Summary Of Music And Identity By Simon Frith

In “Music and Identity”, Simon Frith disagrees with the idea of homology. He goes against the traditional ideas of homology that states that music is solely an expression of culture. He argues that it goes in reverse and that, instead of social groups coming together and agreeing on values to express in music, that music helps social groups come together and express and agree on values which they might share. This is practically the opposite of the homology model. Frith supports his argument with comparisons to African American music, of the ‘race records’ among others. Roy’s article about “‘race records’ and ‘hillbilly music’” also supports Frith’s claim against homology. In Frith’s article, he claims that homology is incorrect and that, instead, the musical aesthetic process goes in reverse: “Social groups…only get to know themselves as groups…through cultural activity, through aesthetic judgement.” (Frith 111). This directly opposes the idea of homology. He supports it with examples of music and music critics to show how music is analyzed the same way and are

Roy states the homology correctly distinguishes the music’s types and communities enjoying them, but is incorrect in its relation between them. (Roy 267). Roy argues against the strict and flawed concept of homology, just like how Frith argues against homology and they both use arguments from many sources. While he does state that the concepts of homology sometimes are correct, he cites Middleton to state that those few cases have been over-emphasized and are a disproportionate representation of what is truly going on. While Frith only goes against homology and uses his own cases. Roy opposes the old homology and believes music has many characterizations that should be considered. His ‘new homology’ is similar to Frith’s stating that music can create communities with their own