Music as communication versus entertainment
Everybody in our culture encounters music on a daily basis. We listen to music while we drive in our car, children in the neighborhood sing songs while playing outside, and most cell phones play some kind of melody when there is an incoming call. Furthermore, music embellishes movies and selling recorded songs developed into an extremely profitable business. Listening to music in our culture is inevitable. However, with all this exposure to music on a regular basis, our society forgets that music is so much more than only entertainment. Garfias states that “the manner in which music and, in fact, all the arts, are treated in modern society gives little indication of the more important role which it …show more content…
“The Battle Hymn of the Republic” is played now mostly by Army marching bands. Every American knows this song and associates it with the military. The Union soldiers sang this song in the civil war and the US Army still uses this song in certain ceremonies. According to Warner, a “Bible Belt preacher in 1853, William Steffe” composed this song (59). This preacher took a catchy tune and used it to write “a song to accompany his sermons” (Warner, 59). This tune became so popular that it “spread quickly through the ranks of Yankee soldiers “ with a rather foul text, and it wasn’t until 1861, when Julia Ward Howe changed the words of this tune back to something more religious (Warner, 59). Therefore, Steffe wrote this song initially not at all for the military, but for a sermon. However, this song has been separated from its originally intention so that in our culture it is barely associated with Christian belief, but mostly associated with the military ceremonies or patriotism. Religious belief does not interfere with listening to this song, even though its text is praising …show more content…
However, Asian culture has changed significantly, too, over the past century. Take for example Japan. A well-known musical dance theater is known as Noh in Japan, which exists since about the 14th century and its performance has not changed much since then (Takahashi). Noh is “performed on a roofed stage with open sides and posts at its four corners”, and it only consists of a few actors (Takahashi). In contrast to Western culture, where a certain arrangement of tunes, pitches, and harmonies make up a melody, Noh players “each tune up as they like” (qtd. in Takahashi). For Western listeners, those tunes “may sound strange”. Additionally, even though, “anyone can enjoy the ootsuzumi, which can call up rhythms of the body”, it would be problematic for non-accustomed audiences to grasp the entire meaning of this performance (qtd. in