Who
Cares
about
Music?
Issues
of
Value
Given
the
enormity of young people's concerns, who cares about music?
Why do I harp
on
this aspect
of
life? In this book I have tried to emphaSize
the range
that
music and dance have to offer and, further, have empha-
sized
the
value of participatory music and dance as, by design,
the
most
potentially available to
the
most people.
So
who
cares?
One
of
the
first things adults
in
the United States ask
when
they initially
meet
is
"What do you do?" and they expect to hear about profeSSional oc-
cupation,
not
the
fact
that
you are an avid tennis player, gardener, kayaker,
231
CHAPTER EIGHT
contra dancer, or garage-band guitarist if
the
activity
is
not
the
means of
your livelihood, even
if
it
is
at
the
center
of
your life.
Work
is considered se-
rious, important, and basic to identity;
leisure,
by definition,
is
less impor-
tant
and
to
be
fit
in
around work. These two culturally relative concepts
strongly shape how people
in
the
capitalist cosmopolitan formation spend,
conceptualize, and value their time, which
is
to
say,
their lives.
The ethics
that
promote economic competitiveness
as
the key to suc-
cess deemphasize another necessary side of being successful
and
happy:
the
social bonding, nurturing, and cooperation
upon
which
adult
as
well
as infant survival depends. There is a saying
in
the
United States
that
"few
people on
their
deathbeds wished
they
bad
spent
more time
in
the office."
Yet
many people do
not
live day
to
day with this thought
i))
mind
, and
th
underlying confusion
of
exchange value with
value
in
general
powerfully
influences many fields
of
social practice.
It
is
striking
how
few aspects
of
life
the
music business students were able name
that
should
not
be
associ-
ated
with
money.
By
contrast, Anthony Seeger
(1979)
describes how
the
Suya
of
the
Am-
azon rain forest are able to
meet
their
subsistence needs
in
relatively few
hours a day and
how
they spend a large portion of their time
in
ceremony,
music making, dancing, and other social activities. Nonprofessional, non-
specialized music making, dancing, sports (e.g., log rolling), and ceremo-
nies are centrally
important
occupations
in
this society, reversing
the
"liv-
ing to work" ethos to one of working so
that
they can live expressive social
lives. In
the
Aymara peasant communities of Conima, Peru, reciprocity
rather
than
competition constitutes a foundational habit
of
thought
that
influences many fields
of
social practice. Acts
of
reciprocity and
the
idea of
cause
and
effect in relation to
the
Earth,2 spiritual forces, and other com-
munity members pervade daily social life. For Aymara peasants, daily life
is
hard,
but
this
is
balanced
with
festivals
on
the
average of once a
month
in
which communal musical performance and davcing are highly valued
activities
that
bring joy
and
excitement to life.
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