The universal language of all times?

The definitions of music published in the last decades, particularly the one formulated by Alan Merriam (1964) in conjunction with the field of ethnomusicology, have broadened the scope of music by identifying it as a product of human behaviour in a cultural context. The definition of music has not only raised the level of awareness of the nature of cultural diversity of our societies, but nurtured trends in ‘multicultural’ perspectives in music education. With these trends, musical materials from diverse cultures are being introduced to curricula, especially in Europe and the USA. In spite of this well-intentioned effort, difficulties continue to be encountered at the implementation level, where teaching and evaluation methods designed for Western musical material are being applied without discrimination across cultural boundaries. When ill-applied in cultural areas where the concept of ‘music’ is not similar to that of the Western world, this rather colonial-type practice produces devastating results. Here it is argued that in its present design music education is, for the most part, insensitive to cultural diversity. Like music, it is a culturally defined mode of discourse. Its application outside the context of origin requires utmost fidelity in order to preserve its authenticity.