Dear Vocalisters:
I wrote:
This (a culture created for youth) does not predispose the creation
of a culture of lesser quality but it does mean that the consumers
of this culture have little experience with which to judge quality.
You then commented that "all music is a reflection of the culture it
was produced in at the time it was produced."
This is precisely my point. The culture so created need not
necessarily be a culture of lesser quality BUT it does mean that the
consumers (youth) have little experience with which to judge quality.
Experience gives judgement sense in most cases. Lack of experience
almost always dooms judgements to be less accurate.
Regardless the culture and regardless the perceived quality of that
culture be it Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, Romantic, Post Modern,
etc, the judgements of value are always based on the experience of
the consumer. The nobility of Europe were the consumers of most of
the first four or five music styles I listed. They were the educated
with some knowledge of more of their world and some idea of their
position within it. They tended to understand history.
Is this equally true today? Is the youth consumer, that is, todays
consumer aware of the world outside their immediate field in
interest? Do they understand history or even care about it. Is the
experience level of the youth consumer on a par with the consumer of
even 50 years ago?
I have purposely chosen not to answer these questions. But if the
answer to any of these questions is NO, then the youth consumer is
not as capable of judging the value of the culture that has been
created for him/her. And this point of view is not an uncommon one
among one in the USA and Europe today.
This is not a discussion of which styles are of value and which are
not but rather of question of how styles are to be judged and
relative quality of such judging. In most cases when a value system
is established it is assumed that those who apply that value system
have a perspective that gives the value system some kind of credence.
Is that the case when an culture created for youth is judged as of
value by only youth?
--
Lloyd W. Hanson, DMA
Professor of Voice, Pedagogy
School of Performing Arts
Northern Arizona University
Flagstaff, AZ 86011
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