Material culture refers to the touchable, material “things”—physical objects that can be seen, held, felt, used—that a culture produces. Examining a culture’s tools and technology can tell us about the group’s history and way of life. Similarly, research into the material culture of music can help us to understand the music-culture. The most vivid body of “things” in it, of course, are musical instruments. We cannot hear for ourselves the actual sound of any musical performance before the 1870s when the phonograph was invented, so we rely on instruments for important information about music-cultures in the remote past and their development. Here we have two kinds of evidence: instruments well preserved and instruments pictured in art. Through the study of instruments, as well as paintings, written documents, and so on, we can explore the movement of music from the Near East to China over a thousand years ago, or we can outline the spread of Near Eastern influence to Europe that resulted in the development of the instruments in the symphony orchestra.
Sheet music or printed music, too, is material culture. Scholars once defined folk music-cultures as those in which people learn and sing music by ear rather than from print, but research shows mutual influence among oral and written sources during the past few centuries in Europe, Britain, and America. Printed versions limit variety because they tend to standardize any song, yet they stimulate people to create new and different songs. Besides, the ability to read music notation has a far-reaching effect on musicians and, when it becomes widespread, on the music-culture as a whole.
One more important part of music’s material culture should be singled out: the influence of the electronic media radio, record player, tape recorder, television, and videocassette, with the future promising talking and computers and other developments. This is all part of the "information revolution", a twentieth-century phenomenon as important as the industrial revolution was in the nineteenth. These electronic media are not just limited to modern nations; they have affected music-cultures all over the globe.
Research into the material culture of a nation is of great importance because ________.
根据第一段第二句“Examining a culture’s tools and technology can tell us about the group’s history and way of life. Similarly, research into the material culture of music can help us to understand the music-culture.”可知 研究音乐的物质文化可以帮助我们理解一个民族，故C项为正确答案。
It can be learned from this passage that ________.
事实推理题。从第一段最后一句“我们可以概括出近东对欧洲的影响，而这一影响又促进了交响乐乐 器的发展”，可以推断B项为正确答案。
According to the author, music notation is important because ________.
文章第二段最后一句表明：能够读乐谱对音乐家有着深远的影响，当识乐谱这种能力变得很普遍 时，它对整个音乐的发展都具有深远的影响。可见，A项越来越多的人能够读懂它，因此它对音乐文化产 生了巨大的影响是正确答案。
It can be concluded from the passage that the introduction of electronic media into the world of music ________.
根据文章最后一段最后一句“These electronic media are not just limited to modern nations; they have affected music-cultures all over the globe.”可知电子媒体进入音乐世界产生了新的音乐文化形式。故C项为正 确答案。
Which of the following best summarizes the main idea of the passage?
主旨大意题。文章主要围绕音乐的物质文化，也就是音乐文化的物质方面的重要性，D项与此相符。 民间音乐只是原文的部分内容，不足以概括全文，A项表述不正确。B和C项表述与原文内容不符。故D项 为正确答案。