MUSIC AS IMPERIALISM?

Abstract

There are uncountable but subtle ways through which imperialism still finds expression in developing nations long after they have celebrated political freedom. Music is one such way and much as this might sound startling, the ample evidence which suggests so, may not be dismissed without dishonesty or neglected without scandal. It is the position of this paper that music has become a veritable sociological tool for more than cultural expression. It equally serves as machinery for cultural expansion and domination from the conception of its subject matter to the ‘standardized’ methods of its teaching and learning. The universal character of music as a phenomenon contrasts with the restricted meaning and application of terms which are meaningful within a limited geographical expression. The overt cultural specifics which make world music uniquely one and many have been threatened by the unrelenting bid to impose, albeit without suspicion, a mono-cultural interpretation to the universal experience called music. As long and often as this happens, music assumes all the destructive darts and barbs of imperialism.