“Music making is a social achievement”
“the means of musical production far exceed the bounds of personal property”
“Music depends on its institutions: its libraries, conservatories, production companies, labels, and venues”
“Much depends on whether these are in private or public hands. For this reason, the question of socialism is especially salient in music”
“It is hardly utopian to insist that a musically prosperous society offer its members the opportunity to participate in classical and vernacular music in civic choirs, orchestras, bands, and musical theater ensembles”
“Anyone with talent and inclination should count on society’s resources to foster specialized performance and composition skills”
“The wealth of our musical knowledge, historical and theoretical, ought continuously to expand through research and be made widely accessible through public education and media”
“Socialist planning could build large-scale musical infrastructure in the form of festivals, competitions, and conservatories, and thereby expand the proportion of our musical means owned collectively”
“The indispensable foundation for any such system is music literacy. Socialists today should aim to make it universal”
“Singing has attended revolutionary politics since, at least, the eighteenth century. Uniting diverse and independent voices in harmony through cooperation, self-organization, and discipline is both a musical value and an irresistible political symbol”
“Believing the human voice to be the basis of our musical faculties, Kodály centered his method on solfège, the “do-re-mi” system, which has been essential to music literacy for more than a thousand years. It exists to facilitate the invention, reproduction, and transmission of melodies. By deciding the number and position of available notes, it creates a space for making good musical sense without any pretense to refined performance”
“By synthesizing political and economic life, socialism makes it possible for a self-governing society to make intentional decisions about the division of labor. Some productive skills, like the basics of making music — and, perhaps, also of drawing and cooking — are put to most efficient use as general knowledge. The goal, as ever, is the equitable distribution of the means of production.”