Shane Leonard and His Banjo

For an audio essay I was assigned, I started off by telling a story about drums I hear every day on my way home from class. In detail I describe the beat of the drum as it gets louder and louder as I walk by. I recollect all the memories of this all too familiar noise. It reminds me of memories of my brother when we were little, he was always on his drum set. 
My goal is to educate listeners that “noise” to some people can be interpreted very differently by another person. In the podcast and article I choose, Shane Leonard aims to accomplish the same goal. He expresses his feelings towards his banjo and how he wants his music to impact the audience and to take away an important lesson from each song. 
Shane has a very calm and cool personality which I was able to notice through his banjo playing. He grew up in Wisconsin and talks about how he loves the naturally quiet noises as oppose to city living which really comes across in his soft melodies. Shane has had a passion for drumming ever since he was little and started writing lyrics when he was in high school. 
This musician hopes listeners get a warm feeling when listening to his music (and from first hand I can say his music is very relaxing!) I thought it was amazing how passionate he was about his music and he really wanted his listeners to experience that in his songs.
Throughout his songs, Shane hopes to get the listener’s attention and to keep it. He strives to keep the audience listening, awaiting what will come next. The purpose is for the audience to discover a story, learn a lesson, and uncover some kind of message; he tries communicating that through the different techniques and lyrics that make up his songs. 
This strategy is very interesting to me because not many musicians write and perform for this reason, but listening to this podcast you can tell Shane really wants his listeners to connect with his songs and to learn something meaningful through his music.