d to be like people, and treated with major respect in the process of creating the sound that comes from them. In America, we have what is known as a concert-music-culture, as we tend to think of music as a performance art, because that's how it was originally presented in the West with operas and classical orchestras. Most Americans don't even seem to recognize that being a musician is a serious profession in comparison to the hi-tech computer jobs and such out there right now. What a non-African listener assumes is an item of music may be the voice of an ancestor to an African. When Jim Koetting recorded the postal workers in Ghana, he said, "It sounds like music and, of course, it is; but the men performing do not quite think of it that way. The men are working, not putting on a musical show; people pass by the work place paying little attention to the 'music'"(Koetting 1992:98). In American culture, we aren't raised with these beliefs, so we put music away into the form of a hobby or entertainment at most. It's so interesting comparing the cultures, because it's like two completely different universes. Till this day, tribes remain in Africa playing the same music as their ancestors did, only it's not always music to them. On the other hand, in America, it seems as though we take music for granted. We barely pay attention to the muffled radio sounds of easy listening as we drive to work, and stay an MTV hit-song society. It's as though music has no true significance to us, and maybe if it did, our lives could benefit in such a great way. I mean, a lot of people here are fans of music, or even are attached to certain songs due to emotional or sentimental value, but there are too many "distractions" and elements in our culture that prevent us from making the music a part of our lives. "For many Africans, music is a living thing ensouled by the spiritual energy that travels through it" (Amoaku 1985:37). And what is it to us Westerners, ...
