The Influence of Music on Self and Society - Values in Music in Eastern and Western Cultures
Throughout history the unspoken but highly evocative language of music has exerted powerful influences on individuals and societies alike. Felix Mendelssohn once remarked that music is more specific about what it expresses than words written about those expressions could ever be. That music has the power to express, convey and illicit powerful emotions is without question, however the issue of music's moral and ethical power, and how that power affects individuals and societies, is one that receives too little attention in our post-modern world. Ancient cultures held strong beliefs in the moral and ethical power of music and as such it was imperative for artists within those cultures to exercise a certain moral and ethical responsibility in their creative endeavors.
As a professional musician for over thirty years I concur with that premise and it is primarily from the axiological, rather than a theoretical or aesthetic viewpoint that I approach this discourse. The responsibility of artists to the social environment in which they live and work is something that I have always had strong sentiments. As we now find ourselves beginning a new millennium, questions with regards to music's origins, its spiritual, religious and mystical properties, its moral and ethical power, its transcendent qualities, the role of the arts and artists and the importance of art in general, and music in particular, are questions that I believe any thinking, caring, probing musician should seriously contemplate.
At the outset of the twenty-first century it is undeniable that the pervasiveness of popular culture and the values it engenders has had an adverse effect on our societies. In light of the current climate of Western popular culture, "art music" has become increasingly marginalized. In fact the word "art" has been greatly trivialized. The lines between trend and tradition, the profound and the superficial, art and cliché have become hopelessly indistinct as some of the most
As a professional musician for over thirty years I concur with that premise and it is primarily from the axiological, rather than a theoretical or aesthetic viewpoint that I approach this discourse. The responsibility of artists to the social environment in which they live and work is something that I have always had strong sentiments. As we now find ourselves beginning a new millennium, questions with regards to music's origins, its spiritual, religious and mystical properties, its moral and ethical power, its transcendent qualities, the role of the arts and artists and the importance of art in general, and music in particular, are questions that I believe any thinking, caring, probing musician should seriously contemplate.
At the outset of the twenty-first century it is undeniable that the pervasiveness of popular culture and the values it engenders has had an adverse effect on our societies. In light of the current climate of Western popular culture, "art music" has become increasingly marginalized. In fact the word "art" has been greatly trivialized. The lines between trend and tradition, the profound and the superficial, art and cliché have become hopelessly indistinct as some of the most