The Powerful Role of Music in Society

Music and society have always been intimately related. Music reflects and creates social conditions – including the factors that either facilitate or impede social change. The development of recording techniques in the latter half of the 20th century has revolutionized the extent to which most people have access to music. All kinds of music are available to most people, 24 hours a day, at the touch of a switch. The down side of this easy availability of music in the Western world is that there is a tendency for it to be taken for granted.