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I chose to depict someone listening to music, with all of these different symbols representing parts of music and culture. The notes, treble clef, and time signatures represent musical notation and what they are hearing; the heart represents love and emotion; the people holding hands represents community and connection; and instruments like guitar, trumpet, flute, piano keys, mixing board, maracas, and djembe represent different musical cultures.

I was short on time, so I lined and colored it in with pencils, rather than digitally like I planned.

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Something that has definitely influenced my own musical preferences and what I listen to is where I grew up. Because of being raised in the United States, most of what I heard as a kid was American music on the radio, or CDs that my parents liked. If I grew up in Pakistan like my parents did, I probably would not listen to the amount of indie rock and jazz that I do now, or be a fan of the same artists, due to the level of exposure and how the culture there is so different. Sure, I could still end up using Spotify and finding new music to listen to, but who’s to say that I would develop the same preferences?

For me, the only exposure I really have to music of my family’s culture is through Coke Studio videos and Bollywood movies. I haven’t explored it much in my life because of how American music has felt all-important. Growing up in the US meant I was introduced to learning to play instruments through an American, European-based way. I loved getting to play in band throughout my school years. I got to learn to play the clarinet, improve my music-reading skills, explore percussion instruments, and more. Music wasn’t that big in either of my parents’ families because they grew up in a conservative sect of Islam where music is generally discouraged. If I were raised in Pakistan, maybe I could have had an opportunity to master tabla or sitar, but the chances are slim. I feel lucky in some aspects to have had the musical education I got here, despite the Western bias. (274 words)

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To research my critical question, I read through about 7 sources total (4 of which are in my annotated bibliography) and created a survey to send to my peers, whose responses I recorded and examined.
It turns out that there are plenty of ways that culture and upbringing affect music perception. One big way is through familiarity and exposure. When someone has been exposed to music from mainly one culture, they are only going to be able to recognize the structures and characteristics associated with the music from that particular culture. There was a study performed in 2019 that compared Western listeners and the Tsimane’, an indigenous group of people in the Bolivian Amazon basin that had limited exposure to Western music. The study found that the Tsimane’ didn’t perceive tones that were an octave apart as being the same note, while Western participants did. This was because octaves are not a part of Tsimane’ music, but are a huge part of Western music.

Another study from 2011 compared participants with varying levels of familiarity with non-Western music. One group was only familiar with Western music, so they were labeled monomusicals. The other group had been exposed to some non-Western music in their life along with Western music, so they were labeled as bimusical. I found it interesting to learn about bimusicalism, since it is similar to biculturalism in the way that it describes a familiarity with two different musical cultures. Anyway, in that study, the group that was bimusical was better at discerning changes in complex meter in music that they were unfamiliar with. The group only familiar with Western music could only discern music changes in simple meters. This was because Western music mainly consists of simple meters, like 4/4 or 3/4, and rarely opts for something different-sounding, like 5/8. Think of it like this: even if two different songs are from different cultures, the chances of someone familiar with the culture of the first song being able to understand what’s going on in the second song depends on how similar the components (like meter, rhythm, pitch, melody, etc.) are to the first. A lot of non-Western music has completely different structures compared to Western music, so it will mainly stay in its own sphere and not be picked up or spread as much as Western music. That means it is listened to less and is more likely to be perceived as strange by those unfamiliar with it.

Although certain emotional responses to music vary within a culture, one article found that “preference for one harmonisation style over another, including the major-happy/minor-sad distinction, is influenced by culture.” The “major-happy/minor-sad distinction” they are referring to is the common belief that music in a major key is meant to express or bring about happy feelings and thoughts, while music in a minor key is meant to be sad. This is mostly true in Western music, but is not guaranteed to happen in other musical cultures.

These are just a few that stood out to me most. It’s fascinating that culture plays such a huge role in how we perceive music. I did not find much from my survey to prove how culture affects music perception, but it did show to me how some people define music and demonstrate what it means to them. Regardless of culture or background, music is super important to us as human beings. No matter how you choose to listen to it or play it or make it, it is built around social connectedness. I hope to keep exploring this subject after this project and find a way to support communities of different, diverse music-making cultures. I also want to learn more about other musical structures, foster my own bimusicalism, and create music that incorporates elements from both Western music and Pakistani music (which is my family’s culture). (647 words)

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My fieldwork involved a survey about music and culture, which I passed along to some classmates and friends. Attached above are the questions. These are the results:

For the statement, "It is better / more fun to experience music with other people," 6 (40%) of the total 15 respondents slightly agreed, 3 (20%) agreed, 2 (13.3%) were neutral, another 2 slightly disagreed, and the remaining 2 disagreed. Most participants-- 13 (86.7%) of them-- disagreed to some extent on music being only about sound, while 2 (13.3%) were neutral. For the statement "Music is about singing, dancing, and performing in a public environment," 8 (53.3%) people were neutral, 3 (20%) slightly agreed, 3 (20%) disagreed, and 1 (6.7%) slightly disagreed. Two (13.3%) noted that music has some level of spiritual or religious meaning to them (potentially 5 (33.3%), if including those who neither agreed nor disagreed). Only 1 (6.7%) agreed (slightly) that music's "rules" of music theory should be followed, and the others varied between neutrality and disagreement. For the last statement, "Anything can be music, if someone wants it to be," 7 (46.7%) agreed, 4 (26.7%) slightly agreed, 3 (20%) were neutral, and 1 (6.7%) slightly disagreed.

I was glad to see that most of them disagreed with the 2nd to last statement and agreed with the last statement, which showed that they were a little more open-minded about music than I had expected. I think being really rigid or strict about those things can make people feel like they have to make or enjoy music a certain way, discouraging creative expression & exploration in music in a sense, so I was relieved to not find that sort of sentiment present. For those that had a religious or spiritual connection to music, I am curious what that means for them, and whether they had found that meaning for music in a community setting or on their own.

List of genres and how many participants listen to each:
Video game OST: 12 (80%)
Rock: 10 (66.7%)
Rap: 10 (66.7%)
Pop: 9 (60%)
Hip-hop: 9 (60%)
Classical: 6 (40%)
K-pop: 6 (40%)
Film score: 6 (40%)
Jazz: 5 (33.3%)
R&B: 4 (26.7%)
Metal: 2 (13.3%)
Latin: 1 (6.7%)
Country: 0
Other: (I will discuss this later)

The most popular genre among the respondents was video game OSTs, with 12 (80%) being listeners. That kind of shocked me at first, because it meant that not only do that many of them enjoy playing video games, but they also appreciate the *music* from them enough to listen to on their own. It's not that big a deal to me, since I also listen to video game music, and I concluded that the fact that game soundtracks are easily accessible on platforms like Spotify and Youtube now probably plays a role. I wonder if the demographic of everyone who responded influenced that as well. Although age was not collected in the survey, I can assume that most (if not all) of them are of the same generation as I am (Gen Z), because this was sent to my peers. Our generation grew up with technology, so games have become a bigger part of the culture. In the same way, I can also assume that most (if not all) of the respondents either live in the Bay Area currently, or have grown up around here. This might explain why none of them listen to country music, since country is typically more popular in rural areas.

In the "Other" category, individuals listed genres like "Indie," "EDM" (Electronic Dance Music), "Touhou project," "African beat," "Zouk," and "Dancehall." I do not have much to comment on for these, but I think it's a little funny that I can tell who listed some of them, even though the responses were anonymous. Some genres are so niche that they reveal a bit about the listener's interests and character.

In regards to social personality: 11 (73.3%) described themselves as introverts, and 4 (26.7%) were extroverts. The reason I included a question about extroversion and introversion is because I had read an article that cited a study in which the participants' personality traits had an effect on their music preferences. In my survey, though, I could not find any pattern between personality, music genres, and/or open-minded attitudes with the statement-agreement portion. Their answers still varied regardless of whether they were an introvert or extrovert.

The open response question about culture returned some specific answers and some rather vague ones. One person described music as a source of connection that is appreciated in their culture, and that it "brings people together." I think that is a touching way to put it, and I kept coming across that in my research. Another response said that music was a big deal in their house growing up. Some described their culture with words like "traditional," "conservative," "strict," or "open minded," "less strict," "diverse," etc. I was not sure what to make of descriptions like "typical" or "normal." What defines normalcy? In cases like those, there is not much there for me to draw from. Several responses said their families were artistic, which was interesting to me. At least 5 (33.3%) of the respondents were of Asian background (Chinese, Filipino, Indonesian).

For the last question, 12 (80%) people believe our current teaching of music in schools is Eurocentric. (One (6.7%) answered "No," and 2 (13.3%) skipped the question.) This was a pleasant surprise, as I wasn't expecting that many people to agree with that one. And it's true! A lot of our formal teaching about music in the U.S. focuses on classical music, as defined by the European world. Sometimes, they will cover jazz, but even that is limited. Several of the studies and articles I read mentioned how the less known musical cultures are often ignored, in research and beyond, and I think it would benefit everyone to teach more broadly about music, incorporating structures and styles from all over the world. This way, music theory and octaves would not be the only way of thinking about things. Students more interested in music-mixing than instrument playing could be better encouraged by this too.

Unfortunately, there was not anything within the responses I could connect to each other, when looking at how culture influences music perception. I feel like the questions of the survey were not best suited for this, and if I had wanted to find a more direct connection, I would have needed to either a) get really specific about it, b) have a larger number of respondents, or c) do something more like an experiment than a survey. Overall, I'm still glad I did the survey and liked analyzing the responses.