Speaking in Sounds: on the Globalisation of Music and Intercultural Communications

Abstract

This thesis examines cultural encounters from a musical perspective. Developments of musical traditions can illustrate the tensions between distinct cultures as a result of unequal power dynamics. Inappropriate ideas of authenticity, language barriers, misrecognition of cultural identities and inabilities to understand different cultural perspectives of the human experience tend to uphold intercultural tensions. A musical interpretation of Charles Taylor’s “The Politics of Recognition” and Hans-Georg Gadamer’s Truth and Method will show how music can function as a valuable medium for intercultural communications.