Hearing is believing/Photographic icons Greg Knapp

Hearing is believing was a very interesting audio. The power of music has always been influential, but this audio essay put it into an understandable aspect. When Phil talks about lyrics being not as important as the actual music, I was a bit skeptical about how he was going to back this statement up. He then went into talking about the song “Johnny Be Good”. He made a very good point with the introduction of the song. He proves just how powerful music is by stating that Chuck Berry simply stated where Johnny lived. It instantly became a very catchy song due to the song and not the lyrics. Phil goes on to talk about a song that was banned from the airwaves. This could be understandable due to explicit lyrics. However, this song was simply an instrumental and was banned because of how it sounded. This puts into perspective the effect of the music on people. The last thing Phil talks about is the radio. By using sound effects, the radio can put different images into each person’s mind. Images tell you what to think but sounds give you your sense of imagination. The power of sound is great.

Photographic icons talks about pictures and their validity. A lot of people will see a picture and immediately assume. Like the book talks about, if you see a man with a rifle and in uniform, you would think that he was a soldier during war. When in reality, he could have been a model posing for a picture that was set up by a photographer. Likewise, the book talks about Rosa Parks. I have always thought that the picture was her actually refusing her seat. The legitimate picture. However, the book goes on to talk about how it was taken about a year later by a photographer that set the whole thing up. This goes to show that pictures have a story behind them, rather than an instant truth that you might assume.