myth of music sample essays

Summary of the Myth of Music by Rachel M. Harper

This essay about “The Myth of Music” by Rachel M. Harper examines the intricate relationship between music and analysis, challenging conventional notions and highlighting its mythological dimensions. Harper argues that reducing music to technical analysis strips it of its profound cultural and symbolic significance. She emphasizes the ambiguity of music, advocating for a holistic approach that transcends analytical frameworks. By humbling ourselves before the enigmatic power of music, Harper suggests we can cultivate deeper empathy and connection with the world. Her exploration encourages a reconsideration of how we approach music education and scholarship, emphasizing the importance of embracing its mythic dimensions.

How it works

The Myth of Music by Rachel M. Harper delves into the intricate relationship between music and analysis, unraveling the complex layers that constitute this fascinating phenomenon. Harper’s exploration challenges conventional notions surrounding music analysis, shedding light on its often-overlooked mythological dimensions. In this essay, we will embark on a journey through the key themes and insights presented in Harper’s work, dissecting the myth of music analysis and its implications for our understanding of both music and human cognition.

At the heart of Harper’s discourse lies the recognition of music as a multifaceted entity, one that transcends mere soundwaves to encompass cultural, emotional, and symbolic dimensions.

Music, in its essence, is a form of expression that communicates narratives, emotions, and ideologies across time and space. However, Harper argues that the act of analyzing music risks reducing this rich tapestry of meanings into a static, quantifiable form. In doing so, she contends, we strip music of its mythological power, robbing it of its ability to evoke profound experiences and insights.

Harper draws parallels between the mythological narratives of ancient civilizations and the way in which we approach music analysis in contemporary society. Just as myths served as vehicles for understanding the world and our place within it, music operates as a conduit for exploring the depths of human consciousness and emotion. However, when subjected to rigorous analysis, music runs the risk of being reduced to a set of technical components divorced from its broader cultural and symbolic significance. In essence, the myth of music analysis lies in the illusion that we can fully comprehend the essence of music through dissection and deconstruction.

Central to Harper’s argument is the idea that music, like myth, is inherently ambiguous and open to interpretation. Rather than seeking definitive answers or objective truths, Harper advocates for a more nuanced approach to music analysis—one that embraces the ambiguity and complexity inherent in musical expression. By acknowledging the mythological dimensions of music, we can transcend the limitations of analytical frameworks and engage with music on a deeper, more intuitive level.

Moreover, Harper challenges the notion of expertise in music analysis, arguing that true understanding arises not from technical proficiency but from a willingness to immerse oneself in the mythic world of music. In this sense, the myth of music analysis serves as a cautionary tale against the dangers of intellectual arrogance and hubris. By humbling ourselves before the enigmatic power of music, we open ourselves up to new possibilities of meaning and interpretation.

Harper’s exploration of the myth of music analysis has profound implications for the way we approach music education and scholarship. Rather than viewing analysis as a means to dissect and categorize music, Harper encourages us to embrace a more holistic approach—one that honors the mythic dimensions of music and invites us to participate in its ongoing narrative. In doing so, we not only enrich our understanding of music but also cultivate a deeper sense of empathy and connection with the world around us.

In conclusion, Rachel M. Harper’s The Myth of Music offers a thought-provoking meditation on the nature of music analysis and its relationship to mythological thought. Through her nuanced exploration of this topic, Harper challenges us to reconsider our assumptions about music and invites us to engage with it in a more profound and meaningful way. Ultimately, The Myth of Music reminds us that the true essence of music lies not in its analysis but in the mysterious depths of its mythic imagination.

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The Myth of Music

By Rachel M. Harper

‘The Myth of Music’ by Rachel M. Harper describes the mythical power of music and its ability convey one’s generational and familial relationships. 

Rachel M. Harper

Thus far, she has written three novels .

Poem Analyzed by Emma Baldwin

B.A. English (Minor: Creative Writing), B.F.A. Fine Art, B.A. Art Histories

‘ The Myth of Music’ by Rachel M. Harper is a three-stanza, free verse poem that is unified by its consistent line length, and repetition of music-related terminology.  

The poem begins with the speaker describing how one particular type of music, that has been given to her like “oral history,” defines her life with her family. It contains a melody that is Harper’s “inheritance.” It travels along the lines of her family, one generation at a time, being added to and improved.  

She recalls past experiences that gave her great peace, being with her family, and those that occur after that sadden her like her mother leaving. All these elements of life are combined in the family music and she is able to listen to it whenever she needs to be comforted or reminded of how she loved her mother.  

The poem concludes with the speaker stating that no one, other than her father, will ever be able to experience the music with her. It is deeply personal and belongs only to them.  

Analysis of The Myth of Music

Stanza one  .

For my father

If music can be passed on like brown eyes or a strong (…) on a record player, the lessons sealed into the grooves like fact. This is the only myth I know.

The speaker of this piece, the poet herself, begins by crafting a brief introduction to the mythology of music. She is contemplating the power of music and whether the love for melody and the understanding of a particular melody, can be passed down through the generations of a family. Can it operate within one’s genes as does the propensity for,  

…brown eyes or a strong left hook [?]

Whether this is the case or not, she has come to understand a particular melody to be her own “inheritance.” It is more than just one melody though, it is a whole progression of music from the title track to the album cover. Each element of the record is sacred to the speaker and she sees it as being representative of the relationship she has with her family.

In the following lines, she compares the sounds of this particular music to “oral history.” Instead of spoken stories being passed down from parent to child, she receives the music. She continues on to state that the music is the “only myth [she] knows.” Harper refers to the music as both “myth” and “oral history” as oral tales often have a habit of becoming more and more embellished as they are passed down from person to person; so too does the music that is her history.  

Lines 12-26

I sit on the hardwood floors of a damp November, my brother dealing cards from an incomplete deck, (…) a child’s improvisation of Giant Steps or Impressions:1 songs without lyrics can still be sung.

In the second half of the first stanza , the speaker places herself within a physical scene, giving the narrative a specific setting , at least for this portion.  

She is with her brother, sitting,  

…on the hardwood   floors of a damp November,

Her brother is “dealing cards” from a deck that she calls, “incomplete.” This is a great metaphor for the speaker’s family life. They are together, things may not be perfect, but it is their life together. They are working from an incomplete deck, but so is everyone else. Harper doesn’t realize at the moment in which this is occurring that she is living in the “definition” of “collective memory” and “family.”  

The following lines cast the interactions of her family into a song. The ways that they are with one another come to her in “rough-textured tones.” She can feel, “the voice of a horn so familiar.” Now that she is older and looking back on the times that she had with her family she sees the way that they were crafting their own song. At the time she did not know that she was “listening” or “singing.” Harper could not understand in the moment that she was a participant in the composition.  

Although the song they are composing does not have words, it can still be sung, like John Coltrane’s “Giant Steps.”

Stanza Two  

In six months, when my mother is 2,000 miles away, deciding if she wants to come home, (…) on high to fill the whole house with your spirit, your call as a declaration of love.

In the next stanza the speaker continues to remember her state of mind when she was living with her family, writing their music. She projects herself into the future “six months,” to the time that she knows her mother will be,  

…2,000 miles away, deciding   if she wants to come home,  

There are bad things on the horizon, but the younger Harper who sits with her brother on the floor does not know that.  

In the moment that she understands her mother’s dilemma , she will have “forgotten / this moment,” and the “security” she felt in hearing her mother’s “footsteps.” Once more the speaker uses the elements of this moment, her past happiness, to allude to the creation of song. The beat of the footsteps, and the “sound of typing” lend themselves to the melody of a song. She feels contentment in these features of her life and can imagine them filling “the whole house / with your spirit.”  

Although her mother is not there with her at this time, she has the music that was created between their interactions to soothe her. It is like her mother is there with her, whenever she imagines the mythical melody they created. It sounds like a “declaration of love.”

Stanza Three

But the music will remain. The timeless notes of jazz too personal to play out loud, stay locked in the rhythm (…) as delicate as breath. I will not share this air with anyone but you.

Harper reaffirms in the final stanza that no matter what happens over the intervening years, the “music will remain.” The music is deeply personal to the speaker. It is not something she would ever be able to share with anyone. It stays, “locked in the rhythm / of my childhood.” Through it, she is able to recall her past and be lulled by the peace she once felt.  

In the final seven lines of the poem the speaker addresses the universality of music. She does not believe that anyone else could hear, much less understand her song, it is for her alone. The “notes” of the piece are like “fingerprints” they are wholly unique to her family. She will never “share” the music with “anyone / but you.”  

If one does not have the initial subheading at the beginning of this piece the final line is somewhat confusing. The poem is dedicated to the poet’s father and she is simply stating that the music is going to stay within the family. No one, but her father and herself, will be able to hear and experience it.  

About Rachel M. Harper  

Rachel M. Harper is known as a poet, novelist, and screenwriter. She graduated from Brown University and the University of Southern California.  

Her short stories and poetic works have been collected in a number of different anthologies and published in a variety of journals. She is currently on the faculty at Spalding University and her most recent novel , This Side of Providence , was published in 2016. She has won awards for both her dramatic and fiction works.  

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when did this poem come out?

Sorry I haven’t been able to find the date but at a guess i’d say the last 2-3 years.

Not a very good analysis of this poem..A very interesting poem but has not been analyzed very well by Baldwin.

Thank you for your feedback. What in particular did you dislike about the analysis?

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Baldwin, Emma. "The Myth of Music by Rachel M. Harper". Poem Analysis , https://poemanalysis.com/rachel-m-harper/the-myth-of-music/ . Accessed 30 August 2024.

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AP Literature: Poetry: Harper, Rachel M

• Angelou, Maya
• Auden, W. H.
• Collins, Billy
• Duhamel, Denise
• Harper, Rachel M
• Heaney, Seamus
• Herrera, Juan Felipe
• Hughes, Langston
• Lorde, Audre
• McDaniel, Jeffrey
• Neruda, Pablo
• Nye, Naomi Shihab
• O'Hara, Frank
• Oliver, Mary
• Plath, Sylvia
• Rankine, Claudia
• Smith, Tracy K.
• Walcott, Derek
• Woodson, Jacqueline

"Rachel M. Harper is a novelist and screenwriter. Her first novel, Brass Ankle Blues , was a Borders Original Voices Award finalist and selected as a Target Breakout Book. Her newest novel, This Side of Providence, will be published in April 2016; it was recently adapted into an original television pilot, City of Providence.

Her short fiction and poetry have appeared in numerous anthologies including Black Cool: One Thousand Streams of Blackness, Literary Pasadena , and Mending the World: Stories of Family by Contemporary Black Writers, as well as the journals Carolina Quarterly, Chicago Review, African American Review, and Prairie Schooner . Her One-Act play, “Bluffing on a Queen’s Playground,” was part of the New Black Playwrights Festival at Actor’s Express in Atlanta, and she recently collaborated on the performance piece, “The Book of Daniel,” by award-winning interdisciplinary theatre artist Daniel Alexander Jones.

Harper has received multiple fellowships from Yaddo and the MacDowell Colony, and was profiled by The Root as part of their 2011 city series on Los Angeles’ black literary giants. A graduate of Brown University and the University of Southern California, Harper is on the faculty at Spalding University’s low-residency MFA in Writing Program. She lives in Los Angeles, where she is currently at work on a new novel and several TV/film projects." from Creative Writing Conference

The Myth of Music for my father

BY RACHEL M. HARPER  

If music can be passed on

like brown eyes or a strong

left hook, this melody

is my inheritance, lineage traced

through a title track,

displayed on an album cover

that you pin to the wall

as art, oral history taught

on a record player, the lessons

sealed into the grooves like fact.

This is the only myth I know.

I sit on the hardwood

floors of a damp November,

my brother dealing cards

from an incomplete deck,

and I don’t realize that this

moment is the definition

of family, collective memory

cut in rough-textured tones,

the voice of a horn so familiar

I don’t know I’m listening,

Don’t know I’m singing,

a child’s improvisation

of Giant Steps or Impressions: 1

songs without lyrics

can still be sung.  

In six months, when my mother

is 2,000 miles away, deciding

if she wants to come home,

I will have forgotten

this moment, the security

of her footsteps, the warmth

of a radiator on my back and you

present in the sound of typing

your own accompaniment,

multiphonics disguised as chords

in a distant room, speakers set

on high to fill the whole house

with your spirit, your call

as a declaration of love.  

But the music will remain.

The timeless notes of jazz

too personal to play out loud,

stay locked in the rhythm

of my childhood, memories fading

like the words of a lullaby,

come to life in a saxophone’s blow.

They lie when they say

music is universal—this is my song,

the notes like fingerprints

as delicate as breath.

I will not share this air

with anyone

but you.  

1 Giant Steps is a jazz album (1960) by John Coltrane. Impressions (1963)  is another album by Coltrane.

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Myth of Music Analysis

In the Myth Of Music by Rachel M Harper, decomposers a brilliant Palma about music and how it ties of Dora memories of her family. Harper's use of imagery and tone are key in how she explained is complex relationship between the music and her memory.

The tuna the Peace changes with each paragraph, and the tone is giving by the imagery. The imagery in the first paragraph consists of “hardwood floors”, “a damp November,” as well as “an incomplete deck”. This image portrays the idea of dark times and sadness, but there is also the hint of music which furthers that feeling and deepens the memories for the author. the music to accompany and strength them this memory and imagery is one of a horn. The horns sound is familiar to the author and because of that statement, the author says that they don't even know they are listening. That's hint through music Tulsa that this was a normal memory for Harper, and that while it didn't seem important at the time (like the music of the horn) she looks back at it and recognizes how much it means to her. All of these images what and music also relate to work family in a very complex way. The sound of the familiar horn that goes unnoticed is reminiscent of her memories of her father, there but only unconsciously noted.

   In the next paragraph the memories changes just enough to require new music and imagery. The cold floors are gone, they have been replaced by the “warmth of a radiator”, and while though sound like opposite the author the gates that by saying she has forgotten the warmth the radiator, as well as the warmth of her mother. the music to accompany this is mentioned as chords in a distant room. Chords in music or several notes that can provoke a very certain sound and emotion in the listener. While some chords are very harmonic, the ones in this poem are most likely not. Harper is writing about how her mother is gone and so is her warmth, so it makes no sense if the music in the background is happy or uplifting.

While the author misses her mother, she actually mentions her. Harper never mentioned her father which leads readers to believe that he is the music. She is obviously writing this poem to someone as she says “you're spirit, you're call as a declaration of love”, it makes no sense for her to be saying that her readers send her love when she doesn't know them. This conveys the idea that the music is symbolic of someone close to her, and where Harper mentioned both her mother and her brother, there is no mention of her father except in the dedication. The fact that the music is always there but never given an actual name tells the reader that the music is someone close to the author and had a lot of meaning to them as they reinforced every memory.

The music is her family and her memories of them are always underlay by that music. The complex back and forth of that notion is what the author is trying to convey and does a marvelous job on it.

I wrote this to show what i have learned in my english class, as well as a way to relate to some of my memories of my family and music

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"The Myth of Music" By Rachel M. Harper Poetry Analysis

What Am I Reading Now?

Rachel M. Harper's Poem "The Myth of Music" is a collection of complex memories portrayed through the lens of music.

With picturesque metaphors, tone and form, Harper creates a beautiful and nostalgic sequence of events. These techniques enhance her memories and melodies have solidified her timeline.

The first stanza is packed with metaphorical images assisting the reader with understanding the impact music has had on her life; represented by specific, musical symbols. The comparisons between music and memories are initiated from the first line and drawn throughout the whole piece. The first personal connection begins with the informational first line, "If music can be passed on like brown eyes ... this melody is my inheritance"(Harper, line 1-4). These metaphors that are paired with evident imagery create a personal connection and an almost "in medias res" (putting the reader right in the story), narrative feel to the first stanza.

The poem is written in three stanzas with three specifics breaks. These "sections" of the poem are different stories or individual memories. The flow of time from "songs without lyrics can still be sung" to "my mother is 2,000 miles away, deciding if she wants to come home" (line 25-29) is seamless because of the organization and syntax, chosen by the author. Within the poem, a steady, song-like rhythm is established; symbolic of the myths of music. Music has held her memories, but morphed them into positives despite the events. Harper uses enjambment to solidify the lyrics into a melodic feel. This technique, "I don't know I'm listening, -- don't know I'm singing" (line 21-22) is ironic to the title and theme, since the whole poem the speaker is attempting to convince the reader of the lies that music tells, while she herself is creating a song.

The three sections have drastically different tones, packing an intense amount of emotion into a 54 line poem. The first is nostalgic and reminiscent of her childhood with "[her] brother dealing cards from an incomplete deck"(line 14-15). While they listen to music, they are playing from a deck with less than 52 cards, but not knowing the difference; enjoying themselves anyway. The second is an introduction to her mother's absence. This betrayal isn't angry more than it is longing, "I will have forgotten this moment, the security of her footsteps" (line 30-32). The speaker has lost her form of safety, leaving her vulnerable to the world. Not only has her mother left, but music has betrayed her, as well. Though music has forgotten to tell her there are troubling times, in the last stanza she is defending it. This protective air, "They lied with they say music is universal - this is my song" (line 48-49), turns to self-empowerment and independence. The connection that she makes between music, her father, and her is intimate and admirable. These three tones meld together to create complex series of emotions that link the reader and speaker to one moment. 

Rachel M. Harper illustrates her struggle to abhor music  - ultimately failing and falling deeper in love - with complex metaphors, form and tones. Music is not a myth nor a truth. The neutrality simply augment and archive reality and experiences. 

- Ellie Casterline (2018)

The Myth of Music by Rachel Harper: Practice with Poetry

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The Myth of Music Poem Summary Notes and Analysis by Rachel M. Harper in English

Table of Contents

Introduction:

‘The Myth of Music’ is a poem written by Rachel M. Harper. It is a poem that employs musical jargon to explore familial bonds.

About the Poet:

This poem is divided into 3 stanzas with lines of consistent length. Written in free verse, it does not follow a rhyme scheme. 

In November, the persona sees their brother dealing a deck of cards and state how that was the definition of what a family was. This memory is like a song to the persona, all too familiar and can be sung like ‘Giant Steps’ and ‘Impressions’- even without words.

The persona playing cards with her brother does not realise that in six months, her mother will be very far away, pondering whether or not to return home. By then, the persona would have forgotten the memories shared with their mother and the security they felt in her presence. High music is said here to be the spirit of the persona’s mother, a ‘declaration of love’.

Unlike the persona’s mother, the music will remain with the persona. The jazz continues staying with them from childhood. Even as memories fade, the saxophone’s music stays on. The poem ends with the persona rejecting the notion that music is universal and asserts that it belongs only to themselves and ‘you’, their father. 

Conclusion:

This is a beautiful poem. It sheds light on the power of music, how even when memories and family all leave, it stays on.

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