It has been a goal of mine to start a podcast about music and society for several years. I envision this being not just a sonic venture, but one pinned down on the page as well. The content will be written and made available in the form of stories on Vocal. Each episode will be a story one can read with their own eyes, weaving their way through the journey as they follow the narrative I have constructed.

When I wrote my thesis: “Gendered Conceptions of the American Dream in Country Music from 1994 to 2018: How the Belief in the Myth Maintains the Status Quo,” in 2018-2019, I never wanted my time in the world of musicology to consist of solely that brief visit. I intended to set up residence there. It is my intention this year to make that my reality: To take it from the thought phase, the planning stage, into the tangible world. By writing it down here, I am making this promise to myself. By solidifying it, I am allowing this community to hold me accountable. I will make the effort, a real effort, to be the version of me I have envisioned: the creator of this content that I believe has a relevance to the world in which we live. Whether I share these thoughts, musings, and connections that I draw, they are occurring. I'd rather have them impact the way others see the world than have them come about only to fizzle and fade sitting up among the many files of my mind.

I can't help the way that when I hear a song, my mind starts away making connections with other melodies, lyrics, rhymes, and events. And maybe putting them out there will help others to draw these connections on their own as well. Art follows real life and real life is a reflection of the art we create as a society, as human beings. These links are something I find worth exploring and thinking more deeply about.

When a line so powerfully states a complex set of emotions in a few simple syllables, it's worth diving into the many stories behind the lyric. The lives that echo through the words as they're sung. These people have stories that are worth telling. When we tell stories, we find that there are more experiences and feelings that others go through that we can relate to than there are those that we cannot. This is a powerful realization, and in so being, it is simultaneously a dangerous one. One that has the power to threaten the status quo. There is strength in numbers. Once that consciousness has been awoken, there is no lulling it back to rest.

With that being so, I see this as not only an artistic endeavor, but one with the potential to make real change, but only if we lean in and allow it. When we let ourselves feel what a song is inviting us to, it is a beautiful thing. It can take us on a journey we weren’t prepared for and didn’t know that we needed. A writer allows us to walk, if only for a few moments, in another’s shoes, hoping that maybe the perspective will stick with us, having impacted us in some way and therefore having the potential to shift our point of view. In this way, writers can use their voices to exert their influence over all of us, manufacturing the focus they want us to have. I am a strong believer that writing has the power to change the world, by changing a perspective, one soul at a time.

Let this serve as the introduction to my endeavor. Welcome, to the sound of life.