World Music: A Very Short Introduction

This book was published in 2020 and there have been enormous changes in world music as diversity, equity and inclusion issues have swamped the culture and racial debates for 15 years. But this book is still valuable because the author thoroughly explains every term and definition that encompasses breath and depth of World Music such as folk song, authenticity, Bela Bartok, border-crossing, Celtic Fringe, colonialism, 92s celebrations, cultural relativism, Demonstration Collection, diaspora, diversity, double consciousness, ethnic music, Rough Guides, festivals, field recording, fusion, musical genre, globalization, guest workers, the Middle Passage, indigenous peoples, international Polka music, Ledbetter/Lead belly, LP/CD, wax cylinder, national anthems, pilgrimage, Santiago, post colonial era, public sphere, racism, Rastafarianism, soundscape, street music, Unisonance, the West, art music, World Beat, world's fair, xylophone, enforced anonymity. This is just a small sampling of World Music to give you an idea of the author's great knowledge and command of the subject. Once you have read this book you will be properly prepared to live through the rest of the 21st century.

If you enjoy World Music and you are looking to enhance your appreciation, this book is a terrible disappointment. The author is one of those academics who embroider draperies of words in order to conceal the fact they have nothing to say. Unreadable and useless. I am otherwise a fan of the "Very Short Introduction" series. This book is definitely not for the general reader (or anyone else that I can tell).

Philip V. Bohlman is a professor of musicology and ethnomusicology at the University of Chicago, an institution reknowned for its foundational works in Anthropology and Ethnomusicology. Being the nature of interdisciplinary ethnomusicologgical research, the book covers areas of study including Musicology, Anthropology, Sociology, History, Political Science, Economics and Philosophy. He begins by expressing the limitations inherant in approaching a global phenomenon with only 150, 4"x7" pages. The reader is consistently reminded of the authors initial disclaimer when reading two paragraphs into an intriguing topic, and finding that it ends there. Nevertheless, Bohlman presents a myriad of ways of approaching and interpretating the global phenonemon known as "world" music. He focuses on topics including: the history of western musicology and ethnomusicology, music in tradition, music in nationalism, music in diaspora, music in mediation, and music in the era of globalization. He also provides the reader with a nice collection of further readings, references and listening suggestions in the bibliography, organized by chapter. A constant theme for Bohlman is the notion of "encounter". He attributes that it is within the experience of the encounter that we attribute meaning to the music itself, and to the context in which it is experienced. He also postulates that there is a concurrent tension in so far as the way we "encounter" world musics, being mediated by global capitalism and market forces. This can potentialy take a traditional music out of context, resulting in an extention of post-colonial cultural hegemony or "cultural imperialism made sonorous" (147). Conversly, it can provide a medium for identity formation, revival, and representation, while potentially bringing people together, fostering empathy and harmony. You make the choice! Is it musical globalism? -Is the current manifestation of world music a reflection of a global world, where cultural bridges are being reconciled? or Is it musical globalization? -Is world music a reflection of an economically globalized world, mediated by market forces and economic manipulation? This is a complex question that Bohlman poses, ever so succinctly, yet all too briefly. Great introduction for the student, active musician or passive listener.

This is a very academic study of the phenomenon of world music. As such it provides interesting theories and also some important facts, but I doubt whether the average world music fan would derive much enjoyment from it. The author includes worldwide music from the folk, art and popular traditions and mentions that it can be sacred, secular or commercial. So far, so good, but with sentences like: "As we encounter world music, therefore, it is important to recognize the need to reckon with different epistemologies and ontologies if we are to understand what world music can mean in its virtually infinite varieties," I nearly fell of my chair laughing. In its defence, the book does include informative albeit short pieces on the 1932 Cairo Congress of Arab Music, the great Egyptian singer Umm Kulthum, Rai music, Leadbelly, Celtic music, the Eurovision Song Contest, Bob Marley, Manu Dibango from Cameroon and the musics of the various diasporas. Two maps are included: The Celtic Fringe in Europe and the Polka Belt in the USA plus there are illustrations, a bibliography, discography and an index. I picked up the book without properly checking the contents - it's great source material if you want to write a dissertation on music from different traditions, but not a text that reflects the rhythms of the rich variety of world music that is becoming more and more available to everybody in our current era of globalisation.

World music is a relatively recent concept that has attracted growing interest. Informally speaking, it is related to music that differs from western music, mainly as a consequence of originating from geographically distinct regions. My personal interest in this area focuses the diversity of rhythms, harmonies (or lack of it), instruments and form. Indeed, I have frequently been inspired by the stunning aspects of music from many different geographical regions, from the magic polyphony of pygmies to the haunting songs of American indians (both south and north). When I bought this book, I expected to find an accessible overall view of the main types of world music, describing the main styles, their characteristics, and revising some of the main artists, so that I could probe further in my discoveries of such fascinating music. That was not the case. This book is a somewhat formal, even scholastic, discussion about ethnomusicology, focusing on theoretical historical, sociological, epistemological, and ontological aspects. A substantial part of its long introduction is dedicated to postmodernism and globalization. Though these are undoubtedly important aspects, there is simply much more to world music. Just a few examples of styles and artists are provided, and even less is said about the instruments. Even the relatively few topics covered in the book frequently failed to keep my attention. Just to provide an example, Seeger is mentioned in Chapter 1 regarding his interesting study about the relationship between music and words - which is of great interest to me as a potentially unifying aspect of music, but this theme turned out not to be developed further.

When I read a book entitled "World Music A Very Short Introduction" I'm hoping to get a book that will actually introduce me to world music. A book that will explain how musical instruments, scales, etc differ from one part of the world to another. A book that possibly goes very briefly into the history of music around the world, different ways in which it is interpreted in different cultures, etc. When I buy any book in the generally superb "Very Short Introduction" series I expect to get lucid prose written for an intelligent person who is NOT an expert on the subject and is not an academic. World Music is written by an academic for academics, primarily academics who embrace the whole Post Modernist approach. To quote the preface "World music is very much a construct of modernism which is to say the encounter with and interpretation of the world that was unleashed by the Age of Discovery, the Enlightenment ..." Most of the preface talks about Globalization as a political and social force. I could have lived with this if the prose itself was lucid. But it is exceedingly turgid and filled with jargon. I picked a random page and searched for the first prose that struck me as a good example of this. So the following is a long, long way from the worst "The space between the West and its others has vexed enthnomusicology since its inception. Indeed, we might even go so far as to say the the field has developed by attempting to shape the types of encounter that occur within this space and thus define the space"

The author tries to show off by writing in an unnecessary wordy style, using long difficult to understand words which he often seems to have coined himself. This clouds the meaning instead of making it understandable to the layreader. What a pity as it could have been an important book to people who want to understand more about World Music and how it influences us all today.

Very useful. Thanks.