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Musicians as a Discourse Community

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Musicians as a Discourse Community A discourse community is a group of people who share a set of basic goals and have their own ways of communicating about those goals. A large discourse community that I personally fall under is being a musician. Every instrument has its own jargon and those who play these instruments know the lingo and different brands and what makes certain techniques better than others. Musicians use music to express themselves and challenge themselves to accomplish more. Something as simple as hearing a new song can motivate the musician to learn new chords and put in the effort and practice to learn something new, or even put their own spin on the song. Musicians are a great example of a discourse community with all of the different instruments to learn and specific aspects to each instrument. Musicians understand the value behind making goals, for it is the only way to really learn. Either the musician has one instrument or several on the mind but it all starts the same way; researching the instrument and setting a goal. For example, when I started playing guitar, I planned to practice for thirty minutes every day until I learned the basic chords. After a week or so, I had the chords memorized and my fingers didn’t feel awkward stretching between the frets as they had before. The growth and development of a new musician is special and individual to every person. When a musician really loves a style of music or a specific artist, it is almost mandatory for the musician to learn his/her favorite songs of the artist. It motivates to learn the songs correctly and inspires to write music of our own.
There are so many genres of music today that there are always new artists, bands, or genres to discover—which makes being a musician or even a music lover so amazing. Listening to the radio every day on the way to work or school can expose a

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