Critical Review #4 Wong 2001

Deborah Wong tells the story of her friend whose musical taste shifts as he moves in and out of certain cultures--specifically certain class and racial spheres. The quote she invokes from Martin's "Agency & History"--"To deny what the audience produces in performance is to disavow its capacity to produce its own associations..."--suggests that audience and listening is as important to the cultural impact of music as the music is itself. On page 377, wong claims, as an ethnomusicologist of course:

I don't ever think it is ever 'the music itself' that attracts or compels--music has no agency of its own, people do, and they make choices about what they like or hate; indeed I would venture a guess that all Americans go through changes in taste during their lives for reasons that are always already politicized.

I think that personally, I would like to disagree. As a cultural historian, I can respect the claim to audience's impact in constructing music--in constructing art, but never entirely in composing art. What music communicates as a piece of art cannot always be reduced to an "already politicized" sentiment. That sentiment can be extremely influential, especially in more communal musics, but consider the ingenuity and creativity that goes into some sounds, and I believe that there is some music that can stand for something (the already politicized sentiment) and that music that can transcend its original meaning for something different or even something new. So, I suppose my question for discussion is that newness or transcendence I just mentioned possible?