Music as Exchange

Music is the glue that binds social relations: the excuse for a gathering of bodies; the common-ground in early conversations; the exciting way of sharing new information. Music becomes a commodity, not only in the market sense of record labels and merchandise. And although one's musical tastes can reflect social capital, symbolize status, or constitute-the-basis-for elitism, music also becomes the commodity of shared experience. The vehicle of cultural exchange, the bartered item through which each party gains something new, beneficial, engrossing. Sharing music with someone creates in the donor an upwelling of self-assured wisdom, of knowing what is good, of being ahead of the fattest part of the bell curve. When sharing produces a favorable response, the act also assures the donor of his virtue. He becomes the Wise Man: exalted and knowledgeable bearer of new gifts.

Receiving music produces a different sensation, although not an unconnected one. He who receives the information benefits from that surge of excitement when something new comes across his plate. That it comes from a reliable source, or a trusted friend, helps to mitigate the inherent uncertainty in listening to something new. “I may like this on a visceral level, but what about the social codes involved in displaying my like?” (We can debate another day if there is a visceral to draw upon.) When one receives a new CD in the mail from a friend, he feels the joy of received wisdom, he skips that first step of discernment and is able to judge not whether the album would suit his friends but whether it can provide some enjoyment on a personal level.

[ For while music is in many senses a social phenomenon – think of the musical act itself, the vast majority of which involves collaboration in playing multiple instruments/sounds, but all of which involves multiple persons to ferry those notes to a new pair of ears – for while music is in many senses a social phenomenon, it also exists for individual contemplation. Listening to music on headphones can provoke a smile at the exuberance of the recorded performances or it can elicit tears because of its heart-wrenching similarity to one's lived experience. It would be fallacious to say that any of these experiences are in-and-of-themselves personal – our emotions are always tied to events/memories/experiences at-one-time social – but I am referring to the act of listening, which can indeed be done singularly. ]

I'm thinking now of how, after cooking an omelet for several minutes, the cook pulls up its sides so that the uncooked egg pooling at the top may slide down the sides and be cooked in its turn. So does the music-lover's propensity to gobble up new sounds expand and take up the research once the avenue is provided by a friend. The act of sharing sparks in the donor the desire to discover new music himself, and subsequently, to become the donor in some future interaction.

Music's value of exchange extends beyond the interpersonal and into the intercultural. When I listen to music recorded in Ghana in the 1960s, I am transported to that invigorated moment of fresh independence. When I listen to Brazilian songs from the 1970s, I feel the commotion of that country in those violent years. All this is to say that music – like cinema – not only reflects the codes of its day but serves as a fossil of its birthing ground, an index of the confluence of historical forces at that moment. A vessel across the airwaves, transposed onto wax, and converted into zeroes and ones so that I may experience some of that moment today.

In each case, music's conductivity as an intra- and intercultural medium of exchange compels me to keep listening.