Music-Making Versus the Commodification of Music: a Call to Enlightened Amateurs

Abstract

Music-making, fundamentally a communal practice, is the source of aesthetic, emotional, and spiritual experience of a kind comparable to the Faustian “moment” (Augenblick). The most ideal musical culture is one in which no clear dividing line exists between practitioners and listeners, professionals and amateurs, the remnants of which are still discernible in present-day Thai classical music. The growing professionalism has been exploited by commercial manipulations driven by money and technology, resulting in a smug, push-button consumerism that treats music as a mere commodity. The only way out of this crisis is a return to the practice of music at the family, school, and community levels, whereby chamber music can be cultivated by a large pool of amateurs out of which real professionals can grow.