TITLE
Musicology and the Silent Majority in the Digital Era

ABSTRACT
Musical learning in our part of the world has, I think, 
a lopsided notion of musicality. It focuses on the 
performance of visible music (poïesis) and neglects 
the use and effects of all the invisible music 
(film, TV, games, etc.) that is so much more common 
for so many more people (aesthesis). Instead we produce 
classical violinists, jazz saxophonists, operatic sopranos, 
rock guitarists etc. for a saturated music labour market, 
catering also, but to a lesser degree, for composers, 
arrangers, studio engineers and DJs. However, the vast 
majority of individuals involved in music -its 
'end users'- receive little or no formal music education. 
Despite well-documented evidence of vernacular musical 
competence among the 'non-muso' population, 
despite music's ubiquity in the modern media, 
and despite the democratisation of tools for creating 
music in the digital era, the 'silent majority' is 
largely absent from formal music instruction in 
tertiary education. Such exclusion is not only undemocratic: 
it is also, as I have learnt from teaching experience, 
damaging to the development of musicology. 
The first part of this presentation is devoted to 
explaining the current status quo, its second part to 
addressing two main questions: [1] How can the 
'silent majority' help musicology expand and improve 
its conceptual framework? [2] How can musicology then 
help integrate music into media, cultural and 
communication studies?