Titon 74). Since the music is set in a social context, it's associated and applied right along with life, not set into the background like it's customary in Western society. A great example of music being used along with life is Jim Koettings' 1970's recording of "Postal Workers Canceling Stamps" at the University of Ghana in Africa. The whole process the workers are using to make the music is a simple repetition of slapping letters, inking markers, and stamping, along with a clicking of scissors. It's so unique, as though an average day job is getting completed at the same time an improvisational jam session is being played. It is customs like these that seem so foreign and strange to the Western culture, but there is great purpose to this music making. As work music, "this performance undoubtedly lifted the workers' spirits and enabled them to coordinate their efforts. The music probably helped the workers change their attitude toward the job. Music often helps workers control the mood of the work place" (Jackson 1972). African music such as this includes a lot of participation, but the training to learn it isn't "professional", like paying money to take lessons for a certain instrument in Western culture. It's more like a "society-wide process of enculturationthe process of learning one's culture gradually during childhood"(Titon 76) that teaches the people how to respond to it so naturally. The reason that it's so hard for the Western culture to comprehend the beliefs and values of Africans toward their music is a natural "intercultural misunderstanding". What Americans and Africans see as "music" is entirely different. "Africans conceive of music as a necessary and normal part of life. Neither exalted nor denigrated as Art, music fuses with other life processes. Traditional songs and musical instruments are not commodities separable from the flux of life" (Titon 76). It is although the instruments used by the Africans are considere...
