Not so long ago, a cherished colleague tweeted that he found it nice to see how new music education projects tried to connect to today's music practices.
Of course, I would find that nice, too.
The funny thing was that he was talking about an initiative where pupils from primary schools were given the opportunity to learn to play the electrical guitar in groups. And then my thoughts started to wander.
Welcome!
Welcome to my weblog!
The place where I will regularly post thoughts and comments on any aspect of music.
Join my World of Music - and feel free to comment!
(As you see, the blog is in DInglish - Dutch International English - but comments in Dutch, German, French, Spanish and Frisian are welcome.)
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And you might check my other blog, Evert Listens to Dylan, if you would be interested what listening to the complete recordings of Bob Dylan does with (or to, or for) me.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
The place where I will regularly post thoughts and comments on any aspect of music.
Join my World of Music - and feel free to comment!
(As you see, the blog is in DInglish - Dutch International English - but comments in Dutch, German, French, Spanish and Frisian are welcome.)
Curious who I might be?
Look me up at my personal page.
Want to be notified when a new blog entry appears? Leave your email-address at the 'Follow by Email'-option below. (Or find me on LinkedIn and Twitter - @EvertBBoele.)
And you might check my other blog, Evert Listens to Dylan, if you would be interested what listening to the complete recordings of Bob Dylan does with (or to, or for) me.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Friday, February 26, 2016
Saturday, February 13, 2016
Humanly Organized Sound?
Recently I was in an international meeting on music education. Many concrete music education practices were shown. One of them started from a definition of music which ethnomusicologists immediately recognize: John Blacking's famous "Music is humanly organized sound".
Although I am an ethnomusicologist and I admire John Blacking (at least the relatively little I know of him), I am not at all a fan of this definition. At a first glance, it looks rather harmless. It is nice that the word 'human' is there. But I don't like he stress on 'sound' - it points too much to the idea that the essence of music is the way it sounds, and it is only a short run then towards the idea that music is, essentially, a 'piece' of sound. I also don't like the stress on 'organized', as it turns our focus towards they-that-organize: composers and musicians. And I miss, for example, the word 'meaning'; meaning is what music is all about.
It is good to remember that defining is not an innocent, neutral or objective activity, and that a definition is not an objective fact or a representation of an abstract truth. Defining is a human act, and an individual act for that: somebody defines. Defining means: stating which of the innumerable characteristics of a phenomenon one considers characteristic of the phenomenon. It is choosing a specific focus on the world, and ignoring other possible focuses. And it is marking boundaries; it is an act of inclusion and of exclusion.
It is maybe good to realize that John Blacking was, apart from being an anthropologist focusing on music, also an accomplished classical pianist who for a time had the ambition of becoming a professional concert pianist. Maybe this background and the doubtless emotionally grounded importance of being a classical pianist shimmers through his definition of music. Mind you: I know that John Blacking is the opposite of the classical musician considering classical music the alpha and omega of music in general, and that his work amongst the Venda in South-Africa made him realize that nearly all his presuppositions about what music might be had become untenable. I am not accusing him of implicit musicological colonialism; I just want to suggest that maybe our own experiences with music are so fundamental that it is hard to detach us from them.
The main thing I want to say is: when people start defining music, be cautious. So here is my own definition of music, to be equally cautious of: "music" is what someone considers to be 'music'.
Although I am an ethnomusicologist and I admire John Blacking (at least the relatively little I know of him), I am not at all a fan of this definition. At a first glance, it looks rather harmless. It is nice that the word 'human' is there. But I don't like he stress on 'sound' - it points too much to the idea that the essence of music is the way it sounds, and it is only a short run then towards the idea that music is, essentially, a 'piece' of sound. I also don't like the stress on 'organized', as it turns our focus towards they-that-organize: composers and musicians. And I miss, for example, the word 'meaning'; meaning is what music is all about.
It is good to remember that defining is not an innocent, neutral or objective activity, and that a definition is not an objective fact or a representation of an abstract truth. Defining is a human act, and an individual act for that: somebody defines. Defining means: stating which of the innumerable characteristics of a phenomenon one considers characteristic of the phenomenon. It is choosing a specific focus on the world, and ignoring other possible focuses. And it is marking boundaries; it is an act of inclusion and of exclusion.
It is maybe good to realize that John Blacking was, apart from being an anthropologist focusing on music, also an accomplished classical pianist who for a time had the ambition of becoming a professional concert pianist. Maybe this background and the doubtless emotionally grounded importance of being a classical pianist shimmers through his definition of music. Mind you: I know that John Blacking is the opposite of the classical musician considering classical music the alpha and omega of music in general, and that his work amongst the Venda in South-Africa made him realize that nearly all his presuppositions about what music might be had become untenable. I am not accusing him of implicit musicological colonialism; I just want to suggest that maybe our own experiences with music are so fundamental that it is hard to detach us from them.
The main thing I want to say is: when people start defining music, be cautious. So here is my own definition of music, to be equally cautious of: "music" is what someone considers to be 'music'.
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