Just as philosophical and religious writings are a verbal expression of the ideology of a people, just as social and economic institutions are determined by that basic ideology, so also music and the sound arts are "translations" of the deepest convictions of a people. They fit into the cultural whole as pieces of a giant mosaic, each tessera reflecting the world view of that people and corresponding to the other expressions of that spirit. Fulfilling this role in the culture, the arts of sound become an important, even crucial, bulwark of a people's heritage.