Instrumental Communication

The category embraces devices which serve as “accompaniment in music, song and dance as well as dissemination of messages.” They say a lot about society in which they found in that they have symbolic roles and meanings as well as play significant roles in ritual, music and dance. Musical instruments have a critical role to play in cultural research in addition to communicating about the mental and spiritual life of a people through their secular and ritual deployments. They speak to the musical achievement of a people as well as the cultural importance of their music. They are also very dynamic in that they “interact dialectically with surrounding physical and cultural realities, and as such, they perpetually negotiate or renegotiate their roles, physical structures, performance modes, sound ideals, and symbolic meanings.” Instruments can be reflective of society and its belief system.