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Category: Copyright

One woman watches as another examines with a magnifying glass an ornate, decorative image on a printed page

Primary Sources for Musical Learning: Celebrating the Public Domain and Engaging Creatively with Primary Sources

Posted by: Danna Bell

By understanding a work’s original context, intent, message, and audience, creators can use cultural referents to frame new ideas. Public-domain classics achieve a continually evolving immortality as they are re-imagined by new generations of creative minds. Public domain works, through creative adaptation, can be used to create a commentary on the original work, engage contemporary issues, create opportunities for cross-cultural dialogue, and promote cultural change.