21 May
2025
21 May
'25
5:02 p.m.
On Wed, 21 May 2025, Bengt Gördén wrote:
I have been practicing music all my conscious life. My
father was basically
unmusical but not averse to it. He probably enjoyed that I enjoyed it. My
mother did not show much interest in music except for a few (about 10-20)
singles from the 60s. I played at her 50th, 60th and 70th birthdays and she
seemed happy and content with the way it sounded. I get a pretty high score
on the Barcelona Music Reward Questionnaire. Maybe there is something further
back in my family or I'm just a mutant.
I would suggest it be the other way around as mutations generally subtract
rather than add. All people are musical even if all they do is use it as
wall paper. Those who have trouble singing in tune are more likely the
ones hit by a mutation... or just lack of training/practice. Something
that doesn't stop them from enjoying music anyway.
However, I would suggest a lack of musicality has more to do with social
structure and expectations. Culture in other words. In many parts of the
world everyone sings if they can or not. Here we have been taught that
only musical people do that maybe in large part because music companies
(not "record" companies any more, media companies?) make money by telling
you that this one person is special and you should buy their music. After
all they are a "star" ... "star" being a word to marketting easier and
nothing more. So people are afraid to let people hear them make their own
music?
Perhaps prerecorded music has more to do with the demise of more
musicallity in the general population. I have read that before radio the
most common form of enetrtainment was making music as a family or joining
a mandolin ochestra.
So maybe being musical is normal. Wanting to create rather than consume is
the way humans should be...
For what its worth...
Len
--
Len Ovens
www.ovenwerks.net