MUS110H1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Internment Of Japanese Americans, Christopher Small, Ethnomusicology
Document Summary
The science or art of incorporating pleasing, expressive, or intelligible combination of vocal or instrumental tones into a composition having definite structure and continuity. ". The dictionary definitions reflect beliefs embedded in general language . Music serves both aesthetic and communicative function. Animal music does not belong to music. Ethnomusicologist and cultural anthropologist alan merriam suggests a three-part model for understanding music: physical sound, behavior, concept. They are equal components intricately tied to one another. This model avoids giving sound" primacy in music. The rational organization of sounds and silences as they pass through time. ". Music is not something found in the natural world, like air or sand; rather, music is something that people make, from sounds and silences. They make it into two ways: they make or produce the sounds they call music, and they also make music into a cultural domain, forming he ideas and activities they consider music. ". Much more: ideas, actions, values, money, power and politics.
