Etnomüzikoloji Dergisi

Yazarlar: Gökmen ÖZMENTEŞ

Konular:Müzik

Anahtar Kelimeler:Musical Taste,Taste Hierarchies,Cultural capital,Judging of music

Özet: Preferences for listening to any kind of music are ordinary daily attitudes; however, sociological mechanisms are the reasons why they are also cul- tural and social classification tools. Music has become a discrimination tool like many taste categories, the theoretical and aesthetic bases for which are quite weak. The reason for judging music with labels such as good or bad, developed or primitive and high or low is the struggle based on a number of ideological, cultural and economic indicators that music represents. Therefore, music seems to be in the midst of cultural comparisons and con- flicts as a representational element. Defining developing countries with the classical anthropological approach is not limited solely to economic indi- cators, it is defined in broad terms that include cultural products and types of manufacturing, which reveals the notion of cultural hierarchies. This perspective on the background of taste hierarchies in music has led to the domination of these hierarchies by a Eurocentric understanding. Thus, lis- tening to classical music has been coded as an activity of a well-educated and high-income classes’ superior culture. Genres other than classical mu- sic have been gradually arrogated to lower classes and a general table of taste hierarchy has been formed accordingly. This table has been accepted and canonized as quasi-sacramental, particularly in the field of education in Turkey, which has caused a serious conflict between cultural capitalist classes envisioned with refined taste and musical habitus in which society’s real music experiences are discussed. This conflict also feeds the environ- ment of cultural dualism. The aim of this study is to criticize and decon- struct its discourses using social theories and concepts.

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