Material culture refers to what can be seen, held, felt, used-what a culture produces. Exa
Sheet music(乐谱) 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 writ ten 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(乐谱) 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 singing 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 ______.
A.it helps produce new cultural tools and technology
B.it can reflect the development of the nation
C.it helps understand the nation's past and present
D.it can demonstrate the nation's civilization