world music
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On Philosophy’s Western Bias: Thinking Through “Non-Western” Music
The concept of “non-Western” music has long been both a cornerstone and a sticky issue for the field of ethnomusicology. Formed in the mid-1950s, the Society For Ethnomusicology was from its inception interested in the study of musical traditions from outside the Western classical music canon. Early on, its approach was musicological–studying music as an Continue reading
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On The Filtering Of World Music: A Nexus Percussion Performance
Formed in 1971, Nexus is a Toronto-based percussion ensemble that has been making hard to classify music using a massive array of instruments for over three decades. Their repertoire spans experimental free improvisation, West African and North Indian drumming, contemporary classical pieces (including commissioned works from the likes of Toru Takemitsu and Steve Reich), original Continue reading
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On Damon Albarn’s DRC Music Collaboration
It wasn’t all that long ago that indigenous, folk, popular, and art musics from Africa, Asia, South America, the South Pacific, the Caribbean–heck from most anywhere outside of North America and Western Europe–were hard to come by, relegated to the “international” or “world music” bins at your local record store. Then, in the late 1980s, Continue reading
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Musical Collaborations: Ballaké Sissoko and Vincent Segal
Mandinka kora music is among my favorite sound worlds. The kora is a 21-string harp-lute traditionally played by oral historians in many parts of West Africa. I travelled to Mali (home to many Mandinka people) in 2002 to learn to play the kora. Though I didn’t get all that far in three weeks, I learned Continue reading
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