Research into 'world music'

[Guest]

Hello,

I'm Joe, a human geography undergraduate at The University of Sheffield. My dissertation research is looking at opinions, feelings and interpretations of 'world music'.

Why is the term 'world music' such a contentious phrase? How can all countries outside the UK be grouped into one mega-genre? Which music made/recorded in the UK is considered 'world music' and why?

Are British people attracted to global sounds due to its exoticism: listening to 'out there' from 'in here'? Do people from different nationalities living in the UK have different opinions compared to those who are of white British heritage?

Do people choose to listen to music from overseas due to an interest in that country, or is it a pure and simple appreciation of the music itself? Do you think world music broadcast on BBC Radio 3 a fair representation of the multicultural society of the UK? How would you improve the content of world music shows on Radio 3?

Please respond to the issues raised in this post; I'd love to hear your comments. Be as brutally honest, I'm ready for it!

Thanks,

Joe

[Globaltruth]

Hello,

I'm Joe, a human geography undergraduate at The University of Sheffield. My dissertation research is looking at opinions, feelings and interpretations of 'world music'.

Why is the term 'world music' such a contentious phrase? How can all countries outside the UK be grouped into one mega-genre? Which music made/recorded in the UK is considered 'world music' and why?

Are British people attracted to global sounds due to its exoticism: listening to 'out there' from 'in here'? Do people from different nationalities living in the UK have different opinions compared to those who are of white British heritage?

Do people choose to listen to music from overseas due to an interest in that country, or is it a pure and simple appreciation of the music itself? Do you think world music broadcast on BBC Radio 3 a fair representation of the multicultural society of the UK? How would you improve the content of world music shows on Radio 3?

Please respond to the issues raised in this post; I'd love to hear your comments. Be as brutally honest, I'm ready for it!

Thanks,

Joe

Hey Joe - good luck with this. A bit of further background about you may be useful.
Why did you choose this subject?
Do you have a particular interest and/or experience in this area?
Who else are you talking to? [we may be able to point you at some people and places..here's an authority for starters - Dr. Lucy
And what are you listening to right now?


'World Music' is a marketing phrase, pure and simple.

You may want to nip off and read this bit of history....

http://www.frootsmag.com/content/features/world_music_history/minutes/

Lat's going to love this....

More later...

[johncorrigan]

[I]Lat's going to love this....

Couldn't agree more Global - Lat'll come and write your thesis for you Joe if you talk nicely to him.

I started to listen to music from other parts of the world rather than just UK/US pop/ rock because I realised there was a lot more out there to enjoy. The record that really persuaded me was Orchestra Baobab's classic Pirate's Choice although I had been listening to some stuff before that. I also loved the Indestructible Beat of Soweto records. The records take you somewhere different. There was also some magnificent musicians - Ali Farka Toure, Tony Allen among others - recording and we were only just becoming aware of them. I suppose it takes you past that arrogance that suggests the only people worth listening to exist in the West. Of course you look for some of those roots - the roots of the blues, reggae, bluebeat and it draws you to the way that music moves around the globe and influences itself. And of course the blues heading back across to influence the likes of Ali Farka Toure and Tinariwen - of course Paul Simon and Taj Mahal and Ry Cooder and others have benefited and also opened doors. ....and that's only a small part of the African continent - there's loads more out there. Ali Bain's great series Down Home showed the movement of British and French music across to the States and then back again, changing and influencing.

Joe it's a big topic and I would agree with Global - what are you listening to?
Are you on Spotify as there's some fine playlists we could point you to. This one is 257 songs not in the English Language

http://open.spotify.com/user/trautigan/playlist/2Y0t0P6Z8c6YkeC8r3Py50

[Paul Sherratt]

>>what are you listening to?

John, it'll be Dub, pound to a penny.
Nowhere near enough heard on our wireless sets nowadays.

[Paul Sherratt]

So while we're all constructing replies to Joe he might like to listen to this ( amongst other tings )

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPeUlMEJibo

PLAY LOUD
Music of the world.

[french frank]

Also, is there any reason to divide music up in any way: e.g. classical, folk, jazz, pop, rock - and the various fragmented forms of popular music. Why do we do that, and, if we do (divide it, for example, in those particular genres), why can't music from all parts of the world be divided into those same genres? What genres would fall outside those categories?

[Which, of course, brings us back to why we categorise music anyway.]

[Globaltruth]

Also, is there any reason to divide music up in any way: e.g. classical, folk, jazz, pop, rock - and the various fragmented forms of popular music. Why do we do that, and, if we do (divide it, for example, in those particular genres), why can't music from all parts of the world be divided into those same genres? What genres would fall outside those categories?

[Which, of course, brings us back to why we categorise music anyway.]

We only pretend to on this board so we can use your wonderful free forum ff (in a fawning, Heep-like way).

Really we're all Neil Diamond fans. [slaps own wrist]


aargh - mustn't frighten the lad off...

[Al R Gando]

Many people who enjoy classical music are open to other listening experiences from outside that genre too. This tradition of eclecticism dates back for centuries, and classical composers have been working the sounds of "non-classical" music into their works for hundreds of years. The experience of live gamelan music had a big impact on western music at the turn of the C19th-C20th. Mozart and Beethoven incorporated the sound of the near-eastern Jannissary bands into their pieces. Bach reproduced the busking of Italian shepherd bagpipe bands when the shepherds make their entrance in The Christmas Oratorio.

So an interest in non-classical musics has been with us for a rather long time :)

[Globaltruth]

So while we're all constructing replies to Joe he might like to listen to this ( amongst other tings )

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPeUlMEJibo

PLAY LOUD
Music of the world.

Dub wise

http://open.spotify.com/album/7Mk8jMrNArEgMIYBL39dqr

New to me -thx; right now.

Now why did it remind me of this...[caution - contains lots of bad language]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=En4ase-1-FA

[Lateralthinking1]

Yes, I do have several million thoughts racing round my head. Joe, I will be writing, erm, more. For now, I would say that the froots link GT has provided is essential. It is my immediate reference point whenever anyone has the audacity to suggest World Music should be called anything else. Here is another bit about those meetings while I regroup and try to become useful:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2004/jun/29/popandrock1

[Lateralthinking1]

Hugh Masekela won the Grammy for "Best Contemporary Pop Performance - Instrumental" in 1968 for "Grazin' in the Grass". As Charlie says in the Guardian article, King Sunny Ade used to be filed under "reggae". Osibisa, a British Afro band, had several successes in the UK singles chart in the early 1970s and yet their records were described as "novelty" hits. That would be the Afro part. It couldn't stay like that of course. It was disrespectful. It meant that anyone "from elsewhere" who wasn't easily or wrongly categorised couldn't be heard by many. And they had to be fitted in any old where. There may even have been a pressure on some to ham it up to novelty status to be recognized. Contrast with Blackwell/Island/Marley/reggae. A real strategy there, if a little diluting. There is always a price to pay when organizing greater accessibility. For the first time, you get to hear the purer roots music even if you still have to really look for it. Note how in the late 1980s it was the marginalised Peel and Kershaw who played the Bhundu Boys. At the same time, decent artists like Salif Keita were arriving with modern productions from Paris. Such is life.

Some say that the "World Music" term is disrespectful. It treats musicians from the rest of the world - a concept that changes wherever in the world your perspective happens to be - as if all of them are lumped together even if they are now promoted. The artists don't see it in that way. Nusrat didn't. Youssou doesn't. They were savvy enough to see that the term was a means to becoming known. I doubt that it would have been as easy had Womad, Real World, World Circuit, etc lacked knowledge, enthusiasm and an understanding of nuance. It could never have been purely business. And the time was right for it in the western world which, after all, is often thought to be the centre of the universe. Graceland was mid 1980s and it is rightly seen as a significant impetus. But the UK has a unique position. The first WOMAD festival - in Shepton Mallet - was in 1982 - "Peter Gabriel, Simple Minds, Echo & The Bunnymen, The English Beat, Robert Fripp, Pigbag, Rico, Jon Hassell, 23 Skidoo, Talisman, Black Roots, Shankar, The Chieftains, Don Cherry, Rip Rig and Panic, and 12 more"!! That would include the wonderful drummers from Burundi.

"Pure enthusiasm for music from around the world led us to the idea of WOMAD in 1980 and thus to the first WOMAD festival in 1982. The festivals have always been wonderful and unique occasions and have succeeded in introducing an international audience to many talented artists."

"Equally important, the festivals have also allowed many different audiences to gain an insight into cultures other than their own through the enjoyment of music. Music is a universal language, it draws people together and proves, as well as anything, the stupidity of racism."

- Peter Gabriel

OK, let's leave the comment about race aside to a later post. For all of the talk about universality, there are no obvious direct musical links today between Sa Ding Ding and Ba Cissoko or A Filetta and Enkh Jargal. Nevertheless, there is a great deal more linkage than any possible links between them and Simple Minds. I guess with the internet and more global travel we might ask ourselves if they should now be defined more specifically. Well, they are by anyone who has any interest in them. World Music isn't them as individual artists or a collective defined by the art but rather an umbrella they all hold. Ah, so it isn't a "form" like dance then? No. In its focus on artists in a myriad of ways - musically, geographically, historically, politically - it really isn't. It isn't like:

Funk, House, Acid house, Techno, Freestyle, Electro, Eurodisco, Italo disco, Hi-NRG, Madchester, EBM, Eurodance, Euro house, Progressive house, New jack swing, Happy hardcore, UK garage, Snap music, Crunk, Dance punk, Nu-disco, Electro house, Minimal techno, Dubstep, R&B, Hip hop, Electronica, Hardstyle, Electropop, Electro Hop, Nu-Disco, Synthpop, Trance, New Wave, Dance Pop, New Rave, Electroclash, Electro-Industrial, Old Skool, Drum and Bass, Breakbeat, Drumstep and Technopop.

I joke a little. But looking beyond that huge dance "continent", old soul has many sub-divisions. So does jazz, folk, country, even classical music. The point is that the main heading rarely does the job completely. Does it matter if the sub-categories of World Music are Cuba or kora or desert blues? I doubt it. You might be able to find something in the strands of every other kind of music that is arguably more integral to a notion of the genre as a whole. That could equally be questioned. And even if that were so, there is no rule here. If World Music is the one that achieves that less than any other, that in itself sort of defines it in its own right musically. Contrary to common perception, I think it tells us precisely where it is coming from and where it joins.

I have a bit more - some different angles - but these are my initial ramblings. There was some debate on the old BBC message boards. I was far worse there - all over the place in my logic - but Charlie overly kindly described my inputs as "interesting". He was like that - very sadly missed. More importantly, he had some strong questions and observations and there were several very interesting contributions from other people. It could be worth digging out. GT - would you be able to advise on this for Joe? - Lat.

[Simon]

I wonder if Joe wants my thoughts on this?

[Lateralthinking1]

You liked the Corsicans.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtK9h--4aaM&feature=related

[Lateralthinking1]

......and you have to like the Mongolians because anyone who doesn't is mad.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwANedEkqaY

[Lateralthinking1]

.....The Japanese should win though.

http://open.spotify.com/track/2ZN4gARDBgnL4bW1q9lhmu

(I have seen all three at Womad)