Question

Explain briefly how music and culture are interrelated.

Answer 1

Music and culture are interrelated because music can be considered the "language" of a culture. Music has been known to connect people for generations and has been known as a form of telling stories.

Answer 2

 I believe music is a “universal language” shared among all people of a country. In the United States, we have music that we identify our cities, heritage, and collective historical events with. Music has affected many aspects of culture—as a means to communicate joy, anger, protest, war, and persuasion. Therefore, universally, music is a means to express culture in a way others can understand. 

Bridging the differences in culture is another powerful component of music. I will bring in a personal story here to help explain (and I like sharing personal stories too!). Many years ago, as I was studying at my University, I worked in a domestic assault shelter. During this time, I had many women and children from different countries (U.S., India, Africa, and some Philippine children I think) staying at our shelter. One interesting observation that I had when watching the children at play together, was when the musical instruments were brought out (tambourines, fun kazoos, and we had an old piano in the hall that one of the staff members did an awesome job at playing) they all would join together in dancing and laughing. When the children participated in other activities such as puzzles, games, etc. the occurrence of disagreements happened quite often (frustration in understanding game rules, etc). The significance could be hypothesized and tested of course, but simply observing the beauty and power of music as a bonding tool was awesome!