What is the place of music in modern life?
Music has always occupied a firm place in the life of every community. Travel, conquest and trade have led to the mutual enrichment of musical traditions, though on a very limited scale as compared with today. Distance is no longer an object. So the worldwide musical situation has become fluid. Roughly speaking, music has developed tonally in the West and atonally in the East; that is to say in the West an octave has eight tones with corresponding semitones; in the East the same span of sound has no such specific divisions. Yet, in recent times each system has affected the other. East and West have become more familiar with each other’s music, and each other’s music has become mutually popular. China, Japan and other Far Eastern countries now produce virtuoso in Western modes of performance, particularly the piano and violin. Many Eastern professionals take their place in Western orchestras.
Indigenous music has always been connected with life experience rather than with purely aesthetic appreciation. Communities have music to reflect the moods of birth, marriage, death, war, celebration, commiseration, dance and religious ceremonial. The five basic instruments have developed in parallel; percussion, pipes, trumpets, horns and strings. Most countries are reverting to the sophisticated versions of these instruments. The danger is that thereby the traditional forms of these instruments may be lost. Many arts types of council are alive to this problem.
There is a place for music to reflect our feelings about all the main events of life. Yet, there is an equal place for purely aesthetic appreciation. Most countries offer ample opportunities; radio and television, records, tapes, CDs as well as live concerts. More and more good music is being heard by all age-groups, and, with some reservations, this can only have a good effect. Music can be both the “food of love” and a means of “soothing the savage brow”.
Nowadays schools and especially caring families seek to give children a grounding in music both as listeners and performers because this will enrich their leisure time in the future. This tuition should begin early, and before the child’s life becomes over-complicated by sport and academic study. Children who are truly interested show promise by the age of six or seven.
Inevitably, almost all young people throughout the world are confronted by the pop scene . This may have no appeal at all to their seniors but must not be condemned out of hand, because its freedom, novelty and variety reflect the instincts of independence, protest, calf-love and sympathy with the underprivileged which characterize the teenager. The pop scene began in the USA and Britain in the early 60s but unfortunately was associated with some bad things; drug-taking, sexual dancing, alcohol and sexual promiscuity. The lyrics often overtly promoted these things — an original Beatles song “Lucy in the sky with diamonds” threw up the initials LSD. For these reasons pop music was banned by the USSR for thirty years. This was extreme, if understandable. However, pop music will always have its place with the young in the modern world.
The main things young people should be helped to realize is that pop music is transient, of poor quality, and swiftly out of fashion. Secondly, it may be promoted by cynical individuals anxious to exploit drugs, sex and violence. “Acid house” parties are now banned in the UK. Thirdly, such music, e.g. “heavy metal”, when played too loudly can injure hearing and be a nuisance to neighbors. The “ghetto-blaster” should be banned. On the positive side, pop concerts in the West have raised enormous sums for charity to benefit third-world countries.
Increasingly, music impinges on many aspects of modern life. We are now accustomed to the nuisance of “muzak” tapes in bars, lifts (elevators), restaurants, railway stations, car radios, long distance buses, aircraft, and even the home. Some of us could well do without this intrusive noise. On the other hand some people can do work which does not require too much concentration better with a musical background. Many British wartime factory workers were helped by “Music while you work”.
Much of this music today is synthetic and computerized, but not all of it is bad. In fact, it can help to create atmosphere for say a cinema thriller or a TV feature. Music is an essential ingredient in many films, and has been ever since the piano accompanied the silent Charlie Chaplin epic.
We still need good military music, good church music, even good background tunes for TV serials and adverts. A good tune is a useful trademark.
Like many other features of modem life, music has its place, but it must be kept in its place.
