The universal role of music: Robert Spano at TEDxAtlanta

[@sacredmoonlove6]

Fantastic!

[@domingopartida5812]

Universal for Western Music and it’s construction of a synthetic scale (Pythagorean) as opposed to more organic scales of other civilizations. Some civilizations don’t even have an equivalent of the term for music because the cultural experience is different. The only thing I could see as universals are octaves as occurring naturally and the physiology of ears and brain picking up on intervals that are more prevalent and how many cultures have similar pentatonic scales but even at that point, it’s less universal because the way those scales are used to create meaning. Trying to find isomorphisms seems crazy but would truly define universals. I’ve somewhat articulated this in my thoughts after reading an ethnomusicology book by Bruno Nettles. One neat thing I read is that the process of improvising by rules and known musical ideas to create something new yet familiar is common in many unrelated cultures. What I like about this presentation is the idea of this kind of culture that has been built on the shoulders of giants, the consciousness that has remained for centuries that can somehow speak clearly and effortlessly without words to anyone almost, because of how it developed and changed for so long by its own traditions, like how the story for the longest has been I -V -I.