On Classroom Repertoire

As calls go out for greater diversity in concert repertoire, certainly the same call should resound in music classrooms. Every student deserves the opportunity to see themselves as a professional composer, theorist, performer, educator, therapist, etc. as they are, and repertoire is a powerful way to help students feel belonging. Furthermore, the inclusion of composers from a variety of backgrounds tells the truer, more complete story of music.

Yet, we can’t cover everything. An undergraduate curriculum cannot cover every music tradition in the world nor can it even cover every notable genre of music in the United States in depth. It isn’t even possible to capture the Western music tradition from the Medieval period to now without serious omissions due to a student’s already packed schedule. Equally difficult is the race to cover Western concepts of tonality and harmony along with good ear training in 3-5 semesters. So, how do we choose what to cover, and how does this relate to repertoire?

Some might say it has always had to do with repertoire. The reason we study history is to know of the “masters.” The chronological approach to history shows the indubitable influence of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Debussy, Stravinsky, and Schoenberg on where we are today: case closed. The reason we study theory is to better understand the music of the “masters.” The system of tonality as we know it received perfection in their hands, and it’s the portal into their minds. Such veneration of a select few composers is obvious when perusing outdated theory anthologies, and even today’s anthologies still represent Bach, Mozart, Haydn, Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, and Dvořák far more than anyone else.

To continue in this framework and include a more diverse repertoire, we must expand the list of “masters.” To do so, we must decide on what defines a “master.” Does it come from the number, length, or intricacy of symphonies, operas, or sonatas written? Must the composer have a large output? Does it come from the ability to analyze a piece of music in the same way as the traditional “greats?” But we deal with some realities:

1. Composers who did not enjoy the same privileges as white men (specifically Austrian or German men) truly did not have the same privileges. They could not get regular orchestral performances unless they had favor of the right people. They did not get patrons as easily as their competitors.

2. The preservation of repertoire from the composers considered “masters” came from people dedicated to that cause. The lack of preservation of works from underrepresented composers skews our knowledge of their output, which might have been greater than we imagined. Or, records show repertoire that existed, and we have yet to find them. Side note: Many of the original manuscripts from underrepresented composers in the public domain are not on websites like imslp.org and can only be found in expensive Urtext editions. I love the professional editions, but keeping public domain documents out of reach from others does not reflect an inclusive approach to scholarship…

3. Some composers wrote impressive music that simply does not follow “the rules” as stringently, though many actually do. And every disgruntled composer or theory student has found solace in the fact that “even the masters broke the rules at times.”

So, the expansion of “masters” to fit some standard, or even a focus on showcasing masterpieces at all, might not best solve the repertoire and curricular issues. There might be a better venue for such showcasing (and it need not be showcasing every masterpiece in every 5-year orchestral cycle, though there have been great improvements recently).

So, perhaps there is a more pragmatic approach that puts aside the “master” label. Following the counsel of my dissertation adviser, I did a post-graduation memory dump. Everything that was extraneous to my overall understanding of music was left behind (or at least placed on an external hard drive deep in the back of my mind), and the principles that stuck became my professional foundation. This led me to experiment with core theory curricula. Over the past years, I have learned the following:

1. Students learn chord progressions faster in groups of 3-4 chords rather than identifying chords individually. These are taught through historic partimento patterns or through Laitz’s harmonic paradigms (which are more focused on just basslines). Such progressions also simplify part-writing, reveal potential harmonic implications in 2-part compositions, and even guide students to improvise over a bass line. The voice-leading rules of four-part writing become more about the natural and instinctive flow of the music.

2. Students understand tonicizations and modulations better when taught in conjunction with structure. Structural concerns give such deviations from a tonal center purpose.

3. Chromatic harmony is all about style and character in music. Neapolitan and augmented 6th chords add weight to predominant function harmonies, as do modal mixture passages. Applied chords (secondary dominants) lift into the next chord, as do common tone chords in many settings. A composer’s style in terms of harmony does depend on their use of these chords.

4. Students like to understand how a piece comes together, and this requires a narrative. Basically, an overview of the flow, structure, and stylistic developments in a piece of music ties together the loose ends and makes for a satisfying conclusion to an analysis (it’s what we do in analytical papers, though not necessarily in a start-to-finish manner).

So, my framework became centered on what I call “pillars of craft.” And a focus on craft in this way does not favor one set of rules that best applies to a specific style of music. The parlor music and music published for amateurs can be analyzed for these elements without any need to compare with the three B’s. I also learned that such a focus gave me a way to reduce the Western theory curricula’s length for room to include full units on jazz and on popular idioms. And finally, the tangly issues of analysis in the Romantic era are much easier to comprehend with a solid craft-based framework.

How does one know if they have achieved diversity in their classroom repertoire? One goal is to avoid tokenism. For example, an undisclosed textbook has exactly one women composer at the starting of each workbook chapter. While a great effort, this still ends up being a vast underrepresentation of current student demographics (in which most theory classes are at least half female). Guidance from the Institute for Composer Diversity suggests 24% representation of equity-seeking composers (broken into subcategories). This takes serious effort because, unlike the “masters,” many pieces from the common-practice period by such composers have not been analyzed, do not have a neat score, or do not have a recording. Great work done by Expanding the Music Theory Canon, Music Theory Examples by BI-POC Composers (spreadsheet), and Diverse Music Theory Examples are all helpful in finding historical repertoire for the theory classroom. Part of reaching the 24% is the exclusion of some of the masters. They are so easy to use because they’re prepackaged in anthologies, workbooks, and textbooks and are intimately known by so many professionals, but they are not essential to the theory curriculum.

A careful framework for a course, much like a thesis statement, has further allowed me to craft more diverse repertoire into a curriculum. And what an opportunity educators have in a class like an introductory orchestration class! My orchestration class’s framework relies on the scientific aspects of timbre and how those inform idiomatic writing. So, the goal in the repertoire search is to simply find idiomatic music for each instrument, analyze chamber music with said instruments, and then showcase good orchestration in large ensemble music. It took time, but I am stoked to teach the course with a compelling repertoire list representative of diverse backgrounds and aesthetics among contemporary composers.

Because of the openness of repertoire opportunities for Orchestration, I decided to match the demographics of the United States in terms of representation. So, 50% of the music is from female composers and 42% of the music is from BI-POC composers. This required a few hard decisions to exclude some of my favorite works for various instruments, but the choices made to replace them might become new favorites in a short time (there’s so much great music out there!). Some resources that helped me reach this goal were: the UMKC Music Library’s Shining a Light: 21st Century Music from Underrepresented Composers and lots of instrument-specific lists such as the ones Bret Pimentel’s Woodwind Music by Composers in Underrepresented Groups and Last Row’s Diversity in Brass Music. Unlike historical works, many of these works are not in the public domain. I hope to present these works in a way that is exclusively for educational purposes while encouraging, by virtue of the high quality of music, students and others to perform music from the composers. Curating a class like this also gives impetus to how to better stock a university library.

As musicians strive to seriously and permanently diversify repertoire in the classroom, the next generation of musicians will have a much easier time at programming and championing composers from underrepresented groups. And there will hopefully be an equally robust group of new composers from whom further repertoire can be chosen. But why wait? It’s a great time to be part of something big—something that noticeably does affect people for good, does not take an inordinate amount of time (it’s a summer project), and builds a truer sense of the expansive repertoire choices available to musicians today.

Happy repertoire finding!

*Note: It is difficult to truly ascertain gender identities of many historical composers, especially prior to the 20th century. LGBTQ representation among living composers is easier to identify if a composer chooses to publicly announce sexual orientation in a biography or other public document (a program note or interview), yet many composers who identify as such do not do so professionally. All this being said, about 7.1% of people identify as LGBTQ in the United States and 20.8% of Gen Z identify as such, which offers some benchmarks.

Music Alive: Resources and Curation for a 21st-Century Listener

To continue and answer in part a question from the last post (Baby Mozart), I ask here: If Mozart, Beethoven, Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Berio, and Boulez are all outdated, then where is the classical art form? What is happening in the 21st century for performers, composers, and most of all, listeners? There is excellent news: the tradition thrives in a way perhaps unheard of in centuries past. Thousands of composers and tens of thousands of performers, all trained to a professional level, play with ensembles around the world, write, produce, and arrange music in both the concert, film/media, and popular scenes, teach, advocate, and spread ideas through sound. The number of composer training programs, competitions, grant opportunities, music-based residencies, and calls for scores that repeat yearly or every few years numbers over 800, and many organizations see music as an avenue to promote messages of social advocacy for good. The sheer amount of opportunities for composers today is promising, but where is the music? Why do orchestras seem completely unaware of what surrounds them? Why do so many orchestras still carry a museum culture?

Perhaps awareness is difficult because it takes time to seek after great music in the riffraff of so many aspiring artists. Certain musicians do rise to the surface though. For example, an orchestra is looking for music with lots of style and excitement—why not commission Valerie Coleman, James Mobberley, or Christian Asplund? Or something thrilling and virtuosic like a piece based on the idea of video games from Andrew Norman or a percussion concerto from Chen Yi? An atmospheric, otherworldly exploration of sound? George Friedrich Haas or Kaija Saariaho would do. Something passionate, deeply personal, and timely? Lansing McLoskey or Alvin Singleton would be marvelous options. Or something simply beautiful and immediate by Hannah Lash or by recent Pulitzer Prize-winner Mary Ellen Childs (not all their music fits in this category, but orchestras seem to like the very accessible)? Or Stephen Hartke, Silvio Ferraz, Gabriel Bolaños, Augusta Read Thomas, Dave Rakowski, Amy Williams, David Felder, Panayiotis Kokoras, Mark Applebaum, Louis Karchin, or so many others? These are already accomplished composers who have been fortunate enough to get some big-name performances, so imagine how many younger composers also have something to offer if these were the highlights of the concert with young composers as the openers!

How do orchestras currently program their concerts? Let’s take a look at an unnamed symphony orchestra’s concert season for an example:

1. First, “Beethoven for the Generations” features only Beethoven to celebrate the legend’s 250th birthday. Of course, one concert is not enough to celebrate: this season will feature ALL nine symphonies and much more from him.

2. The next concert is titled “Beethoven, Brahms, and Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto.” There are four pieces: Brahms, Mendelssohn, [Vivian Fung], and Beethoven. Oh, there was a piece by a living composer, but our embarrassment of the piece left it out of the concert title and hid it in the middle of a cozy program of pieces heard so much that many in the audience have it memorized.

3. Next, “Bartok’s Concerto for Orchestra, Ax performs Beethoven.” This begins with Louis Andriessen’s The nine symphonies of Beethoven. Even invoking the name of Beethoven as a living composer doesn’t make the cut for a concert title…

4. “Zukerman plays Beethoven’s Violin Concerto,” and Beethoven overshadows Janacek (early 1900s) and even our beloved Mozart.

5. “Beethoven’s Mass in C” has a Haydn and Beethoven sandwich with some James MacMillan (living composer) hidden inside.

6. “Schumman’s ‘Rhenish’ and Beethoven’s Fourth Piano Concerto” is the concert title that excludes Samuel Barber, indisputably one of the most popular American composers ever.

7. “Beethoven’s Fourth Symphony and Midori Plays Dvorak” features the two listed and, oops we forgot Anna Clyne (recent Pulitzer Prize winner).

8. The only mention of a post-1945 composer happens in a celebration of a violinist who played a modern piece by Dutilleux, but wait… “Tchaikovsky, Beethoven, and Tree of Dreams.” At least the piece title is catchy enough to hide a composer’s name that some wouldn’t recognize (and during the concert, Dutilleux’s piece is sandwiched between the big shots from on average 150 years ago).

To sum up the entire concert season’s promotion: yikes.

One solution for this serious issue is the concept of curation. The word has popped up lately among composers and performers, and it deserves further investigation. To curate is to borrow the model that art museums use to showcase their works. A museum sets expectations for the experience, organizes its art into logical categories, provides historical context, and includes knowledgeable historians and other specialists to answer questions. Each museum has a different standing collection and rotates through visiting exhibits. One could consider the standing exhibit the pieces that museum uniquely owns. Could this not translate into the musical experience? Let’s try a new concert season:

1. It’s Beethoven’s 250th birthday! Let’s celebrate with “Regards to Beethoven by the Great Masters of Today.” We commission three composers (or find composers who have already written pieces about Beethoven, like Louis Andriessen), and have a night of homages to our historic forefather. To give some context, the first piece is by Beethoven, followed by the three new pieces (none of them are too long because we all have shorter attention spans these days…). Oh, and no more Beethoven after this—this concert will sell out because Beethoven is the visiting exhibit.

2. “20/20 Vision: Looking to the Future.” We can start with some Messiaen piece with a religious looking forward or maybe one of the Futurists from the early 1900s, then go with two pieces about social issues of today such as climate change or a more equal society. Could music be relevant to today by speaking on issues that matter today?

3. “America, the Beautiful.” It is shocking to me how little investment our orchestras have in playing music written by composers within our own country. Do we really need to import so much culture that is alien to our own? Charles Ives, Elliott Carter, Milton Babbitt, Steve Reich, Phillip Glass, John Cage (not 4:33 unless they really want to do it), John Adams, Augusta Read Thomas, and Jennifer Higdon are easy choices that orchestras need not dig deep in their libraries to find. But let’s add some lesser-known yet highly influential voices in there. Most of the composers I listed at the top can showcase craftsmanship in the United States.

4. “The Fast and the Furious: Concerto Night.” One night of some of the most aggressive, hardcore, virtuosic pieces with the top soloists. A world premiere would build the hype if both the composer and the soloist had a reputation for it.

5. “Stealing Styles: Jazz, Rock, and Pop in the Orchestra.” We’ll give them some Gershwin and then switch it up with some more contemporary music that incorporates popular idioms into concert music (and there is lots of this nowadays).

6. “Who We Are.” This concert will consciously represent the diversity of contemporary composers who are of top caliber. This is not an affirmative action-type event but a realistic showcase of American musical identity. We have fantastic composers of many backgrounds writing in many styles, and this concert clearly shows the influence. This could even be a goal for a concert series…

7. “Deep Listening.” For the mindfulness people, John Luther Adams’s Become Ocean could launch a concert that focuses on color. And audience members could be encouraged to really relax and make the experience comfortable and meditative (lie on the floor?).

8. “The Grand Finale.” It’s the end of the season! The ballet and the local chorus join the orchestra for a world premiere closer with two or three epic pieces to lead into the work. This concert is intended to be the shot heard ‘round the world. People will know about this concert on the news and then look back to see that the entire concert season was filled with exciting projects with lots of documentation for publicity. As the next season is prepared, people will plan to travel for miles, donors will be caught in the excitement for doing something different, and music will seem like a living art form much more than a rusting, disorganized museum.

Is this too idealistic? To further support this vision, people need to know what they are getting into. The advertising hits YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and elsewhere with up-to-date advertising. Bite-size musical excerpts float around everywhere with cliffhangers. Members of the orchestra are the ones being interviewed in promotional materials (not the conductor every time) and speak about how exciting it is to be part of something different and bold. Photos of the composers pop up on all visuals, showing the selection of contemporary composers that the listeners will hear. Marketing connects with different demographics than the 70+ by considering popular topics (orchestras so missed a great opportunity several years ago with the zombie craze, for example! We have so much music about the undead and the macabre!!). At concerts, members of the orchestra stand in the concert lobby afterwards to meet the guests and talk about the music experience (again, in addition to the conductor). The pre-concert experience has video footage playing while people get into their seats that shows the promotions that got them there in more depth: interviews with performers, composers, the conductor, etc. (starting a half hour before showtime). The videos are setting the stage for the concert experience, just like a movie theater prepares its viewers by getting them immersed in cinema before the movie begins. People outside the door are trained musicologists and theorists who answer questions about the concert program, with visible identification such as a name badge or even a visitors information booth. And right after intermission, the conductor gets podium time to welcome everyone to the concert, ask how far people have traveled to the concert, and to set the mood for the last piece with some artful prose (not a lecture). Music presented in such a natural context, without apologies before genuinely valuable new art, would change the atmosphere of orchestra life.

In an age that prizes the new, orchestras would have something to offer. Listeners, performers, donors, academics, and composers would all thrive off the energy of this new concert experience. There is no catch; this is all reasonable. The technology is easy, the resources are waiting, and, most importantly, an eager audience can be reached that would genuinely love this concert experience. Yes, not every piece would be loved by the audience. But with so much context and preparation, they will at least appreciate the vision of the artist. Nevertheless, chances are that as orchestras redefine the concert experience, listeners will redefine theirs. They will broaden their idea of what music is. It is more than notes on a page or structures in major and minor. It is the fingerprint of one human experience, the embodiment of a time, place, and culture, the study of sound in time, the expression of humanity, the vision of something more, the dream of something that was or could have been. It is a deep connection to the spiritual and subconscious, sometimes seeking in sound the deepest of mental and emotional states. It is vulnerability and severity at times, and though uncomfortable at first, the most beautiful experience can be had in sailing in the imaginations of the artists who live the same digital-age life as the listener and share or differ in the perspectives and problems of the current age. Music of this caliber has worth, more than any previous age’s artwork can. Let museum orchestras handle the 19th-century Germans. Bold orchestras will accept a true challenge to upgrade to the 21st century listening experience.

Culture and Music-Making (Something to Say Pt. III)

Music-making throughout history was almost always associated with social or religious events. Music accompanied private parties, dances, public celebrations, story-telling entertainment, processions, masses, devotional events, and so forth. In the Western tradition, the music we chart out as the "classical" tradition, is rooted in the Christian polyphonic style, which emerged from music intended for the mass and other religious ceremonies and rites. Rather than include congregational singing, specialized choirs participated in these ceremonies and very quickly took on the virtuosic challenges of their composer contemporaries. This style branched out to a secular strain of "classical" music, most often heard within the courts of kings and lords. We must not forget that during this time, traveling musicians presented a more folk-like tradition of music. Surely hundreds of thousands of songs were also not recorded in these times when notation had yet to reach its current state.

With the formation of opera, music attained a new role in coordination with theater. While sacred music dramas existed earlier, opera swept quickly across Europe as a predominant strain of music. To accompany this spectacle, large groups of musicians were often hired, being the foundation for the modern orchestra (coming from the Greek word for the space reserved for musicians in ancient Greek dramas). Churches and kingly courts took up the orchestra, and between the opera hall, church, and courts, much of the so-called "masterpieces" of music were formed during the Baroque and Classical periods.

Nevertheless, a strange shift occurred as the orchestra approached the stage. At some point, orchestral music took a life of its own, becoming the highlight of the stage itself. Also, as printing costs reduced considerably with the printing press, a strain of amateur music-making began that opened up a new possibility for music to be a private experience, as it was for the king. While the latter likely remained a familial or friend-centered social experience at this time, the orchestra in isolation on the stage became a peculiar situation. Music was not accompanying an event; it was the event. Western music started to develop its own culture and following, creating its own rules and expectations. This trend developed incredibly with the freelance work of composers such as Beethoven, who placed music itself as the powerhouse of meaningful experience.

The market for this "music for music's sake" launched the careers of the most-celebrated Romantic-era composer/performers. Liszt and Paganini in particular took their skills, booked concerts, and created a musical experience for their audiences. Orchestras popped up in the main music centers of Europe, and many other cities followed suit to keep up. These cultural roots still bear hold in places such as Berlin, where music of this tradition (including the 21st-century strains of it) are constantly performed.

Then came the 20th century with its innovations. By this point, some orchestras included around 100 members to tackle Wagner and Stravinsky, and small ensemble music, including a strong tradition of art song and piano music, was commonplace. But the invention of sound recording created another dramatic turn for the musical experience. The recording enabled the listener to have a completely private experience as a listener, detached from both the social and performance aspect of the art form. The cultural context of the concert hall or of amateur music-making provided a social setting for the musical experience, but listening to a gramophone recording provided a unique experience. At first, people who could not afford to attend the real concert dressed up to attend a gramophone concert, sitting in front of this piece of technology as it played a distorted version of the real experience. But technological advances allowed for mass reproduction and gave each person their own little orchestra (and later on their own Louis Armstrong or Elvis Presley). The radio then could transmit this same experience across the nation, providing a private experience extrapolated from a public event happening elsewhere or as abstracted studio recording event. At some point, stores and restaurants began playing music, cars could catch radio signals, audio devices became really small and portable, and music's cultural context became not only for a special event but for every second of every day, even if not willed.

With the changed and minimized cultural context of music, it becomes difficult to ascertain the music concert's value. Why should someone go to a concert hall if they can hear the music at their home, with a seemingly perfect recording? One method concert music organizers have used is a museum approach. They will perform the classic (so-called) masterpieces from 100-400 years ago so as to culture their audience. This post-modernistic approach to music-making is one of the most bizarre cultural experiences we have. We go to a concert hall to listen to something written hundreds of years ago, intended for a specific audience who lived in a very specific time and place with its own cultural implications, and we attempt to somehow pretend that the orchestral experience is innovative and up-to-date with society (is this considered part of the taboo cultural appropriation of today?).

Sure, the museum approach is a great way to celebrate our heritage, but it seems to be a music experience isolated from the outside cultural reality. Thousands of good composers live today across the globe, and they write music that ranges from accessible to complex, all being highly intellectual and emotionally powerful (I am talking about the "good" composers, however you may define it). These are people who live in our society today and write music within the fabric of our culture. Folk traditions influenced classical composers throughout the history of our tradition; what do we miss when we exclude music that is influenced by jazz, rock, electronic, pop, hip hop, or even rap music from our concerts? And what of the contributions of non-Western musical elements to this tradition? Excellent composers have incorporated these stylistic features in highly nuanced ways that both continue the classical tradition while maintaining a cultural relevance today. Orchestral programmers know that the current film and video game concert series are among their best ticket-sellers, so why not trust that carefully chosen contemporary composer concerts, that comprise even half of a concert series, would gain new, young, and vibrant audience? Yes, I believe that music can be enjoyed for its own merit, but if we isolate it from its cultural context, we lose a great deal of meaning. 

On Universals (Something to Say Pt. II)

As I mentioned in the previous post, the first rule of academic writing is to avoid superlatives at all costs. "Always" and "never" are almost always asking to be rebutted and almost never help an argument. This especially rings true in music. Sounds are intangible, and we as listeners largely perceive music based on prior experience and learning. Some ethnomusicologists assert that it is almost impossible to understand the music of a different culture because the preconceived notions we carry with us permanently taint our perspectives. Each person will comprehend and enjoy music of any style and variety based on their upbringing (and surely some of that nature that accounts for individual personality differences).

Despite this strong argument, I cannot help but point to certain universals that underpin any sonic experience. These, in and of themselves, are not emotional, but they do have potential to "play with the heartstrings." In fact, some composers treat the compositional process like a game or a riddle to solve, and many musicologists would point to Beethoven as one of these in how he treated musical form. The primary universal (and the only one I feel confident about) is that there is an opposition in all things. The most basic sonic opposition is between sound and silence. Composers must deal with this question, and different cultures take it in different ways. Balinese Gamelan avoids silence during the performance due to traditional beliefs, and Western music emphasizes silence. Indian Carnatic music abolishes silence altogether with a continuous drone that sounds before the first audience members enter the room. While each culture treats silence differently, there is, at the very least, the potential for this opposition to become a factor in the music.

Carnatic music demonstrates the essential opposition between stasis and activity. Our brains are designed to give attention to the most active parts of our surroundings. Hopefully, the music at a concert performance takes this active role the moment the baton falls. Yet, after some time, some aspects of the music take on a passive role due to sameness. Composers and performers, in response to this natural phenomenon, must ensure that their music contains enough variety to sustain interest. Every variation to the music arises out of opposition to something else. High or low, loud or soft, fast or slow, clarinet or violin, muted or overblown, consonant or dissonant, major or minor (or whole-tone or octatonic), choppy or sustained, groovy or floating: these are some of the tools musicians work with. This game of oppositions becomes as simple or as complex as the musician desires it to be, and each culture deals with opposition in its unique ways.

Nevertheless, a caveat exists in this game. When is there too much variety? The brain can only process so much information before the music becomes incomprehensible. Novice composers may vary their music to the point that the variation becomes sameness (and thus static and boring). A good friend pointed out that perhaps the key to writing music is establishing a sense of consistency and tactfully working to build in musical surprises. I believe in this principle as well, and I also believe that the more familiarity one has with a style of music, the more attuned one is to the subtle surprises at play. For example, a Western musician may have great difficulty hearing the difference between common scales in the Middle East because of the melodic limitations of a twelve-note collection. Also, people from non-Western cultures may not find much satisfaction in Western music's harmonic flow because their primary musical style sustains interest in other ways. Repeated, active listening attunes the ear to some of these differences.

To me, an understanding of how opposing forces interact in music is essential for anyone who engages in music as a musician or listener, even if at a subconscious level. It easily maps onto the human experience, in which each of us deals with variety and sameness (the brain is wired this way). So, from this angle, can someone enjoy music, despite its origin and their understanding? Definitely. Will some education help them enjoy it more? Surely. Will a product of one's immediate culture have the greatest impact? Perhaps. But they can certainly enjoy other styles too.