Question to Sandy!
On page 19 of the text, Woodford states- "The current confusion about musical criticism is really one of values and standards. Many music educators continue to believe that the western musical canon represents the high-water mark of human musical achievement and should be used as a yardstick or set of preestablished, objective, and permanent standards for judging all music." I was not really sure how I felt about this statement, is that really what music educators are doing? Are we doing this purposely or just because that music is what we may consider to be 'good'? How can we use something like the Western musical canon to evaluate music of other cultures such as West-African drumming or North Indian classical music? Is it possible to evaluate these types of music based on our concept of music, when these styles are SO different from Western classical music. Is it right to compare them? What could we gain from NOT comparing these different genres of music? Woodford goes on to say that other educators look at this in the opposite view, that no objective judgements are possible when looking at these differing genres of music, is there also a problem with this other extreme view? Are there any good compromises?
3 Comments:
I think both extreme views are wrong. It only seems common sense to me that when a music educator is judging the quality of music for a class, that educator should not be comparing it to the western musical cannon. Because, as musicians too, these educators should be well informed about the music of other cultures and know the values of it. While western musical cannon may be most pleaseing to the ears of our culture, it would be a naive educator who would continue to perpetuate the idea that western musical cannon is the best and sets the standard for all other music. To say that there is no value in comparing the music of different cultures I think is also a naive outlook. Of course, each culture's music is individual, but if educators don't even try to compare the music, then we cannot even acknowledge the differences and similarities, not only in the music, but perhaps in the cultures themselves.
On page 4 of the text, there is a passage quoting Dewey that says, "'Intolerance, abuse, calling of names because of differences of opinion about religion or politics or business, as well as because of differences of race, color, wealth, or degree of culture,' Dewey wrote, 'are treason to the democratic way of life.'" I would like to relate this to part of our discussion during the previous class. It seemed like we talked a lot about democracy not meaning that we "tolerate" others, not meaning that we "agree to disagree," because then as a society we cannot move ahead. But, to me, it seems that is exactly what Dewey is saying in this quote; that we must be tolerant of others despite differences, in order to be democratic. Is one view better than the other? Or are these ideas congruent? Is there more to it than I am giving credit?
I do not necessarily agree that we can not move ahead as a society unless we absolutely agree on everything, I think that no matter what the issue is, there are always going to be concessions made, or 'mid-way' places where we can just agree that we might not have the same views and principles. I don't think that either of these views is better than the other, I think it is merely a choice of the individual. I feel that different kinds of people will be more comfortable with different ideas of democracy. For instance, perhaps a person who hates to argue will be more happy with an 'agree to disagree' form of democracy where we simply learn to live with some degree of disagreement. I think that it could almost be considered unreasonable or naive that with all of the different views that people have in this day (and how stubborn people are, just looking to argue about anything), that we would really be able, as a complete society, to come to absolute agreements on the issues that we are presented with. I also believe that society would become rather stagnant if this were the case. Democracy is what you make of it, and the beautiful thing about democracy is that different people have different views, and thats alright. Thats the entire point of democracy, and the ability for there to be disagreement is much of what it is built on.
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