Aurality

Writing assignment for Ethnomusicology: History and Theory with David Samuels

Ana Maria Ochoa Gautier (2014) Aurality: Listening and Knowledge in Nineteenth-Century Colombia. Durham: Duke University Press.

Aurality

The nineteenth-century Colombian writing discussed by Ochoa Gautier, like Western convention generally, opposes “art” and “folk” musics. “Art” music is comprised of works created by named authors, transmitted visually via scores, and speaking to transcendent experience beyond mundane reality. The work is an autonomous object that can be considered free of context. “Folk” music is a mass of common property, transmitted orally/aurally, and is of a part with daily life. Indeed, the folk object only makes sense in its social and cultural context. The folkloric voice is authorless, and therefore lacks authority. While the aesthesis of folklore may represent an ideal of “heightened sensorial perception and emotional expressivity” (172), its anonymity and adherence to tradition limits its potential for creativity.

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