TEXT B Material culture refers to
the touchable, material "things"—physical objects that can be seen, held, fell,
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 bear
for ourselves the actual sound of any musical performance before the 1870s when
phonograph was invented, so we rely on instruments for important information
about music-cultures in the remote past and their develop ment. 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 most 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 mutusl 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 cul Lure 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;
the)’ have affected music cultures all over the globe. Which of tile following best summarizes the main idea of the passage
A．Musical instruments developed through the years will sooner or later be replaced by computers. B．Music cannot be passed on to future generations unless it is recorded. C．Folk songs cannot be spread far unless they are printed on music sheets. D．The development of music culture is highly dependent on its material aspect.