Daniel Felsenfeld Rebel Music Summary

Daniel Felsenfeld reveals a positive, impactful significance — one that has completely changed his life — in his literacy narrative “Rebel Music” by drawing upon what his early adolescent years of music were like before his shift into a new taste for music, how this new taste of music precisely, yet strangely appealed to him, and what this new music inspired him to ultimately become. Near the beginning of his narrative, Felsenfeld described his primal time with music in Orange County, Calif. He had developed his musical skills enough to jumpstart a career around music — working in piano bars and in community theater orchestra pits. However, Felsenfeld stated that the music he worked with “... was dull, or at least had a dulling effect on me — it didn’t sparkle, or ask questions,” and that “I [he] took a lot of gigs, but at 17 I was already pretty detached” (pg.

Felsenfeld easily described his early career with music as being lackluster, boring, and dry, but was still attracted to music regardless. He continued to describe that his life career could have simply ended up like this, “... — working my way through junior college playing in pits or at Nordstrom’s, settling into some career or other — a piano studio, weddings, writing songs for mild amusement,” but was “[thankful] it was not,” foreshadowing that the change he went through was a grateful and significant one (pg. 625). Felsenfeld described that he had a friend, Mike, whom he would visit with occasionally to listen to music by bands his other friends liked to listen to. He stated that one day, Mike offered him a decision “to hear something really wild” — “Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony,” of which he accepted (pg. 625). After listening to the symphony, Felsenfeld described the music as having “a drug-like effect on me,” and insisted Mike replay the symphony over and over again (pg.