Tia Denora: Music as a Device of Social Ordering
Deidre Sheehan
Dr. Schmidt
Critical Pedagogy III
3 December 2009
Tia DeNora: Music as a Device of Social Ordering
Something I was drawn to in Tia DeNora’s article “Music as a Device of Social Ordering” was the data about music used strategically for retail and other such environments. As the use of technology in our society increases, music can be used to market products on TV, in stores, on the internet, on the radio, and even in other ways. Music is used on TV shows to further their image, it defines the image of private associations like pools or country clubs.
In other words, music has a utilitarian and strategic use in society that is increasing all the time and differs somewhat from the use of music in previous generations. The question becomes, do we teach students to be savvy to this use of music? Do we teach them to manipulate it? If most of our students will not become musicians by trade; more likely, more of them will be business, marketing, communications, and salespersons, shouldn’t we be teaching music as it will connect to their future lives?
For some reason I felt a sense of trepidation as I thought this. I think it has to do with the word “manipulate”. The idea of teaching the very young to manipulate anything seems to make me nervous somehow, but the more I ration it, I can’t think of any practical reason why young people shouldn’t be aware of the uses of music they will encounter in society. In another class we have been examining the article “Music’s Dangers and the Case for Control” by Taruskin, in which he asks the reader to consider who takes music more seriously: the person with a laissez-faire attitude towards music or the person who attempts to control it? There is something in this. Perhaps because I know what power music can exert over the emotions I am nervous that young people would more fully understand that music, to the companies that solicit them, is not a precious measure of identity but merely utilitarian. I think I hesitate to dissolution.
However, that dissolutionment could have power. If we teach students to understand how music plays into their construction of their own identities, and also teach them to recognize how the media and industry seek to manipulate that identity through their music, we might manage to develop students with a more solid self-concept and better self-esteem. If students understand first how and which music is a part of their identity and why, the use of that music by others might not have as strong a pull on their emotions as it would have when music’s role in their lives was more of a mystery. Students might no longer feel the need to look and act a certain way as strongly; they might know themselves better and more solidly and feel better about themselves. Of course this might be an overly optimistic view, but it is certainly an avenue worth exploring in Music Education.
The final question that comes from this discussion is whether or not it is really our job was music educators to teach students the consumerist aspects of music. The more music becomes related to technology, the more ways music functions in students’ lives and the more ways we might teach music. Yet, there is always the question in Music Education of when we get to do music just for music’s sake in music education. Shouldn’t we sometimes just make music together? Isn’t that, ultimately, why we all love music? These are big questions and they will certainly not be answered in one sitting. Tia DeNora makes powerful connections and conclusions in her article, and from these come questions that we as music educators must answer.
DeNora, Tia. “Music as a Device for Social Ordering” Music in Everyday Life. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, UK, 2000.
Taruskin, Richard. “Music’s Dangers And The Case For Control”. New York Times 9 December 2001.
