The Chicken and the Egg

Within the western classical idiom, both non-traditional and traditional music have a positive influence on contemporary culture.

Traditional music reinforces the emotional stability, well-being and contentment of society, while non-traditional music emphasizes contemporary, often disruptive, currents of individual and social behavior.

Traditional music tends to represent personal or interpersonal circumstances within a deeply social context. Traditional music addresses our need for a simple, immediate reinforcement of the familiar.

Non-traditional music models the complex fabric and structure of Nature, of which we are a part, typically exploring unfamiliar patterns and ideas within a wide variety of forms and concepts.

Non-traditional music is often more difficult to comprehend, appreciate and analyze because it incorporates contemporary ideas that have not yet been synthesized by social consensus. The music tends to be less accessible to a large population, more accessible to the individual willing or unafraid to explore difficult or unfamiliar territory.

Viewed together, non-traditional music and traditional music serve the purpose of preserving cultural identity and stability. Both are responses to the need for social integration and individual exploration. One promotes conservation, the other embraces change. The balance of the two help to maintain cultural equilibrium.