Hesmondhalgh, David. 2013. Why Music Matters. West Sussex, UK: Wiley-Blackwell –

Hesmondhalgh, David. 2013. Why Music Matters. West Sussex, UK: Wiley-Blackwell – Read Chapter 1: Music as Intimate and Social, Private and Public
What to Post First
Everyone should first post a response to the following questions within the first week of the module:
The opening chapter of our main text for this course is short but abundant. In it, the author (David Hesmondhalgh) articulates several interrelated abstract questions and ideas about music that he will consider for the duration of the book, and he offers a preview of the analyses and arguments that will follow (in subsequent chapters) in support of his inquiry into those questions. (Soon enough, in your Individual Philosophical Essay assignments, each of you will practice articulating abstract questions and ideas about music that you wish to consider at length through carefully reasoned analysis and argumentation. Your own questions may or may not happen to overlap with the author’s, but either way you can learn from the author’s approach to “philosophizing” about music.)
For our discussion: Consider the many (carefully thought-out) questions that the author articulates in this chapter. Tell us which one of his questions resonates most with your own abstract curiosity about music.
Next, explain how the author sees this particular question fitting into the scope or plan of his overall project. (For example, why does he believe it to be an especially important question? How might addressing this question fit into his overall argument about “why music matters”? What is the author assuming—for instance, about “value” or about “human flourishing”—in raising such a question in the first place? What key vocabulary, concepts, or categories does the author require in order to articulate or to prepare to address this question? Are such terms or concepts already familiar to you?)
Finally: The author writes that his overall argument in the book will constitute a “critical defense” of music. What does he mean by a “critical defense”? (In other words, what does it mean to offer “a defense” of music? Also, how might “a critical defense” be different than, simply, “a defense”?)