A Comparative Analysis of the Early Twentieth-Century Music Appreciation and Community Music Movements in the United States
Abstract
The music appreciation and community music movements sought to popularize, democratize, and socialize art music. While technology made it possible for anyone to listen to art music, its full aesthetic and social benefits seemed accessible only to those with talent and education in performance. Music appreciation proponents claimed that teaching active listening made it possible for the less talented, and those who needed to be taught to prefer art music to have a full musical-aesthetic experience without any training in self-performance. Community music proponents argued that music’s full benefits came from music making and worked to find ways to prove to Americans that talent was not a barrier, and that everyone not only could sing, and make music, but wanted to do so. Examining this debate about the nature of the musical experience challenges perceptions of the early twentieth-century classical music community as purveyors of a homogeneous musical-social tradition.