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Music may serve as a symbol in other ways, as well. It can represent nonmusical ideas or events (as in the symphonic poems of the German composer Richard Strauss), and it can underscore ideas that are verbally presented in operas (notably those of the German composer Richard Wagner), in film and television drama, and often in songs. It also symbolizes military, patriotic, and funerary moods and events. In a more general sense, music may express the central social values of a society. Thus, the hierarchical caste system of India is symbolized in the hierarchy of performers in an ensemble. The avoidance of voice blending in a Plains peoples singing group reflects the value placed on individualism. In Western music the interrelationship of conductor and orchestra symbolizes the need, in a modern industrial society, for strongly coordinated cooperation among various kinds of specialists.
The Musician
In most of the world's societies, musicianship requires talent, special knowledge or training, and effort, and the view is widespread that a successful musical work or performance is difficult to achieve. There is no evidence that superior musical abilities arise in one society or race as opposed to another; rather, variations in achievement are the result of differences in technology, in the degree of specialization of musicians, and in the value placed on music. Individual talent, however, is recognized among most peoples, and the musical specialist exists everywhere: as a true professional in the West, India, the Far East, and Africa; as an informal leader and singer in folk cultures; and as someone who also has supernatural power in tribal societies. But if music is regarded as indispensable everywhere, the musician has rarely enjoyed great prestige. In certain early societies in Europe and America, for example, musicians were regarded as undesirable social deviants; this remains the case in the present-day Middle East. In many societies music is relegated to outsiders—foreigners or members of religious and ethnic minorities. Many modern social systems, including those in the West, inordinately reward the outstanding “star” performer but pay little attention to the average musician. Nevertheless, musicianship in most parts of the world requires long periods of concentrated study, extending in the case of European and Indian virtuosos to some 20 years.
Musical Regions
Each culture has its own music, and the classical, folk, and popular traditions of a region are usually closely related and easily recognized as part of one system. The peoples of the world can be grouped musically into several large areas, each with its characteristic musical dialect. These areas include Europe and the West; the Middle East with North Africa; Central Asia and the Indian subcontinent; Southeast Asia and Indonesia; Oceania; China, Korea, and Japan; and the Americas (Native American cultures). All coincide roughly with areas determined by cultural and historical relationship, but, surprisingly, they do not correspond well with areas determined by language relationships.
The history of Western music—the one most easily documented because of Western musical notation—is conveniently divided into eras of relative stability separated by short periods of more dramatic change. The periods conventionally accepted are the Middle Ages (to c. 1450), the Renaissance (1450-1600), the baroque era (1600-1750), the classical era (1750-1820), the romantic era (1820-1920), and the modern period . Other cultures, less well documented, likewise have experienced change and development (not necessarily always in the direction of greater complexity), so that the simplest tribal musics also have their histories. In the 20th century, however, rapid travel and mass communication have led to a great decrease in the musical diversity of the world.
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