ABSTRACT
This chapter suggests that the processes of creation and re-creation in music have understandable human parameters; otherwise, musicians could not be trained to preserve and extend established traditions, nor be inspired to create new ones. Musical re-creation of pre-composed pieces normally brings with it significant questions of interpretation, since no method of passing music along can carry all of the nuances possible or even necessary for effective musical manifestation. Still, the value of understanding musical elements and processes is of inestimable value to ethnomusicology, because cultural meaning is inevitably tied to interpretations of those elements and processes. Moving towards a global music theory as the foundational basis for music education would probably require concomitant moves in the realms of performance and history studies, which in turn would precipitate a crisis around the issue of core repertoire.
