TOW #13 - The Case for 'Hamilton' as Album of the Year

Hamilton Poster

     I got an early Christmas present this weekend: tickets to see Hamilton! Actually, it was more an overly obvious hint but TICKETS TO SEE HAMILTON, a Broadway show that is sold-out for months in advance! So, in honor of this awesome surprise, I’ve decided to read an article about this show. In his article, The Case for Hamilton as Album of the Year, Spencer Kornhaber pulls quotes from songs and compares Lin Miranda, the lead and writer of Hamilton, to other artists in order to argue for Hamilton as the album of the year by rhetorically analyzing it.
     Like any good piece of rhetorical analysis, quotes are absolutely necessary. He writes, “it probably took a month alone to figure out the right phrase to rhyme with 'revolutionary manumission abolitionists.' ” By implementing quotes into his writing as shown, he allows the reader to make decisions for themselves and see first-hand how Miranda used certain techniques to create certain effects. In this way, he can show the reader the intricacies of Miranda’s writing and musical technique, proving Hamilton to be the best album of the year.
     Kornhaber also includes comparisons to other artists, including hip-hop artists like Kendrick Lamar and Drake. He writes, “You can find this Hamiltonian idea of hip-hop refracted through rap’s other great works this year. You hear it in the verbosity, the craft, the daringness, the desperate idealism, and the death-obsessed drive of Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly. You hear Hamilton’s obsession with legacy, his unwillingness to back down when challenged, his profligacy—'why do you write as if you’re running out of time?'—in Drake’s multi-mixtape 2015 output.” In this way, Kornhaber proves the validity of rap as an expressive tool in musical theater, perhaps even more effective than just singing. This is seen in the song “Farmer Refuted,” in which “Hamilton tears Samuel Seabury’s words apart by literally speaking between them—basically, it’s Miranda proving the supremacy of rap as a form of expression.” Kornhaber argues that even though Miranda’s use of rap is unconventional, it’s wholly effective in musical theater.
     Kornhaber’s direct quotes from Miranda’s song and comparison of Miranda’s songs and other artist’s songs allows him to successfully rhetorically analyze Hamilton all while supporting his argument that Hamilton should be lauded as the album of the year. In this rather rare piece of rhetorical analysis in the “wild,” Kornhaber has made me even more excited to go see the show in New York!

TOW #12 - How to Listen to Great Music (IRB)

     How to Listen to Great Music: A Guide to its History, Culture, and Heart by Robert Greenberg has been a great read--and listen--so far! As I mentioned in my intro post, the book goes along with a lecture on Audible.com that I’m listening to with my dad because how can you learn how to listen to great music if you don’t hear any music? I started listening to the lecture way before I started reading the book, but I’m now ahead in the book because my dad and I don’t have a lot of time to listen to the lecture. Either way, it’s been interesting to hear how similar Greenberg’s speaking and writing styles are. In his book, Greenberg writes how he speaks and uses an extended joke about a gerbil in order to help the reader understand just enough music theory to appreciate the complexities of great music.
     As soon as Greenberg opens his mouth, or puts a pen to the page (or is it finger to the keyboard?), his style is obvious: expressive, passionate, flowery, casual, and again passionate. Obviously, Greenberg really likes, and knows, what he’s talking about. On page 1, he writes “Music is an intensification, a crystallization, a celebration, a glorification, of that movement and those vibrations. Pretty heady stuff.” One can almost hear the crescendo of his voice as the list of nouns goes on in the rather formal and flowery first sentence. Then in the next sentence, which is really just a fragment, he drops the formal tone in order to better relate to the audience. He then continues: “one need not speak Ashanti in order to groove to West African drumming; or German in order to be emotionally flayed by Beethoven; or English to totally freak when listening to Bruce Springsteen. Say it with flowers? Nah. If you really want to get your expressive point across, say it with music.” His diction in this section, using words like “totally freak” and “nah,” show his casual style, which in turn makes him more relatable and credible in the audience’s eyes as he’s just one of us. This relaxed style allows the audience to in turn relax around the author, making it easier to explain harder technical concepts to an audience that doesn’t know much about music.

     Greenberg’s gerbil jokes also add to his relatability while simultaneously explaining or exemplifying a difficult technical concept. On page 14 he writes, “Try it at home! Sing in the shower. Your unaccompanied voice is singing in a monophonic texture. Having left the shower, grab your wife or husband, partner, children, cat, or gerbil (okay, maybe not the cat), and sing the same thing together. Despite the fact that there is more than one voice singing, the voices are singing the same single, unaccompanied melody at the same time. It’s still monophony.” This is the first time the gerbil character appears in this book, and it keeps the book light and funny while explaining the rather boring and technical concept of monophonic music. The gerbil joke comes up again and again while explaining types of polyphony and homophony. This method of keeping the book interesting while teaching has time and time proved itself to be very effective.

Singing Gerbil - Yuval Y

     Overall, Greenberg’s How to Listen to Great Music: A Guide to its History, Culture, and Heart is a great read--and listen!--as the author writes colloquially and makes education fun through jokes in order to teach a wide audience of people how to listen to great music in an easily understandable way. Not only is Greenberg’s prose and writing style fun and unique--something that I want to emulate using my own personality in my own writing--but his book has also exposed me to a lot of great and interesting music and is a must-read for anyone into history and/or music!

TOW #11 - Black Guy Asks Nation For Change

    In light of the coming election and the end of the Obama administration, I have decided to take a look back at his 2008 campaign. Besides, it has been way too long since I have analyzed satire. In “Black Guy Asks Nation For Change” from the Onion, the author uses a humorous homonym and an obvious understatement in order to ridicule Americans that do not pay attention to politics by satirizing people’s view of Obama’s campaign.
     The most blatantly obvious and funniest strategy used to satirize is how the author takes advantage of the multiple meanings of the word “change.” An integral part of Obama’s campaign, here the word means “the act or instance of making or becoming different,” whereas in the Onion article the author uses the sense of the word that means “coins as opposed to paper currency.” The way the author takes advantage of this homonym allows him to make the article humorous and funny by making fun of the Americans that do not pay attention to politics and therefore do not understand Obama’s campaign.
     The author of “Black Guy Asks Nation For Change” also implements an understatement in order to mock those that do not pay attention to the news and politics. As seen in the title of the article, the author repeatedly calls Obama “the black guy” and “the black man.” This understatement exemplifies how out of the loop and blatantly ignorant some Americans are, since they do not even know who Obama is. By satirizing this ignorantness, the author achieves the effects of humor and therefore exposes the absurdity of those who do not know what is going on in the world.
     In “Black Guy Asks Nation for Change” from the Onion, the author of this article uses a funny homonym and a clear understatement in order to mock those who are out of the loop and do not pay attention to important things, like presidential elections, by satirizing the public’s reception of Obama’s 2008 campaign centered around “change.” This Onion article, an oldie but a goodie, has made this week’s TOW fun and educational! Nice one Onion, you did it again. :)

"The black guy is oddly comfortable demanding change from people he's never even met." - The Onion