The Music of "Community"
Published on Nov 28, 2017
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PRESENTATION OUTLINE
What is Community Music
- Music as "Hospitality" (Higgins, 2012)
- What do you think? Let's hear you.
- Why is this different than any other category of music?
Photo by steven w
"Community"
- From old French "comuneté," from the Latin communitas "community", "public spirit" (from Latin communis, "shared in common")
- What are the problems with this concept and word?
- Shouldn't we just be able to share if we have commonality? Let's try it EXPERIMENT #1 - share a song
But, is this what we actually mean? The word itself "community" is problematic because in our world it is a chameleon of meaning. The Wiki article this definition was taken from also says this:
Although communities are usually small relative to personal social ties (micro-level), "community" may also refer to large group affiliations (or macro-level), such as national communities, international communities, and virtual communities. (Wikipedia)
So, it's what? A few people who are linked by something personal or a lot of people linked by what?
So, we still don't really have a definition since it says it's some of us or it's a lot of us, maybe all of us.
Although communities are usually small relative to personal social ties (micro-level), "community" may also refer to large group affiliations (or macro-level), such as national communities, international communities, and virtual communities. (Wikipedia)
So, it's what? A few people who are linked by something personal or a lot of people linked by what?
So, we still don't really have a definition since it says it's some of us or it's a lot of us, maybe all of us.
Photo by tim caynes
Language - Unspeak
- "Community" as Unspeak
- can mean several things at once, or nothing at all. It can conjure things that don't exist, and deny the existence of those that do. It can be used in celebration, or in passive-aggressive attack. Its use in public language is almost always evidence of an Unspeak strategy at work.
Unspeak is a term coined by Stephen Poole in his 2007 book
Unspeak: How Words Become Weapons, How Weapons Become a Message, and How That Message Becomes Reality
an attempt to say something without saying it, without getting into an argument and so having to justify itself. At the same time, it tries to unspeak—in the sense of erasing, or silencing—any possible opposing point of view, by laying a claim right at the start to only one choice of looking at a problem.
That is, unspeak limits our ability to see an issue from many perspectives by privileging one perspective.
Examples:
Pro-life and Pro-choice
Tax Burden and Tax Relief
The plasticity of community allows it to encompass geography, ethnicity, profession, hobby, or religion, and in the mouths of diplomats and journalists can expand to include everybody, as in the international community, a concept that Justice Antonin Scalia once described—rightly—as "fictional."
Unspeak: How Words Become Weapons, How Weapons Become a Message, and How That Message Becomes Reality
an attempt to say something without saying it, without getting into an argument and so having to justify itself. At the same time, it tries to unspeak—in the sense of erasing, or silencing—any possible opposing point of view, by laying a claim right at the start to only one choice of looking at a problem.
That is, unspeak limits our ability to see an issue from many perspectives by privileging one perspective.
Examples:
Pro-life and Pro-choice
Tax Burden and Tax Relief
The plasticity of community allows it to encompass geography, ethnicity, profession, hobby, or religion, and in the mouths of diplomats and journalists can expand to include everybody, as in the international community, a concept that Justice Antonin Scalia once described—rightly—as "fictional."
Photo by DocChewbacca
So, What Are We Really Trying to Say?
- "community" is unspeak
- "public" is almost as bad
- "public sphere" ?
- This reveals something else about what we hold as "community" and what we might mean
Community Music can probably better be described as "Public Music" . . . That is, music that revolves around concerns of the "public sphere"
the medium of talk"[3] and "a realm of social life in which public opinion can be formed".[4]
the medium of talk"[3] and "a realm of social life in which public opinion can be formed".[4]
Photo by Haley Powers
Public Sphere
- Virtual or Imagined and does not necessarily exist in identifiable space
- Discursive space - a place to gather and discuss common interest
- Where political participation is enacted in the form of talk
- A place to form public opinion
The public sphere (German Öffentlichkeit) is an area in social life where individuals can come together to freely discuss and identify societal problems, and through that discussion influence political action. The term was originally coined by German philosopher Jürgen Habermas who defined "the public sphere as a virtual or imaginary community which does not necessarily exist in any identifiable space".
Communication scholar Gerard A. Hauser defines it as "a discursive space in which individuals and groups associate to discuss matters of mutual interest and, where possible, to reach a common judgment about them".
The public sphere can be seen as "a theater in modern societies in which political participation is enacted through the medium of talk" and "a realm of social life in which public opinion can be formed". (Wikipedia Article, 2017)
Photo by Marc Sendra martorell
So we could say . . .
- CM is music of the public sphere, where political participation is enacted in the form of music
- What does this imply?
- In this way of thinking CM becomes the music of not just puclic forum, but actual "Common Good". CM=CG
It implies that for CM to exist at all there needs to be differences, different viewpoints or perspectives, actual borders to to walk along and boundaries to discuss. CM is less a genre of music as it is a way of being with one another, with our differences, through music.
CM Musicians are people who take the risk to sing and play across the differences. These are brave souls that gather their training from real world experiences with real people.
CM's way of looking into differences and singing across them to find commonality and common ground fits beautifully into the Canadian ideal. It speaks to a word that has fallen out of our public lexicon and therefore has an advantage of not being unspeak --- Common Good
CM Musicians are people who take the risk to sing and play across the differences. These are brave souls that gather their training from real world experiences with real people.
CM's way of looking into differences and singing across them to find commonality and common ground fits beautifully into the Canadian ideal. It speaks to a word that has fallen out of our public lexicon and therefore has an advantage of not being unspeak --- Common Good
Photo by Tony Fischer Photography
CM in a few words?
- Music is never about words. . . (other way around, right?)
- Then let's try it. . .
Photo by designsbykari
