First We Make Music: An Introduction to Music and Community Arts

[Interamerican Development Bank] president Felipe Herrara, A Chilean economist, told of a tiny Indian village on the high altiplano near Bolivia’s Lake Titicaca, where he’d gone on a feasibility study for a proposed hydroelectric dam. Upon completing the site visit, his team realized they hadn’t used their entire travel budget. Since the village lacked everything, they assembled the local chiefs and explained that they had some money left. In gratitude for hospitality and assistance, they’d like to give it to the community as a gift. "What project would you like us to fund here in the name of the Bank?"

The Indian elders excused themselves and went off to discuss this offer. In just five minutes they returned. "We know what we want to do with the money."

"Excellent. Whatever you want."

"We need new musical instruments for our band."

"Maybe," replied the Bank team spokesman, "you didn’t understand. What you need are improvements like electricity. Running water. Sewers. Telephone and telegraph."

But the Indians had understood perfectly. "In our village," the eldest explained, "everyone plays a musical instrument. On Sundays after mass, we all gather for la retreta, a concert on the church patio. First we make music together. After that, we can talk about problems in our community and how to resolve them. But our instruments are old and falling apart. Without music, so will we."

From Gaviotas: A Village to Reinvent the World, pp. 5-6.

Even the most superficial consideration of the question of the relationship between music and community brings the realization that music is seen to be a necessary part of community rituals, both sacred and secular. We wed, grieve, march, worship, graduate, celebrate, sport and protest with musical accompaniment. What seems sadly missing from modern industrial society is the call-and-response work song found throughout the world. Indeed, all collective ritualized events, both here in the United States and throughout the world, both past and present, incorporate elements of many of the arts: A visual setting apart from everyday life is provided, a dramatic unfolding of action transpires and poetry and other special speech is employed. (Modern industrial society is less likely to incorporate dance into community rituals than has been and is true elsewhere.)

But music is essential. Why is this? In brief, the reason seems to be that the nature of music is inherently social. Blackburn argues, " … we need to remind ourselves that music in itself does not exist. Despite evidence to the contrary (scores, analytical charts, music stores, CD shelves, etc.) music exists only in performance. … It is therefore a social and political act." The performance of music corresponds exactly to the character of a collective gathering – it is a discrete event in time and space, with an attendant stimulation of the senses. In his classic work on the way in which societies create sacredness through community gatherings, the great French sociologist Emile Durkheim argues:

There can be no society which does not feel the need of upholding and reaffirming at regular intervals the collective sentiments and the collective ideas which make its unity and its personality. Now this moral remaking cannot be achieved except by the means of reunions, assemblies and meetings where the individuals, being closely united to one another, reaffirm in common their common sentiments.

Durkheim also makes the point that ritual events must be separated from everyday life in time and space.

Through collective gatherings, we experience, however briefly, a sense of belonging to the whole, a common identity. A recent example of this is the numerous public concerts of remembrance following the terrorist attacks of the fall of 2001. These concerts were a form of public mourning; they allowed musicians and audience to collectively express their grief, affirm their national identity and make a gesture of solidarity to those who suffered directly. At the same time, individual participants in these concerts had different reasons for participating and thus the emotional valence created was complex. For some, the concert was primarily a way to express sorrow at the violence and meaningless loss of life, but for others the result was a surge in nationalism and determination for revenge upon those deemed responsible.

Mark Mattern invokes John Dewey to explain this identity-forming character of the arts, and music specifically:

Like Dewey, I believe that art forms such as music can be both "signs" and "marvelous aids in the creation of" community. As a sign of community, music reveals the constituent elements such as beliefs, assumptions and commitments that define the character and shape of the community. As a "marvelous aid," or determinant, music provides a form of communication through which the commonalities of community are created and discovered.

There are several ways this signing and aiding is manifested, says Mattern:

• The public accessibility of music provides a conceptual, emotional and physical medium for communication of common memories and meanings.
• Music serves as a record of our own civilization or community and provides a way to gain insight into cultures other than our own.
• Music communicates understandings from one person to another reinforcing cultural or subcultural groupings even across space.

Recently, for example, I heard a feature on Public Radio about the Easter Sunday, 1939, concert of Marian Anderson at the Lincoln Memorial, a seminal event in U.S. race relations. Listening to the recording of Miss Anderson singing "American the Beautiful" certainly communicates common memories and provides a record of our civilization; but for me the experience also stirred powerful emotions and a deepened and renewed understanding of the importance of equality.

We now know that listening to music "activates neural systems of reward and emotion" (Blakeslee; also Lemonick); it seems reasonable to hypothesize that this effect is greater with participation in a live performance of music because of the collective stimulation created. What must it have been like to be on the national mall for that Marian Anderson concert?

The function of music to create, strengthen or reaffirm identity may be found in virtually every kind of social grouping: economic, ethnic, racial, age, national, religious, special interest. Music has the potential to transcend differences, either within or among groups, and bring people together in a sense of common interest. Obvious examples: national anthems, ethnic/regional folk music, devotion to current popular music stars, hymns, protest songs, participation in the high art culture of symphony or opera, and so forth.

The role of music as a source of commonality is of broader import than our conventional understanding of community as a group sharing common interests, traits and beliefs. This understanding is partial at best or even misleading, since a moment’s reflection will make evident the fact that there is no group within which there are not some differences of role and power; there is no completely homogenous group. While there may (and must) be commonalities, the nature of social life is a continual negotiation of roles, rewards and rules. Thus, diversity is inherent in the human collective experience. The example of the Indians in the quote at the beginning of this essay is instructive. Playing music together allowed them to work out the problems and differences internal to their community. The same thing holds for groups who are separated by history, power, or culture – a common musical experience can minimize that which divides by emphasizing that which unites. For example, as part of American Composers Forum’s "Continental Harmony" program, a community in Maine commissioned a piece of music that combined classical and folk traditions. The creation of a local ensemble to perform the music united people across social class and ethnic boundaries in a common celebration of their landscape, enhancing ties to each other and to nature.

Thus music serves as a unifier of people who are to some degree different from one another. At the same time, however, music, by drawing boundaries of identity, excludes as well. Sometimes the emotion-laden character of a particular music is consciously manipulated, not only to confirm who "we" are, but also to exclude one or more "others." Both the oppressor and the oppressed do this to buttress claims to power. At other times, the divisive or exclusionist impact of music is more subtle, serving up reminders of who belongs and who doesn’t. As an example, compare the deportment, dress and content of a performance of the New York Philharmonic with that of *NSYNC. Or the audience for a performance of Eddie Blazonczyk’s Versatones Polka Band with the mosh pit at a Kid Rock concert.

We need to give further attention to the political role of music. Music is used to confirm the legitimacy of rulers and to encourage loyalty to the state. This has been the case as long as there have been complex polities; the Egyptian hieroglyphs that portray musicians in religious or courtly processions are just one example. The playing of "Hail to the Chief" when the President of the United States enters is another. Music raises patriotic fervor and develops military discipline. The repeated public singing of Irving Berlin’s "God Bless America" during the weeks following the terrorist attack of September 11 contributed to the general patriotic intensification of the period.

Music as a legitimizer of political power is especially potent when combined with religious, mythical or historical imagery. At the same time, music is used by those who wish to challenge the power of the state or of other social institutions. Social movements of many kinds are energized by music – union songs, civil rights songs, antiwar songs, environmental songs, songs for democratic reform are examples.

Sometimes songs of protest are folk tunes that become identified with a cause. For example, the song of equality now known across the world, "We Shall Overcome," was adapted as a union song from African-American spirituals; it then came back to the African-American community as the anthem of their movement for civil rights. (See Pete Seeger’s description of its origin). In other cases, a specific composition is adopted by the adherents of a movement and becomes an aural badge of identity, for example, Bob Dylan’s "Blowin’ in the Wind." An interesting example of how the meaning and use of a piece of music can be changed is Woody Guthrie’s "This Land is Your Land," which was composed as a song of protest against economic inequality. Now however, the song, which is probably sung by every child in the U.S., is an expression of patriotism and national identity, albeit one which is implicitly inclusive.

There is not room in this essay to explore fully the relationship of music to political action. It would be naïve to accept these arguments uncritically, given the way music and the other arts have been manipulated to foster the dominant elite’s vision of the world. However, totalitarian regimes everywhere have recognized (and feared?) the power of music to focus opposition; otherwise, why would they ban certain kinds of musical composition as "bourgeois decadence" or whatever? Why did the Taliban in Afghanistan see fit to ban all music? A fuller exploration of the idea that the free expression of the creative impulses of a people is incompatible with a closed vision of the good society or state would be a useful extension of our understanding of the relationship between music and community.

There is one more issue I would like to briefly take up, and that is the nature of the music/community connection in the face of globalization. On the one hand, the hegemony of American popular culture, the pervasiveness of the mass media, and the world-wide dominance of the Western classical idiom have led some to be concerned that authentic musical voices – local, regional, ethnic, national – will be swept away in the flood of cheap CDs and other aspects of the musical market place, both here in the United States and around the world. While I do not wish to dismiss this concern, I think it is as likely that authentic community-based musical vitality cannot be so easily destroyed. For one thing, the ability to transmit music cheaply through CDs and the Internet is used by the adherents of an amazing variety of musical idioms, both "traditional" and new. For another, from my own experience, American Composers Forum’s nationwide community-based music commissioning program, "Continental Harmony," demonstrates the amazing richness of local and regional musical voices throughout the U.S. Thus I am convinced that the needs of peoples to celebrate their place in nature, to forge linkages to others who share their interests, to protest injustice, to seek freedom and to build sustainable, stable communities will continue to be expressed through musical creation.

The arts, and particularly music, have a crucial role to play in the community-building tasks we face. As we begin the new millennium it is easy to see that our beautiful blue planet, floating in a sea of space, is facing challenges of a magnitude never before seen. All around us, we can see that there is too much – too much waste of our precious limited resources, too much conflict and violence, too much inequality, too much consumption, too much individualism and alienation, too many people, too much pollution and environmental degradation. There is also too little – too little community, too little time to nurture our gardens and each other, too little understanding of the complex web of life on which we all depend, too little aesthetic and spiritual fulfillment, too little ability to control our own destinies in the face of the global market and other institutions of power, too little respect for the diversity of life, both human and nonhuman.

The worldview that has dominated Western thought throughout much of what we think of as the modern age does not accept limits. This view poses a dichotomy between human culture and nature, and one of the most pressing issues of our age is the need to transcend this dualism. This mental separation between what people think and do and what nature does is, I suggest, the source of much of our difficulty. So, our task is to find a way to live well that does not diminish the ability of other species and future generations to do the same. This is the core concept of sustainability, and it is, by now, a familiar idea. However, we can’t yet see precisely what form the institutions will take or how we will make the transition from our linear, growth-oriented culture to a more holistic one.

Because of the inherent ambiguity clouding the task ahead, the growth of a sustainable culture will require people who are skilled in problem-solving, critical analysis and holistic and systematic thinking, and who have the ability to suspend judgment while seeking solutions. These cultivators of the new world must also be creative, able to work cooperatively with others, and possessed of personal balance and internal grace. They must be able to identify with a particular place, a region, and to help preserve the unique cultural traditions and natural landscape of that place; without retreating into parochialism, they must not allow their communities to become the everyplace that is no place. They must be empowered to create economic and political institutions that are respectful of each other and of nature. The task, in short, will require a very great social commitment.

The key to accomplishing this commitment is found in the arts. Per Råborg forcefully makes this argument in his essay "The Culture of Nature":

What none of the expert groups within the cultural sector have been willing to acknowledge, is the serious threat to civilization which one-sided rationalization and the neglect of aesthetic culture entail. A deep-seated myth is used to support this stand - the myth that aesthetic culture is a superstructure perched on top of the material and technical culture, with the banal purpose of decorating the human environment. . .The view of aesthetic culture as a superimposition on the material culture is in fact false. From an evolutionary viewpoint, technical society may be seen as a superstructure, while aesthetic culture is the more fundamental and indispensable sector. It seems, rather, to represent a deep level of our human constitution which is close to our central value system. It is through the system of values that our qualitative requirements of life are met, and that we obtain motivation for renewed vital efforts. The aesthetic sphere is perhaps linked to the sensory core of our consciousness, which lies far deeper down than the technical and rational level with which evolution has rewarded us. It may be within this sphere that the whole creative cosmos of sensory impressions, emotional expressions and aesthetic nuances, has its beginning. It may also be from here that we draw the zest for life and the inspiration which allow us to submit to the strain of everyday life, and find its routines worth the trouble. A culture which cuts off this vital nerve rapidly may find itself sunk in barbarity. Its life-force becomes significantly reduced and soon it is caught in a downward spiral of development.

As I have argued in this essay, music is especially well-suited to the tasks of community-building. The evidence collected from the "Continental Harmony" program shows that bringing people together in a musical celebration enhances community spirit, encourages creativity and creates networks of individuals and organizations that strengthen the potential for civic engagement.

Music will continue to play this role, whether we speak of local or regional musical events or the linkage of peoples of common mind around the world through participation in a common musical culture.

References

Blackburn, Philip, "Orchestras, Orchestras Everywhere," Grantmakers in the Arts, Volume 9, Number 2, Fall, 1998.

Blakeslee, Sandra, "Hijacking the Brain Circuits with a Nickel Slot Machine," New York Times, February 19, 2002.

Burrows, Donald. "Handel." New York: Schirmer, 1994.

Durkheim, Emile. "The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life. Oxford World Classics," New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.

Gutman, Robert W. "Mozart: A Cultural Biography." New York: Harcourt, 1999.

Lemonick, Michael D., "Music on the Brain," Time, June 5, 2000.

Mattern, Mark. "Acting in Concert: Music Community and Political Action." New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1998.

Meltzer, Arthur M., Jerry Weinberger, M. Richard Zinman, eds. "Democracy and the Arts." Ithaca N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1999.

Råborg, Per, ed. "The Life Region: The Social and Cultural Ecology of Sustainable Development." Routledge Studies in Development and Society. London and New York: Routledge, 1997.

Reyes, Adelaida. "Songs of the Caged, Songs of the Free: Music and the Vietnamese Refugee Experience." Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1999.

Shifferd, Patricia, "Art for Life's Sake: The Role of Aesthetic Experience in Sustainable Community Development," paper presented to the North American Interdisciplinary Conference on Environment and Community, Ogden, Utah, February, 1999.

Shifferd, Patricia and William T. Cleveland. "Continental Harmony: A Study in Community-based Arts." St. Paul, Minn.: American Composers Forum, 2001.

Weisman, Alan. Gaviotas: A Village to Reinvent the World. White River Junction, Vt.: Chelsea Green Publishing, 1995.

Zuidervaart, Lambert and Henry Luttikhuizen, eds. "The Arts, Community, and Cultural Democracy. Cross-Currents in Religion and Culture." New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000.

Patricia A. Shifferd is project director of the American Composers Forum's "Continental Harmony" program. With degrees in sociology and anthropology, Shifferd's research and teaching have centered on community development, the role of arts in society, sense of place, and the social aspects of environmental affairs.

Original CAN/API publication: March 2002