“Sonny’s Blues†is not about Sonny Bono like I thought it was going to be. However, music is really important in this story. The main character hears a man whistling when he reads about his brother’s arrest; his brother is a musician. Sonny, the man who was arrested and the brother of the narrator, plays the piano. He spends hours and hours at the piano, playing his own music and learning and adding on to others. The music in this story represents the growth Sonny goes through. He starts by copying someone else’s work which can be equated to the lessons and behaviors that he learned from his parents and the people around him. Then he adds on to pre-recorded pieces, using the music as a base to jump off of; here Sonny is applying things he has learned on his own from life and seeing how they fit into what he already knows. Finally, after years of drug use and going to jail, Sonny plays in a club downtown. When he plays, Sonny plays his own music. He has learned many things, and plays his own life song.
The genre of music emphasized in the story is blues, a type of music stemming off from jazz. The people singing these songs have lived hard lives, and reach a type of catharsis through singing these songs and telling others the hard times. The music captures an age of difficulty with people struggling to make it through life. I think the choice of music suits Sonny, because he lived in a poor neighborhood, was a drug addict, and went to jail. He may have brought the suffering on himself, but he suffered none the less. If the music had been classical or rock, the mood would not have been the same, and would have taken away from the story.