Cultural Contexts in Music

'Experiencing music together leaves the personal, individual, and interior domain unviolated. At the same time, the experience becomes public, shared, and exterior. Such reification of feeling and sensation, in turn, endows musical sound with a social existence coded as identity ("our" music) and with shared associations and connections coded as aesthetics (art).' (Qureshi, 2000,, p. 811) So, what she is saying here is similar to what Elliott says that music is situated and culturally based. Music is not only sonic sounds, it is the cultural issues behind it.

It was in February that I had this experience. I went to Symphony space for and Iranian concert which I knew the Musician from back home and I have never gone to his concerts before. It was my first time watching him playing live music. He is a very well-known Tanbur player and he is from Kurdistan one of our main provinces. Tanbur is a plucked instrument with three strings which has a very delicate femalish sound. Even the way they play it is fascinating, it gives you that feeling of stroking. Anyways... surprisingly, I did not enjoy the concert at all. To be honest, I became bored and inpatient.

Let us believe that music is situational. Then, I can explain why I did not enjoy the Iranian live music in New York. The main reason is that it became staged. I am not saying westernized, there are some differences between them, I am saying staged. We as Iranians listen to traditional Iranian music not in the concert halls but at homes with friends, after we finished our talks and eating food, after we discussed about all the everyday life matters, and after we finished dancing together. This is the moment that we altogether start singing the well-known traditional songs which also can be folkloric songs, or in other way, we put the music on and then we listen to it as a momentum. As can be presumed, it was not what was happening in symphony Space. Yes, it is true that the music was Iranian and even the instrumentalists were Iranian but the thing is that did it really give me the feeling of home in terms of listening to Iranian music as a cultural activity and not only the sounds? It even did not give me that nostalgic feeling of home.

Hence, if I as an Iranian felt that way, how could a person that is not Iranian like the music, or feel what we feel as an Iranian listening to Iranian music? I still do not know how people from all around the world receive music of other cultures. Yes, I sometimes listen to Indian or African or East Asian music, but do I feel the same way that their own people do? Clearly not. Then what is it that we still listen to their music and we go to the concert halls (a place which is not basically constructed for listening to other musical practices)?

Further on in her study, Qureshi, mentions a very interesting point, 'The social nature of musical experience is thus intertwined in a highly significant way with its personal, individual character. And if musical sound has the potential to "speak" socially as well as individually, then its sounds may turn out to be potent icons of social practice as well as personal experience. Music becomes as much a political tool as it is a language of feelings.' (ibid)

Thus, it is true that we might not receive the same messages that the aboriginal people do when they listen to their own music but we can create our own meaning, feeling and sensations (Susan, my dear fellow). However, I still cannot answer this question that why I still do not like Iranian music on stage? In a discussion in one of the courses I had, one of the students mentioned a very interesting point. The musicians also might listen to the hall manager about the selection of the music. They usually select the piece of music which is much easier to absorb by the audience than the "real" music itself. Yes, it still might sounds Iranian but the depth of the music is parallel to what the audience really want to listen to and not the original music.

To sum, music is situated, but we still can create our own music with its memories and social constructions. We can make our own culture, our own history and background. We are capable of making our own memories, not memories making us.