The Association for the Holistic Understanding of Music (“AHUM”) is a global affiliation of musicians, academics, and related professionals dedicated to the collection and dissemination of information concerning the vital role of music throughout the course of human development, as well as the promotion of its inclusion in standard education curriculums and our general historical paradigm.
AHUM’s primary objectives are:
- To compile and share knowledge about music culled from experts practicing in a wide variety of disciplines.
- To increase general awareness about the full breadth and scope of music’s central importance to human life and the story of its incredible history.
- To initiate a new academic movement to study music from this comprehensive perspective and promote the training of specialists dedicated to the further exploration and refinement of this new discipline.
- To encourage academics from a variety of related fields, including anthropology, sociology, history, philosophy, religion, linguistics, poetry and literature, and evolutionary psychology (to name a few) to expand the scope of their focus to give music its proper consideration for the unique and vital role it has played throughout time within their field of specialty.
- To promote the expansion of music education at the primary, secondary, and collegiate levels with regard to:
- its traditional subjects of musical practice and performance, stressing upon policy makers the many intellectual, psychological, and social benefits derived thereby;
- music’s relevance to the other great disciplines of liberal arts knowledge, to be taught in an integrated fashion within the study of those subjects themselves;
- the comprehensive role of music throughout existence (i.e., the “Big History” study of music over its entire lifespan as general coursework).
Who we are
AHUM is comprised of musicians, composers/songwriters, lyricists, filmmakers, authors, business managers, educators, musicologists, historians, philosophers, theologians, sociologists, anthropologists, psychologists, neurophysiologists, ethologists, music therapists, researchers, and academics of all kind dedicated to the pursuit of these goals. Students and the general public are also encouraged to join, participate, and contribute their voice in support.
Why we are so passionate about music?
Since music has remained at the heart of humankind’s attempt to understand the world and our place within it—apparently from a time that predates even our use of language for this same end—a greater understanding of music will undoubtedly provide us today with a greater understanding of our life as a citizen of the universe. Music’s central role in the evolution of human culture and intellectual development must not be overlooked if we are to form an accurate historical picture of who we are and how we came to be at our current state, which undoubtedly are critical perspectives that shape our understanding of what possibilities lay before us now.
What is “Big History”?
The holistic understanding of music requires a multi-disciplinary approach much like that of the “Big History” movement initiated by historian David Christian in the 1990s. Big History looks at human existence from the widest context possible, from the Big Bang to present day. The birth of the universe, the formation of stars and planets, the evolution of life, the emergence of the Homo sapiens species, prehistoric human life, and the recorded period of human history are all explored in an integrated fashion, drawing from cosmology, evolutionary biology, evolutionary psychology, neurophysiology, paleontology, archeology, anthropology, sociology, traditional history, and a host of other disciplines.
Music and the Liberal Arts
More and more today we find that music is relegated to the position of a superfluous adjunct to a liberal arts education. This is an unfortunate turn of events considering that music is the one human activity which throughout time has played a central role in the development of philosophy, religion, linguistics, poetry and literature, mathematics, politics, psychology, and the social sciences. It is the central thread that ties all these liberal arts disciplines together, and as such it undoubtedly should be given a greater position within the overall sphere of liberal arts education and study. To segregate it and minimize its importance is an unjustified negligence that leaves us with a deficient understanding of life. Music should be taught with due regard for its relationship to the other great branches of knowledge, not merely as a curious artistic diversion, and education in musical practice should be aggressively increased, not downsized or eliminated altogether.
