A different music

[doversoul1]

...but about a cultural diversity which is being diluted out of existence, as most folk music traditions in the West are already have been. So many of the instruments, forms and other features of "Western classical music" (and indeed popular music) have been influenced and reinvigorated by contact with other cultures; I wonder how that will work when there aren't any other distinctive musical cultures to draw on...

This is a genuine question.

I am always puzzled as to where we draw, or if we can draw the line between a culture being diluted and it being enriched by other cultures. In other words, do we appreciate music of other cultures being influenced by Western music as much as we appreciate Western classical (or popular for that matter) music being influenced by music of other cultures?

[Serial_Apologist]

This is a genuine question.

I am always puzzled as to where we draw, or if we can draw the line between a culture being diluted and it being enriched by other cultures. In other words, do we appreciate music of other cultures being influenced by Western music as much as we appreciate Western classical (or popular for that matter) music being influenced by music of other cultures?

I think the answer to that depends partly on our view of what the "parent" (i.e. "our") culture happens to be in relation to others', and partly on whether we consider "our" culture to be being enriched by what it may be absorbing from others'. Both answers, for me, come down to questions of domination: for whom; by whom; and for what purpose.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I am always puzzled as to where we draw, or if we can draw the line between a culture being diluted and it being enriched by other cultures. In other words, do we appreciate music of other cultures being influenced by Western music as much as we appreciate Western classical (or popular for that matter) music being influenced by music of other cultures?

It's a very good point, dovers. The difference is that of a culture being "enriched" by encounters with other cultures (as is the case in the Western "Classical" Tradition - Bach doesn't disappear because Mozart, Debussy, Boulez etc take ideas from cultures outside their Tradition) and those which are swamped by such encounters (as seems to be tha case here: an entire repertoire is under threat because young Musicians are aboandoning it in favour of what they hear from the other culture). Whether we should deplore this and makes attempts to preserve the "endangered" repertoire (as I believe) or as a sort of "Cultural Selection" that we shouldn't interfere with, is a different (if related) matter.