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ALL
Music is Folk Music; the only difference is the folk.
(from the forward of the 2005-06 MLC Study Guide)
...is my personal motto on music. What
I mean by it is that all music is valid music to someone.
It is tied to cultural and personal values. For instance, blues folk like
blues music, opera folk like
opera music, heavy metal folk like heavy metal music. To dismiss someone's
music as "not
worthy" can be and is often construed as dismissing that person and
that person’s cultural
values. I find it better to seek and understand why someone likes the
music they do. It helps
keep the doors of global and generational communication open.
What do you value
in music?
When encountering unfamiliar
music, one might be tempted to say, “it sounds icky,” “it’s
just random
notes,” “It all sounds boring and the same,” “Anyone
can write that,” or ”Turn that noise OFF!”
These comments do not tell us about the music itself or why someone composes
the way they do. What is
really at stake is a question of aesthetics (es-theh-teeks). Aesthetics
is a branch of philosophy which deals
with personal tastes, especially in regard to art and music. These personal
tastes are a reflection of cultural
and personal values.
For instance, in our society, people tend to value music with a recognizable
melody
that follows a standard harmonic progression such as I-IV-V-I. Another
common cultural aesthetic is that
major keys sound happy and minor keys sound sad, or consonance sounds
pretty and dissonance sounds
ugly. These aesthetics are not shared among different cultures, generations
or even individuals.
One of the benefits from this study guide is that it helps show the changing
tastes of Western Art Music over the course of generations. Reflect for
a moment on what you value in music. Then ask yourself, “How does
this compare with the musical values of different cultures and time periods
represented in this guide”?
There is no right or wrong answer when it comes to your personal reflections.
The only wrong answer is in
forcing ones personal values upon another, or disregarding another person’s
values because they do not
agree with your own.
If you hear a new piece of music and think it sounds like noise, listen
again and try to pick out its musical elements: texture, form, rhythm,
etc. What does this tell you about the values of the culture from
which it comes?
--K. Christian McGuire
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