-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Hello: The following is as posted on Bug 697425. Is this theme intended to be standard-issue in all Fedora installations? Either way, has anybody thought about the socio-cultural implications of this particular sound theme? I'm not definitively either for or against this sound theme, in principle, but the very fact that it is what it is means that we are likely to endorse it as a good, neutral, positive change for the distribution. Because musical cultural problems are otherwise likely to go unnoticed, I feel obliged to stand here waving my arms and pointing at them. Here's what I think we need to consider, and I'm being brief: 1.) Everything stems from the fact that most of the Fedora developers live in the Western European music culture, or its out-growths that include North America and Oceania. If we intend to make a universally distributable distribution, which seems to be the project's intention, then we cannot *just* let this music culture dominate without deciding that we want it to do so. 2.) Music is not universal. Sometimes, we fall into this trap as a result of sloppy thought-processes, and sometimes we wilfully mislead ourselves into thinking that music is universal. It's not, and in 2011, it isn't difficult to explain how not and why not. There are cultures that use very different music from our own - many of them unburdened by the artificial distinction between "art music" and "popular music." When we say that music is universal, what we mean is that music has the ability to transcend natural language barriers. 3.) Beethoven is, and historically has been, often constructed as the ultimate genius. His music, therefore, is very frequently called upon by people wishing to forward the argument of universality. When we access any Beethoven composition, we automatically invoke this argument. 4.) Worse still, Beethoven's fifth symphony, which is very obviously the basis for this sound theme, is one of the most well-known pieces of "classical music," that is - even more than the ninth symphony - called upon to lead the "how could you not appreciate this?!?!" charge. By hijacking this symphony, we add yet another element to the train of thought that holds this work as "universally good," which represents the universally good composer, the universally good classical music tradition, and the universally good Western European tradition that allowed it to develop. 5.) And "universally good" means "superior to every alternative." Classical music is also often upheld as one of the supreme achievements of... well... anything. It may or may not be, but do we want to be pushing this message as part of the Fedora Project? And moreover, do we want to be pushing it very forcefully by using Beethoven's fifth symphony? We need to think about this, and because we're an open-source project, our thought process needs to be documented for future reference by ourselves and others. Basically what I'm saying is that, if this is to be the default sound theme (or even just the first sound theme), then we as a collective Project must decide whether or not we want to push the Western classical music tradition, and therefore the achievements of Western society, as superior to the achievements of all other cultures. And for the record, Ubuntu has not, in my opinion, successfully solved this problem. They're simply co-opting a generic "African" culture, both with their name and with their sound theme, and thereby falling victim to good, old- fashioned Primitivism. I think, however, that "Microsoft" has solved the problem. Christopher. > Hello everyone! > I'm glad to announce I've created our first sound theme [1]. > It is based on Beethoven's fifth symphony, processed with audacity > from a public domain recording[2][3][4][5]. > > Thanks to Anuj More, Onyeibo Oku, Lennart Poettering and Adir Shemesh > who helped me in the process of making the theme. And a really big > thanks to the Fedora Audio Creation SIG, I couldn't have done it > without you ;-) > > Don't forget to visit our wiki page [6]! > > [1] https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=697425 > [2] > https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/wiki/File:Ludwig_van_Beetho > ven_-_symphony_no._5_in_c_minor,_op._67_-_i._allegro_con_brio.ogg [3] > https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/wiki/File:Ludwig_van_Beetho > ven_-_symphony_no._5_in_c_minor,_op._67_-_ii._andante_con_moto.ogg [4] > https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/wiki/File:Ludwig_van_Beetho > ven_-_symphony_no._5_in_c_minor,_op._67_-_iii._allegro.ogg [5] > https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/wiki/File:Ludwig_van_Beetho > ven_-_symphony_no._5_in_c_minor,_op._67_-_iv._allegro.ogg [6] > https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/SIGs/Sound > -- > -Elad. > _______________________________________________ > music mailing list > music@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx > https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/music -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.16 (GNU/Linux) iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJNrLyIAAoJEInCktGVqZ8V7PsH/iXrDVKeH8Ji2J3Z1FIStQBu IEgs2/FUpcJuMqmunIbTgRWBHyqyer7MnSf+O7UwlBZHyqyQR1MW8tgTsqvipZDh 7AzOLtzrdYLi+7ydQ9FaOr8hIhYplNM9WiW4IYE69BsefNa12RS/T43mn3xOj3e3 4S+DTVEDFr4GM4WHy8r3kE3BTLD0FD6eI89oYZaE9xBOwxDY3Z8o14DCjP28dUrc Y8jpAn7QORhlGrImyKlsWGEkBDNFk1kvfCET9EqW36VCBGU5vi7DBrN0aEqUe0vz oIAYWAnWuIEwy3o3zdzjqhhCgNhB9CENxLgFnB3gTjQCuavsiHOGn6eoNlbf2JA= =rb0x -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- _______________________________________________ music mailing list music@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/music
