Music Is Community

"Music is communal property, made and played as a shared activity whether it is carried on by a solitary individual or a large group. The difference between the band performing at a huge open-air concert and the person who plays a guitar in the privacy of his or her bedroom is much less significant than it appears. The activity of making and listening to music involves us in something that is never merely personal. In this sense, music is like a language; when we "speak" or "listen" in musical language, we participate in a signifying system that is communally shared and defined, something that is larger than our own use of it and that we enter whenever we involve ourselves in music." (Who Needs Classical Music?, Julian Johnson, "Musical Values".)