Music Making, Making Change

For most of modern Western society, music is entertainment, a commercialized product that we consume every time we hit play on Spotify. For some, music is also a class. It’s an extracurricular, a skill that is taught and evaluated through instrument lessons or school ensembles.

To another, smaller cohort of supposedly forward-thinking individuals, music is a tool that can be used for emotional expression, social change, community building, and pretty much anything else that involves human interaction. This group includes the leaders of projects such as El Sistema, a Venezuelan organization of local orchestras for kids in poverty, or the iPod Project, which utilizes music to restore memory and functioning to patients with Alzheimer’s. Other examples of individuals in this group are those who use songs to unite large crowds at protests and marches, people who use the process of songwriting to work through traumatic experiences, or those who encourage kids to move and sing and dance to music, even if they aren’t very good at it.

I would argue that these people aren’t forward-thinking, but rather backward-thinking in their understanding of music. Only recently did Western culture morph the concept of music into a product that can be owned, traded, and sold. Copyright laws were first applied to musical compositions in 1831, and it wasn’t until 1972 that sound recordings became protected by copyright in the U.S. Collaborative musical traditions of non-Western cultures have struggled to survive under the pressures of individualism and capitalism. For some time, American folk music also adhered to a custom of respectful sharing and re-interpretation of the same melodies, with no concern of ownership, until copyright court cases became a norm.

As we enter the 21st century, our collective ethos continues to de-emphasize the everyday creation of music, and champions music as a vendible object. The result is an increasingly rigid hierarchy of “people who do music” and “people who don’t.” Beginning in 1979 with the release of Sony’s portable Walkman headphones, music listening has quickly become a passive, isolated activity. It’s hard to imagine a time where white cords running to the ears of passersby was not commonplace, but only 14 years ago did Apple begin releasing the iPod, equipped with a complementary pair of earbuds. Our newfound ability to withdraw into a “Free, personalized radio!” has disincentivized attending live performances, let alone actually making music with other people.

Now, that isn’t to say that there aren’t people out there who do make music in their basement with their buddies, share new songs with friends, or have fun in orchestra class. However, they typically do not accept the label of “musician.” Claiming this identity denotes a career of entertainment, a recognized professional status. In fact, when you start asking people if they do music, a majority respond, “Oh no, I can’t sing.” To set the record straight, every human is physically capable of singing, and the fact that people go so far as to say they actually can’t shows how acutely perceptive we are of our ranking on the socially defined ladder of musical ability. The practical implication of this awareness is an impressive self-division of people who identify as music makers and those who adamantly disassociate from the title.

Values of musical hierarchy and exclusion are strongly reflected in how we educate kids in music as well. Music education is largely restricted to a classroom setting, with one all-knowing teacher leading a band of unruly kids holding expensive instruments. In alignment with our test based school system, music students are placed in a pecking order and instructed to perform. It is typical for music students to hear “you aren’t good at music,” whether explicitly said or not. This quickly develops into “you shouldn’t do music.” In short, music is not being used to its full capacity. From natural experiences of bonding over a favorite song to institutionalized programs like El Sistema, there is clear evidence of unrealized potential in our human ability to create and experience music. The opportunities are endless. And with so many political, social, and cultural struggles in our modern world, this realization is more important than ever. Although programs like El Sistema and the iPod project have gained enough momentum to poke through the dichotomy of “good” and “bad” musicians, most of us do not interact with these kinds of programs on a regular basis.

If our culture’s musical hierarchy were dismantled through a mass effort of self-awareness and dedication to validating music beyond the classroom and concert hall, these creative, impactful musical experiences could flood into our everyday world. Viewing this not as revolutionary idea but rather as reconnections to musical experiences lost in generations past will empower communities to use music making as a tool for social change. We must re-democratize music making, and discontinue our compliance in the suppression of relationship-based musical experience.

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