Music and Democracy: A Tale of nature and Contrivance

Abstract

Regarding music and democracy, one is likely to ask: what has a goldfish in common with the canary? Or what has Athens got to do with Jerusalem? In grouping the disciplines according to university curriculum of studies, music is the queen of the arts while democracyas a system of governance has a better footing in the social sciences. Without prejudice to whatever we hold dear concerning these two conceptual entities, this article casts more than a cursory glance at the two, to find out if there are truths that might be of interest while we advance the cause of each. The starting point is to consider the nature of their origins, their purposes and the experiences they nurture. The findings are revealing. Music is as old as man and so, assumes the status of a necessary human good. Democracy as a recent human invention and being fraught with an endemic pursuit of selfish interests of individuals and nations, can, at its best, be a necessary evil. But, even the realization of this deficient best is as elusive as the concept which refuses to mean one thing as it is practised from nation to nation.