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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