Chapter Two Sample
2. ROOTS – Primal Material
History doesn't have the same relationship with us today as it did in the pre-digital age, doesn't lie behind on a time line, but rather surrounds us. The image of history’s time line is gradually bending into a circle with you or I at its centre. The world has shrunk both in space and time, affecting the way that future progress is going to be made. I use the word “progress” advisedly, as it suggests a steady unremitting improvement through time. Progress as improvement can certainly be argued with regard to science and technology, but not the arts. Is the motorcar better than the horse and cart? That is debatable. Is the music of John Adams better than that of Purcell? It's clearly not a relevant question.
I want to dig up some of the historical roots of music and consider what music is all about today, why it is pursued in some form or other by all human beings from all cultures and has been for millennia. Music has its roots in different contexts: social, political, religious, militaristic, cultural, all of which run deep. I can add linguistic too, for there is a recent convincing proposition that an understanding of the early development of language in human beings cannot be separated from music and musical expression. Music and language are part of the same parcel. We need to go back a long way to examine how this may be, but closer to today it's a fact that before the middle of the eighteenth century, public music was, with few exceptions, vocal music tied to the expression of words, both religious and operatic.
Music making has historically been almost entirely a social activity, but today it can easily be a solitary pursuit too and that is something new. Since the invention of the gramophone and the radio, it has been possible to listen to music any time, any place. That is both a blessing and a curse, the downside produces a constant complaint that silence is intruded upon by musak, with the accompanying degeneration of music into background wallpaper...
History doesn't have the same relationship with us today as it did in the pre-digital age, doesn't lie behind on a time line, but rather surrounds us. The image of history’s time line is gradually bending into a circle with you or I at its centre. The world has shrunk both in space and time, affecting the way that future progress is going to be made. I use the word “progress” advisedly, as it suggests a steady unremitting improvement through time. Progress as improvement can certainly be argued with regard to science and technology, but not the arts. Is the motorcar better than the horse and cart? That is debatable. Is the music of John Adams better than that of Purcell? It's clearly not a relevant question.
I want to dig up some of the historical roots of music and consider what music is all about today, why it is pursued in some form or other by all human beings from all cultures and has been for millennia. Music has its roots in different contexts: social, political, religious, militaristic, cultural, all of which run deep. I can add linguistic too, for there is a recent convincing proposition that an understanding of the early development of language in human beings cannot be separated from music and musical expression. Music and language are part of the same parcel. We need to go back a long way to examine how this may be, but closer to today it's a fact that before the middle of the eighteenth century, public music was, with few exceptions, vocal music tied to the expression of words, both religious and operatic.
Music making has historically been almost entirely a social activity, but today it can easily be a solitary pursuit too and that is something new. Since the invention of the gramophone and the radio, it has been possible to listen to music any time, any place. That is both a blessing and a curse, the downside produces a constant complaint that silence is intruded upon by musak, with the accompanying degeneration of music into background wallpaper...
