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When I go out of the house for a walk, uncertain as yet whither I will bend my steps, and submit myself to my instinct to decide for me, I find, strange and whimsical as it may seem, that I finally and inevitably settle south-west, toward some particular wood or meadow or deserted pasture or hill in that direction. My needle is slow to settle—varies a few degrees, and does not always point due south-west, it is true, and it has good authority for this variation, but it always settles between west and south-south-west. The future lies that way to me, and the earth seems more unexhausted and richer on that side. The outline which would bound my walks, would be, not a circle, but a parabola, or rather like one of those cometary orbits, which have been thought to be non-returning curves, in this case opening westward, in which my house occupies the place of the sun. I turn round and round irresolute sometimes for a quarter of an hour, until I decide for the thousandth time, that I will walk into the south-west or west. Eastward I go only by force; but westward I go free.

I must walk toward Oregon, and not toward Europe. And that way the nation is moving, and I may say that mankind progress from east to west.

The idea of wanting to be true to the music of a culture, to the people of that culture, and to one's students in teaching is at the heart of the discussion of authenticity.

However, teaching music without attention to its cultural context is a problem in several respects: it risks misrepresenting the musical practice being studied, it fails to take advantage of the potential benefits of culturally infused music teaching, and it promotes a conception of music as isolated sonic events rather than meaningful human practices.2 Discussion about this struggle to balance accurate performance practice with accessibility has focused on the concept of authenticity

The definitions of authenticity represented in the music education literature fall into four models: the continuum model; the twofold historical/personal model; the threefold reproduction, reality, and relevance model; and the moving-beyond-authenticity model.