TWENTIETH-CENTURY “ORALITY”

Chapter:

CHAPTER 10 Millennium's End

Source:

MUSIC IN THE LATE TWENTIETH CENTURY

Author(s):

Richard Taruskin

Yet at the same time another point emphasized throughout the present multivolume narrative has been the persistence of the oral tradition. It has never been fully supplanted in Western classical music or anywhere else. To learn any instrument one needs a live teacher who instructs as much by example as by verbal precept. We all know songs—including “composed” songs like “Happy Birthday” or “Take Me Out to the Ball Game”—that we learned by ear. No musical repertoire, not even the Beethoven symphonies, is wholly fixed and transmitted by its text; there are always unwritten performing conventions that must be learned by listening and reproduced (and that, like spoken languages, change over time).

Citation (MLA):

Richard Taruskin. "Chapter 10 Millennium's End." The Oxford History of Western Music. Oxford University Press. New York, USA. n.d. Web. 7 Sep. 2024. <https://www.oxfordwesternmusic.com/view/Volume5/actrade-9780195384857-div1-010005.xml>.

Citation (APA):

Taruskin, R. (n.d.). Chapter 10 Millennium's End. In Oxford University Press, Music in the Late Twentieth Century. New York, USA. Retrieved 7 Sep. 2024, from https://www.oxfordwesternmusic.com/view/Volume5/actrade-9780195384857-div1-010005.xml

Citation (Chicago):

Richard Taruskin. "Chapter 10 Millennium's End." In Music in the Late Twentieth Century, Oxford University Press. (New York, USA, n.d.). Retrieved 7 Sep. 2024, from https://www.oxfordwesternmusic.com/view/Volume5/actrade-9780195384857-div1-010005.xml