
The Emperor’s New Music: The high stakes of popular music in ancient China - tintinnabula
https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/music/emperors-new-music
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sevensor
So what do our popular melodies say about the mood of the people? Is the music
you listen to in your headphones while you write code analogous to the songs
of peasants in the field?

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tqkxzugoaupvwqr
I don’t think it’s analogous. While the music you listen to can offer an
insight into your mood and state of mind, practically all music we listen to
today is composed by artists, and none originates from everyday people. There
are no songs from secretaries or bakers or cashiers or programmers lamenting
or celebrating life.

In contrast to our popular music that is created by a small number of (often
the same) people and distributed commercially (forced on the populace), slave
music seems to be analogous to what is described in the article. It originated
directly from affected people and helps them to vent, gather hope and strength
and let’s them dream.

I wonder what future historians will say about our music. In my opinion,
popular music is crafted to create superficial desires that can’t be fulfilled
and lead to more consumption because of feelings of inadequacy.

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perl4ever
Artists and everyday people are mutually exclusive? I think there's a lot of
music created by ordinary people - it's what you might call the "long tail" of
the distribution, people who survive on "day jobs" and don't make platinum
records but continue to make music. And things like Youtube have made it
easier for someone ordinary to reach people with their music.

