If Walls Could Talk: Politics, Sound, Otherness

Abstract

This paper relates the philosophical theme of the wall and barriers with musicality. In various ages, music has had a progressive political significance, whereas the contemporary world expresses its regressive nature in commercial musical forms and sound marketing. The closed and obsessive forms of the technological universe appear to be universes of expressive freedom while, on the contrary, the language of harmonic forms has become impoverished and is often characterized by repetitive rhythms with strong identity repercussions. For this reason, the present essay analyses the theme of the wall referring to music as an expressive and artistic form born for the community and in itself open. Often today, though, music is used for marketing strategies or as a vehicle for racial suprematism, discrimination, xenophobia. Starting from the analysis of common idioms such as “if walls could speak” or “walls have ears too” this paper focuses on the difference between music used as a democracy/open space and as an instrument for a strong and closed identity regression.