The Music-Culture as a
World of Music
MUSI 3721Y
University of Lethbridge, Calgary Campus
John Anderson
The Music-Culture
• Music is universal but its
meaning is not
• By culture we mean the
whole way of life of a
people, learned and
transmitted from one
generation to the next
• We use the term music-
culture to refer to a group
of people’s total
involvement with music
• Not all music-cultures have
a word for “music”
A Music-Culture Model
• A model rooted in music
through performance
• Music
• Performers
• Audience
• Time and space
• Music’s affect is its
emotional impact,
whatever makes you
assent, smile, grimace, nod,
sway or dance
• Performance has agreed-on
rules and procedures
A Music-Culture Model
• Community is the group
that carries the traditions
and norms of performance
• Time and space becomes
memory and history in our
music-culture model
• Musical analysis is finding
patterns in the sound by
breaking the music into
parts and determining how
the parts function in the
whole
Components of a Music-Culture
• Music and the Belief
System
• Aesthetics of Music
• Contexts for Music
• History of Music
Social Organization of Music
• Social organization refers
to how a group of people
divides, arranges, or ranks
itself
• Sometimes resembles
social divisions within the
group
• Sometimes goes against
the broad cultural grain
Repertories of Music
• Style
• Scale, mode, melody,
harmony, rhythm, timbre,
dynamics
• Genres
• Vocal vs. instrumental?
• Texts
• The words to a song
Repertories of Music
• Composition
• How does music enter the
repertory?
• Transmission
• How is music learned?
• Movement
• A whole range of physical
activity accompanies
music
Material Culture of Music
• Material culture refers to
the tangible, physical
objects that a culture
produces
• The most obvious example
are musical instruments
• Sheet music is material
culture too
• Electronic media?
• Radio, compact discs,
MP3s, television?
Worlds of Music
• Music cultures are
dynamic, not static
• Constantly changing to
outside pressures
• It changes to suit the
expressive and emotional
desires of humankind
• Synergy vs. hegemony
Discussion Questions
• What is music?
• How can music affect
culture?
• How can culture affect
music?
• How is music considered as
a behaviour?
Discussion Questions
• How can we better
understand different music
when we compare them to
languages?
• Sincere there are many
similarities in musical
instruments throughout
the world, could there have
been patterns of cultural
diffusion?
• How might they have
operated?