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Response Essay 1: Music and Sound

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GSU: ENGL 4320

January 22, 2015

https://soundcloud.com/ex-legend/lateralus

Tool’s “Lateralus”

 Let me first breakdown what I am doing for this post and then we’ll get to the good stuff.

The What:

For my first response essay I have picked to write about Tool’s “Lateralus.”

 

The How:

I originally had a Youtube video that I listened to and, since I have heard the song before, I listened without watching the video. There are only lyric written on the video with background images of the band’s cover art. I have found a clear soundcloud for the post, and I hope the cover art isn’t too weird.

I first tried just actively listening, and felt as though I was missing out on many aspects of this song. So, I had to just listen to this song as I normally do to get my emotional and took a note of my physical reactions.

Then I did another listen through so I could have more of an actively listening experience to note what I liked and why I liked it.

Then I did ANOTHER listen through to just listen to the lyrics of the song to gather the intellectual aspect of the song.

 

The History:

I chose this song because I have some experience with this song. Since I heard it in my visual communications class back at Kennesaw State University I have really enjoyed this song. It reminds me of the 90’s alternative rock music that my mom and I would listen to when I was little. So I have a soft spot in my heart for this type of rock music.

 

The Reaction:

Okay, now for the fun part. The reaction!

I really enjoy this song because of the strong drum beat that leads the song all the way through. Not being a musically inclined person, no matter how hard I try to be, my understanding of band structuring is very vague to say the least. However, I do have a strong belief that a good band has a strong drummer as it’s backbone.

  • Emotional:
    • As I said before I have a place in my heart for alternative rock and all rock music for that matter.
    • The song resonates with me when the drums quicken and the base mixes in with the guitar to musically rush the sound. It’s as though the drum is leading up to the peak of the mountain and the guitar takes off from the peak to soar.
  • Physical:
    • This reaction makes the song resonate with me. How it makes me feel physically revolves around the drums. The drums have a primal ability that can make the heart beat in rhythm of the drum and this leads to the feeling of this beating sound surrounding and flooding my senses. This sound takes my breath away as my heartbeat increases to match the pace of the drums. It’s like running from the drumming in the deep.
    • Then when the guitar riffs hit and it feels like I have reached the finishing line. Without the drums forcing forward I can float long to the riffs from the base until the drums start up again.
    • I did notice that I rocked my body and bobbed my head more when I’m listening to this song. I think it’s impossible not to, but there is bound to be that one person out there. However, when I would actively listen I didn’t move as much and felt like I lost the main part of the song. So I had to adjust my The How part of the experiment.
  • Intellectual:
    • Once I have gotten over my feels of this song I went over this song again to figure out the lyrics, because these really don’t make any sense. When doing a cold reading of the lyrics, which I did with a lyric/video of this song, the song itself doesn’t make sense.
    • The point of the words that were used in this song was because the band was trying to hit the Fibonacci Number Sequence with their lyrics. The point was to make the syllabus of the lyrical lines match the sequence: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 5, 3, 2, 1, 1. 13, 8, 5, 3, 2, 1, 1. It’s by no means perfect, but it is really close, and a fun example of the Golden Ratio and the Fibonacci Sequence.

Fibonacci Spiral

 

With that barrage of numbers, please note that I am not a math person, but I did find the use of Tool’s “Lateralus” as an example of visual communication very interesting and the song stuck with me. Being in a rhetoric focus and having a communication background it really is about ‘how’ something is read and received in order to make the message effective.  That also being stated I hope this blog post is reader-friendly enough for a post/essay.