Excerpt from Chapter 4: The Glamorization of Music & Decline of Music Making in Western Culture

“What is happening to raw music? Some people would rather listen to techno than create raw music. The very magic of synchronizing group music and dance is going away. A lot of tribal dance was dancing the same steps to create togetherness with the raw backbeat and magic that only drums, flutes, bells, stings, and singing can create. Dancing to a computer can never be the same to me. “
Johnny, Denver, CO

Making music together has shifted from a community sharing to a profession that has alienated the larger community from a very real and basic human experience. It has become a lost art form, something “scary” for non-musicians or “ordinary” people, and unfamiliar even to trained musicians in any out of context way. Many trained musicians can’t improvise, don’t know how to play from the moment or their heart. In this shift, we have lost something very valuable and indescribable. We’ve lost an inclusiveness, an openness and a willingness to “play” with each other, and in that, there has been a loss of intimacy and connection. The musical experience is more and more now dictated by the performer or DJ, more or less, and the opportunity to experience true group expression thru chanting, music making and story telling is more or less non-existant in the vast majority of bars, nightclubs or music venues. Music has become far more of a spectator sport and a commercial venture than a simple sharing of the human spirit. In my perspective, the commercialization of music is a major contributor to an overall feeling of dis-empowerment in ordinary, everyday people in relation to their own connection with music. For many adults, music was maybe in their lives as children, but for one reason or another they gave it up before they left highschool and never touched an instrument after that. Perhaps they quit because they didn’t think they were “good enough,” or “serious enough” or maybe because there is this illusion that everything we do has to be for profit, and playing music “just for fun” isn’t enough of a good reason to do it when there are bills to pay and mouths to feed.

As a society, we are taught that we “Go and see” music, that there is an “appropriate” place to “go and see” music (bars, nightclubs, etc.), and that we have to “Pay” to see people “Perform” or “Pay” to have lessons for the priveledge of learning. The free sharing of information that happens in more traditional cultures with music, the passing on, generation to generation of rhythms, songs, dances and musical etiquette, just isn’t always prevalent in the western culture. It has been a progression over time of commercial interests, again need and greed on the part of artists, and corporations, and the seemingly always present concept of the western mindset that everything has a price and can be bought and/or sold. Music and the arts have suffered tremendously from this way of being as it has shifted the consciousness of creativity from one of a playful exploratory child to a business man making deals that please the audience.

It is difficult to really imagine, now for many of us, that there was a time when music wasn’t a commodity, a specialized “skill” or a game of money. There was a time, and it still exists in some tribal communities, that music was simply for the sake of music, a way of life and a part of life. It wasn’t relative if you had a “look” or not, or how much you could turn on the opposite sex, it didn’t matter what kind of clothes you wore or who you “knew,” and you didn’t need to know every mode, scale or methodology to be an active participant, whatever piece you felt to contribute, dance, story, song, drumming, was equally valued and appreciated as a part of the whole.

“Serious music, which sticks to the strict, life inhibiting rules of harmonics and the twelvetone system is not capable of creating a new culture." (Grandpierre) Both classical and contemporary music "expect the audience's pregiven consent and forebearance. There are no participants here, just performers and listeners. Fake 'folk music', beyond its commercial uses is only good for damaging the word 'folk' and for frightening as many people as possible away from true 'folk music' Let's add to this the sleep inducing hits of light/pop music and we can say that the overwhelming part of today's music is quite simply only good for exposing man to his own misery and for manipulating him so that he can be even more manipulated. The music that used to be so vigorous and alive that neither man nor animal could free himself from its magical power is now a disemboweled mammoth on tip-toes." (14, p. 24)
Grandpierre, Hungary


In general, in the 20th century, the mainstream culture in the west has gone deeply into the capitalism of music and away from the concept of music for the people, by the people thru this process of “glamorization” of music, the artists and the whole lifestyle around it. “The history of the American Music Industry is a disheartening one, which largely details the exploitation of artists and musicians by opportunists and those without the musician's best interests at heart.” (16) Rock, pop and hip hop in particular have created an idolization of a lifestyle that is for the most part (there are exceptions of course) a relatively unhealthy one that is overly glamorized and filled with drugs, alcohol, sex, guns, and vanity. Just watch a few minutes of MTV or VH1, or look in a pop magazine and see what is being portrayed to our youth and the entire population as “Cool,” and you can easily get a concept of what is being “sold” en masse to mainstream society and in particular to our youth.

I do recognize that there are artists who break this stereotype, I know several personally and greatly admire their inner resolve to set a good example in an industry that sets a lot of poor examples of integrity, community and self respect. The reality is those artists, overall, get a lot less media attention, and a lot less exposure to the people who really need to hear their messages and see their examples. Many of them are preaching to the choir really, performing for people who are already somewhat aware of their messages and in support of them. In the past few years, it seems there are more and more up and coming artists who are realizing the power they hold to influence their listeners and are making wonderful contributions to the world thru their arts. I look forward to the emergence of more of those beings. I also appreciate those elder artists, such as Bono, of U2 who are setting positive examples by using their influence, money and success to launch humanitarian projects and serve the world.