music as a global culture

Cultural & Technological expert- Yeo Jia Wen

The following are excerpts(which explains the numerous hyperlinks. Sorry about that!) from this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music
[please click on link to view article]

"Music is an art form that involves organized sounds and silence. It is expressed in terms of pitch (which includes melody and harmony), rhythm (which includes tempo and meter), and the quality of sound (which includes timbre, articulation, dynamics, and texture).

The music that composers make can be heard through several media; the most traditional way is to hear it live, in the presence, or as one of the musicians. Live music can also be broadcast over the radio, television or the internet. Some musical styles focus on producing a sound for a performance, while others focus on producing a recording which mixes together sounds which were never played "live". Recording, even of styles which are essentially live, often uses the ability to edit and splice to produce recordings which are considered better than the actual performance.

In many cultures, there is less distinction between performing and listening to music, as virtually everyone is involved in some sort of musical activity, often communal. In industrialised countries, listening to music through a recorded form, such as sound recording or watching a music video, became more common than experiencing live performance, roughly in the middle of the 20th century.

Sometimes, live performances incorporate prerecorded sounds. For example, a DJ uses disc records for scratching, and some 20th-century works have a solo for an instrument or voice that is performed along with music that is prerecorded onto a tape. Computers and many keyboards can be programmed to produce and play MIDI music. "

REFLECTIONS

Music is a form of art that can be experienced by everyone around the world, regardless of their age or social status. Young children can sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, and poor people can experience music through nature around them- the melodious sounds of birds. I guess one of the reasons why music has become a global culture, is that it is easily accessible by everyone and anyone in the world. Just be humming a tune, you are already creating music, and you are already part of this global culture.

Quoting the article, "virtually everyone is involved in some sort of musical activity". I cannot agree more with that! There are pitches, which is a huge and essential aspect of music, in many things in life. Just listen carefully when you vacuum the floor or when the MRT arrives at the station. Even if one dislikes music (Though I doubt anyone does), he will still be part of this culture as music is all around us. Isn't it amazing how music can so easily be part of our daily lives? Isn't it amazing how extensive this global culture is?

Today, much appreciation of music is done through technology. We listen to recordings of music through the radio, our iPods and MP3 players. We watch recorded musical performances through the television and internet. As the article mentioned, computers and keyboards can also be programmed to produce MIDI files, which can then be played as songs. As can be seen, technology has inevitably become an essential part of the spread of this global culture in the modern world we live in today.

Technology, a product of globalisation, plays a big role in promoting music as a global culture. One clear example is shown in the article, where people can watch/listen to music performances through the media, such as the internet, television and radio. The media is largely extensive, spreading across geographical boundaries of all countries. Performances of music by people from one part of the world can be easily accessed by others from the other side of the world. It also exposes people to different genres of music from all around the world. The Chinese can now easily listen to African music, and the British can get a taste of Asian music, just by a click of the mouse. As shown, the extensiveness of the media exposes more people to this global culture, as well as different aspects and types of it.

Perhaps, we can say that globalisation has already taken place at the primitive ages of the Earth, as music has easily established itself as a global culture even without the help of modern day technology(music is incorporated into people's lives since the primitive ages of the Earth). However, with the usage of modern day technology, this global culture is further enhanced. Through the media, which is a product of technology, people are more exposed to music as well as different forms of it. People would better understand what the different types of music are about. Also, since our iPods and MP3s are portable, we can take our favourite music everywhere we go! All these works of technology further promotes music as a global culture, and develop it in a more wholesome way.