In all honesty, I couldn’t stand Yoder’s use of music in her essay, and for several reasons. It seemed (to me, at least) that many of Yoder’s musical selections were often disjunctive, and did more to stand alone as musical excerpts than to complement the essay. Yoder’s choice to have the ominous church choir playing under her voice was a somewhat ironic move at the beginning of her essay, considering she spends that first part describing the aspects of her growing up that she detested: growing up in a “hippie intellectual Mennonite utopia,” the redneck teens, the casual racism that was a regular part of her daily life. It also felt rather unnecessary to have full stops for the church choir between parts of the essay; around 3:15, the choir dies down and disappears while Yoder speaks, then comes in strong once more just ten seconds later—this felt unnecessary.

Davia Nelson and Nikki Silva, “The Kitchen Sisters,” bring up how they search for ways to incorporate music into their essays in a fluid way that does not “compete” with the voice of the speaker. Yoder’s musical choices sometimes felt more like repetitions of her essay, instead of illustrations or mood-setters or atmosphere-builders to complement it. When Yoder talks of listening to “Jojo’s chant of ‘Let me freak you,'” she then plays exactly that part of the song (6:06). Although, to Yoder’s credit, the country-style music she chooses are inserted much more casually and relevantly than her hip hop choices. The country-style acoustic guitar playing and sounds of kids yelling around 4:45 feels appropriate and guides the listener’s focus towards images of whooping country kids shooting guns into the air and leaping in the beds of pickups. Unfortunately, these good choices are quickly overshadowed by the almost comedically upbeat and powerful hip hop songs that provide too sharp a contrast against Yoder’s happy-but-not-energetic tone.

I saw a pattern in Yoder’s essay, where she makes a reference to a particular song or artist, plays a piece of that song to illustrate, and then leaves the song playing in the background, only to eventually die out. It’s a pattern that I felt didn’t enhance the essay as much as give it another layer that felt more like an interpretation of what was being said.

Jonathan Mitchell, in his essay, writes about the importance of music having a real purpose. Mitchell brings up an important point: music should only be added if it’s significant that it be added. Bringing music into a piece only to distract from other, less appealing aspects of the recording is a waste and a distraction. He writes that music should give an essay “deeper meaning, resonance, and clarity;” while I feel that much of Yoder’s essay resonate more clearly with the musical accompaniment, I don’t believe it’s meaning and it’s clarity were improved by Jodeci’s sensually singing, “I wake up feeling horny” into my headphones.