Ty-Post 2

Recently in class we talked about reading works that mention music while listening to the music mentioned.  Before reading while listening to Girl From Ipanema I had never listened to a specific song mentioned while reading.  I always listen to music while doing homework, but I make sure the music does not interfere with my concentration.  If I'm reading, usually the song is in Japanese or has no lyrics.  This keeps me from splitting my focus between the book and the music and from having the music impact the way I read a scene.  When I do Japanese homework, I have to switch to English music or else the Japanese in the song distracts me from the Japanese I'm writing.  This made me skeptical about trying to listen to music while reading, but when we did the exercise in class I felt like the words in the story matched perfectly with the song in the background.  Because it matched so perfectly, the song did not distract me from the story.  From what I can remember, no other work I've read has matched the words written so perfectly to a song like Murakami did.  It makes me want to pay attention to any music mentioned more while I'm reading.  If I see a song I don't know, I'll look it up so I can see what it sounds like and how it affects the way the scene feels.  Murakami seems to often mention music in his works, so hopefully I'll be able to apply this to future readings.