VPMA93H3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: John Blacking, Background Music, Febreze
VPMA93 Lecture Notes
Lecture 1: Introduction to Listening and Sound
Ginny Chan
John Blacking, How Musical is Man?
(1973)
- Fundamental impact in shaping the definition of Western and North American music
“The importance of creative listening is too often ignored in discussion of musical ability, and yet it is as
fundamental to music as it is to language.”
Examples
*Star Wars theme song
*Slasher film/dark alley/ominous theme
*Febreeze commercial, calm, classical, formal dance
*Elevator music, upbeat
●We claim to be musical, yet the majority of musical consumption in society proves otherwise
●We must have a highly evolved, technical knowledge of music to be able to understand the sound that is
coming towards you
●Musicians assume that audiences can understand and interpret music
John Blacking claimed that:
“...it is clear that the creation and performance of most music is generated first and foremost by the
human capacity to discover patterns of sound and to identify them on subsequent occasions. Without
biological processes of aural perception, and without cultural agreement among at least some human
beings on what is perceived, there can be neither music nor musical communication.”
●Music is a universal language
●We can have reactions to oral perceptions, however we may not have the background and tools to be able to
process musical messages that are being conveyed
●We may listen to music and dislike it, because we do not understand the meaning behind it; similar to
learning a language and not understanding it
Blacking said:
“Even if a person describes musical experiences in the technical language of music, he is in fact
describing emotional experiences which he has learned to associate with particular musical sounds.”
●Real association between what we hear and our memory
●We have an emotional response to music; emotional understanding underlies oral perception
Examples
*Classical violin music - Melancholy, peaceful, soothing, calm
*Loud rock band music - Rebellious, energetic
*Calm, yoga music - Relaxing, soothing
Blacking (on Western music):
“Currently recognized divisions between Art Music and Folk Music are inadequate and misleading as
conceptual tools. They are neither meaningful nor accurate as indices of musical differences; at best,
they merely define the interests and activities of different social groups”
●In today’s society, we observe music in categories
