Customer Reviews

Musics of Many Cultures: An Introduction

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
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1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book is, I think, basically designed to be a college text on non-European music. If you're like me, you've been out of college quite a while, but I think you'll find this to be a useful reference volume if you're interested in alternative musical traditions. Perhaps it's my imagination or simply my idiosyncratic point of perspective, but I believe that there has been an increase of interest in non-western music over the last couple of decades. My perspective is that I'm too old for the top 40, not interested in listening to the music I grew up with (it was bad enough listening to some of that stuff the first time!) and find that the classical station gets more banal each day. This book will help you to understand the subtleties of non-Western traditions, whether it be types of Indian ragas to use at different times of day, the normal arrangement of pieces in a traditional Arab presentation or the significance of variations in musical style in Japanese court music as opposed to the Kabuki theatre.

Three stars, of course, is lukewarm praise, and there were various features of the book that I was not thrilled with, although some of them were unavoidable. The book is an edited collection of essays by various academics, and the quality is uneven. Some of them seem to almost be too thorough, and get bogged down in detail (Iranian, Japanese). Some are too sketchy (West African, Peruvian). Some just aren't there (other Native American). A couple seem to have provided an opportunity for the writer to air his or her pet projects (Chinese). Perhaps out of a jealousy to guard their preserves, most of the articles studiously avoided talking about cross-cultural influences (e.g., Arabic music on Iranian - or is it the other way round?), regarding which I would have appreciated some comment.

I also think that it would not have been out of place to discuss some of the lesser known traditions with links to the West, such as gypsy music. Also, in general most (but not all) of the articles avoid discussing modern trends. Well, I suppose that there are limitations to what you can include between the covers of one book. This book does cover a lot of turf, and it has an extensive bibliography if you want to look into any one subject in more depth. Recommended if like me you want to have this kind of information in one volume on your bookshelf.