4
marketed in 1975 with painter Peter Schmidt, and subsequently used extensively as a compo-
sitional aid.
2
Let's take a step back and try to view Eno's broad output and accomplishments in some kind
of perspective. The challenge to the observer of today's multi-faceted musical scene is to
avoid easy identification with attitudes and assumptions promoted by the many "interest
groups" involved and to cultivate an open view. Contemporary music should be viewed as a
pluralistic whole. In the age of the global village, the mass media and world-wide record dis-
tribution networks, music flows freely across vast geographical and cultural boundaries. It
may flow more freely across some borders and in some directions than others, and certainly
the day has not yet come when all cultures know about the music of all cultures, or want to
know. But in a growing number of places world-wide, the living history and current state of
the world's music are concentrated on discs in libraries and record stores, available to whom-
ever has the means and curiosity to listen, and radio broadcasts make available a similarly
wide array of the world's musical traditions and treasures.
In this pluralistic situation, some musical genres remain traditional, self-consciously insulated
from the explosion of musical information, others mix and mingle, whether through the di-
rected efforts of musicians, composers and ethnomusicologists or through the inexorable
processes of acculturation. In his recent book The Western Impact on World Music, Bruno
Nettl traces the ways such Western musical norms as functional harmony, such Western in-
struments and ensembles as violins and orchestras, and such Western institutions as the classi-
cal concert have affected musical life and the concept of music in a wide variety of cultures
throughout the world. Although Nettl's ethnomusicological study concentrates on the flow of
music from the West to other parts of the world, inter-cultural musical exchange works both
ways.
Nettl's short chapter on "pop" is notable for its opinion, all too common in musicological cir-
cles, that "if there is any trend in world music that might justify the fear of musical homog-
enization, it would have to be in [the] realm of popular music."
3
Such an opinion must be lo-
cated within the context of a long history of musicologists' refusing even to recognize the
existence, let alone the diversity and vitality, of popular music. Yet even a cursory survey will
show that some of the most interesting inter-cultural developments have taken and are taking
place in the realm of popular music. History has become an all-embracing present, and it is an
exciting time to be alive in the world of music, in the music of the world.
In spite of this unprecedented opening up of musical possibilities, many of the institutional
frameworks of Western music exert considerable pressures on the individual musician to con-
form. Many orchestras, opera companies, vocal groups, and chamber music ensembles, along
with their associated audiences, are reluctant to take chances with the new, no doubt because
ever since Schoenberg "emancipated dissonance" many composers have made few efforts to
make their music accessible to a wide audience. Many academic institutions still interpret
musical training largely in terms of the attainment of competence in the performance of a rep-
2
Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt, Oblique Strategies: Over One Hundred Worthwhile Dilem-
mas, boxed set of cards, limited edition of 500 copies, London, 1975, revised and reissued,
London, 1978, 1979.
3
Bruno Nettl, The Western Impact on World Music: Change, Adaptation, and Survival (New
York: Schirmer, 1985), 85.