Misconceptions Underplay Western Ways of Musicking: A Hermeneutic Investigation.

Abstract

This paper draws on a hermeneutic project to reflect on culturally developed notions that distance individuals from their intrinsic musicality. Participant experience offers insight into misconceptions of human musicality in Western communities where unrecognised cultural directives label musical beings as either musical or non-musical. Embedded in language, cultural influences restrict free musicking such that everyday practices inhibit the development of musical skills and dictate life-long inhibition. I argue that to ignore this phenomenon is to perpetuate an unnecessary and harmful reduction of human being.