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Understanding Each Other Through Music in “Sonny’s Blues” Towards the end of “Sonny’s Blues,” the music played by Sonny on the piano brings together the events and feelings of the story as both Sonny and his brother reflect on their lives and struggles. Sonny shows his emotions through his music while his brother truly understands Sonny as he hears the music for the first time. Sonny and his brother had argued when Sonny first told him that he wanted to be a jazz musician. Sonny’s brother questioned Sonny’s seriousness about the matter and began to think that it was just another phase that Sonny was going through. Then Sonny said that it was his dream and implied that it was one of the ways that he wanted to use to get out of Harlem. In general, the music symbolizes and tells a story of the struggles they have gone through and the obstacles that they have both overcome. When Sonny and his brother first enter the nightclub, the atmosphere seems to change immediately and after Sonny’s brother was introduced to everyone, “it was clear that for them I was only Sonny’s brother. Here, I was in Sonny’s world. Or, rather: his kingdom” (par.231). This was the place where Sonny came to express himself