Response to Richard Widdess: Music, Meaning and Culture

Abstract

This commentary discusses the anthropological implications of Richard Widess’ paper by summarizing some anthropological approaches to music, especially focusing on the way musical participation inculcates and transmits an aesthetic orientation that guides action across cultural domains such as politics, economics and religion. The paper ends by suggesting that the heart of human culture is more likely to be an aesthetic orientation than a script or set of rules, and traces out some reasons why music does this so well.

Keywords

• Ba Yaka Pygmy
• identity
• cultural transmission
• aesthetics and culture