Taylor Dreste
College comp- Exemplification essay
Born in Johannesburg, South Africa in 1967, Dave Matthews is one of the worlds biggest music legends, creating a genre of his own with sort of a blue grassy Jazz feel that is absolutely amazing to listen to. Making six total albums, and winning two grammy awards for best rock performance by vocal duo or group in 1997 and best male rock performance in 2004, The Dave Mathews band has one of the most leading crowd attracting tours in the world.
I have been listening to Dave Matthews since I was a child, when my parents dragged me to the concerts, too little to appreciate the concept of his songs but I still considered myself a die heart Dave fan. As I got older and his songs were always playing through out our house I began to analyze the music more, and discovered that I had a love for his so interesting genre of music. The first song that I constantly played on my ipod, listening to every ten minutes, memorizing every word, was the song Ants Marching. This is one of the most popular Dave songs and I fell for it as soon as I heard it, since Dave Matthews was always blaring though our speakers it was not a hard song to miss.
With my seventeenth birthday nearing, all I wanted for it was to go to the Dave Matthews two day concert in Saratoga springs with my friends. As I opened up a tiny card from my parents on the day of my birthday, it was just what I had wished for, four Dave Matthews tickets in the fourth row! I was intensely excited and brushed up on my songs every day until the night of the concert. We camped in tents and had a blast at the concert. The song “Grey Street” by Dave Matthews takes me back to that night with my friends every time I hear it. His performance of this song was unforgettable, he sang the song exactly like it sounded on his album and added a few parts of his own that were sensational.
It is very neat how all of Dave Mathews songs have a peculiar meaning to them. One that is particularly interesting is the song “Satellite”. The song is about how everyone is mesmerized by the technology in the world, the video shows a man watching twenty five televisions showing absolute crap. A girl is shown outside enjoying life in the woods blowing bubbles, the man leaves his television to go enjoy life, essentially saying that, that is where he really belongs. The song is a metaphor for how people in this day and age are becoming too overly obsessed with technology that they are forgetting to enjoy the real and simple things about life. All of Dave Matthews songs have a very unique meaning and it is conveyed through many of his music videos.
It is very fascinating that Dave Matthews is able to memorize all of his songs, never forgetting a single word. At his 2010 summer concert at the Canandaigua performing arts center he performed a song that he had not practiced singing a single time since 2006. With over seventy recorded songs, this would be almost impossible for any normal human being to accomplish.
In reality Dave Matthews is just like any other person, he gives back an exceeding amount to charity funds, hosting many concerts to benefit hurricane Katrina. He has also involved himself in charity foundations such as the Brama works fund., Green music group, HeadCount, Kokua Hawaii foundation, Live earth, Stand up for a care and World AIDS day.
There are many attributes that In my opinion make Dave Matthews the leading rock, Jazz, Bluegrass artist of all time. His music is amazing to listen to and puts me in a great mood every time I hear any one of his songs. It is hard for a musician to create six albums where every single song has a personal meaning and is well liked by millions of fans.
Hi Taylor,
ReplyDeleteWhat a beautiful blog and I really like the font style :)
In your opeing reflection, I'd like to hear a bit more about what you think the paper does well. Use some of the vocabulary from our course to help you explain your writing and the choices you've made. Don't be afraid to cite your own paper too.
Here is the feedback you wanted:
1. I would like to recieve feedback on my use of exemplification techniques to make the paper sound even more like a creative piece.
You have lots of things you talk about but I'm not sure that all of them support your dominant impression. I'm not sure what the dominant impresison is. Is it that he is a legendary musician? If so, that isn't very interesitng because its factual. Instead, I want to see you try to analyze his music more and create imagery that shows us what it means to you. It might help if you re-read the piece about music that you read prior to writing this one. The author of it does a great job of using imagery and figurative language to help us see jazz the way that he does. I think that this part is lacking from your writing.
The exemplification you use is important but I think it needs to be supplemented more like in the part when you talk about "Grey Street." You say it was a great performance of the song but you don't really use any descriptive writing to SHOW us the performance and what was so great about it.
You do a nice job of TELLING us how your parents inspired you to start listening to DMB but you don't SHOW us with sensory detail and descriptive writing. You need to work on this part.
2. I would also like to know if my exemplification adds to create the impression of how much I like Dave Mathews.
I get that you like him but you don't SHOW us you do more TELLING. Work on the imagery.
3. Other things that I would like feedback are my introduction and conclusion, I think they should start and end with something very dominant about Dave Mathews or myself loving his music, and make this fact or statement stand out more than it does now.
I think you might start with a quote. So many people have written about him already in the music scene, I wonder if someone has already said something so awesome, that you can just quote them...consider it. I liked your use of some statistics. It might be good for you to pick two reasons why you like Dave. In the "Jazz: Music Beyond Time and Nations," Hentoff identifies 2 different reasons that he likes jazz. That might help to focus your writing. You like him but what are 2 or 3 specific reasons why. Then use anecdotes to support thoses ideas. I too am a fan of Dave. I heard him play at Madison Square Garden and the legendary James Brown came out to jam with him. It was incredible. But you need to capture for someone that hasn't been to a DMB concert, what it is like.
Your piece has a lot of potential but you will need to focus in on it. Let me know if you have any questions and then when you are done...get a great title on there too.
Ms. Basko
One more thing...revise the titles of the individual blog entries and your pieces. Don't forget that this is your last opportunity to wow me with your ability to craft great titles.
ReplyDeleteMs. B