other music, other cultures

[jeremy c]

We all get a little inbred in our musical listening habits. People generally have a style they listen to and then they ignore everything else.

 

It's a big world.

 

Recently I went to NAMM and heard the finest bass players in the country. They were all great, of course, but when it came down to it, their approaches to music were not so far apart.

 

The other night I went to hear the great guitarist/singer from Mali, Habib Koité. His band included a very good bass player named Abdoul Wahab Berthe. Abdoul also played an instrument called the kamale n'gomi on one song. This instrument is a relative of the kora.

 

What I am trying to say is that even though these musicians had instruments which looked like ours: guitars, bass, drums, they played things which no American musician would ever come up with.

 

Everything they played used the pentatonic scale, but in different ways than we normally use it. Everything was either in 4/4 or 6/8 time, but not with rhythms that we are accustomed to playing.

 

The bass player grooved like crazy, everyone did, and at the end of the night he played a solo. It was nothing like anyone around here would ever play. Of course we could learn how to play it, but we never would have thought of it.

 

Is Natty Fred still out there? She's the only one around here that I know of who has actual personal experience playing music of a non-western culture.

 

For me, listening to music outside of "my style" and outside of popularly accepted styles is always invigorating and inspires me to press forward and pursue new ideas.

[ibescotty]

Everytime I hear something with a Latin feel to it, the bass lines jump right out at me. Anything from the Texas Tornadoes to Cuban Jazz. It's all good and interesting.

[D_dup3]

Personally, I love gamelan (Southeast Asian percussion-led orchestras)...but even within our own culture there's tons of quite different music that many never explore.

For a rock or country player, jazz is often equal to another "culture"; pop musicians often are completely out of touch with classical; etc.

[DanYmaL X]

All 'western' music is tied together somehow, whether it be Classical, Rock, Jazz, you can find common roots somewhere, and just about anyone in any 'western' culture can identify another 'western' culture's music.

But Jeremy is right about different cultures... Even though they may play instruments that are very similar or even the same in design to what we know, they have different 'ears' and they play in such different styles that it sometimes falls out of what we as westerners define as music... but it is very interesting and enlightnenig to listen to music from a truly different culture.

DX

[patrick_dont_fret]

Yeah, it is true that today's generation is completely out of touch with 'foreign' music...and geography (sometimes even native geography, as in the case of my little sister). I love me some Ravi Shankar...some of the best music that's ever hit my ears.

 

I hang out with a lot of Veitnamese folks, and some of their music is quite interesting. Their techno is especially interesting. Any of the former Soviet states, such as Bulgaria, have very interesting music, and are in times that we could never (well ok, but sloppily) play in.

[RobT]

Its a big world out there. Personally I love Soca, High Life and Latin when it comes to music/culture other than American.

[D_dup3]

After thinking a bit I remembered this:

At the turn of the last century (er, actually, the century before last ---1800s to 1900s), a group of Javanese musicians appeared at the World's Fair held in Paris.

Several young musicians, including Eric Satie, Maurice Ravel &, most notably, Claude Debussy, saw their performances & were deeply inspired; in fact, some elements of their traditional gamelan style became intrinsic to Debussy's music, thereby entering what we now might consider mainstream European classical style!

[DanYmaL X]

Originally posted by d:

After thinking a bit I remembered this:

At the turn of the last century (er, actually, the century before last ---1800s to 1900s), a group of Javanese musicians appeared at the World's Fair held in Paris.

Dude, you remember that? Exactly how old are you, anyways?

But seriously, that's some cool stuff... Nothing like a world fair to spread the word of music!

DX

[D_dup3]

[davebrownbass]

Wow man...can you EVER get big enough ears?

 

I just started a student at the junior college from Cambodia...

 

Really interesting guy...brilliant...has read and understands all the theory I can throw at him...plays piano.

 

At his lesson yesterday he told me the main reason he is studying is so he can get really good at AMERICAN music, and integrate it into Cambodian music....

 

AS he tells it, Cambodian was Westernized through the '50's, and (a lot of 1-6-4-5 progressions) and then, with the Vietnam War and the Khmer Rouge Cambodia fell into a dictatorial regime, and have not been the same country. This man desperately wants to develop into a great musician and return to Cambodia and re-awaken the tradition of Cambodian/Western music.

 

I told him I'd be honored to play a role.

 

Now I gotta hear Habib.... Here\'s a link I found with more into

[Mark Zeger]

Brazilian music, primarily bossa nova and MPB, really speaks to me in a way I can't explain. I don't understand Portuguese, at least not enough to fully grasp the meaning of lyrics. I love the harmonic vocabulary, the sense of musical phrase, and the unbridled rhythmic inventiveness.

 

I'm a big fan of Ivan Lins. If you haven't heard of him, I think of him as the James Taylor of Brazil. They are both singer/songwriters whose careers span the same decades. "Comecar de Novo" is perhaps my favorite Lins song. Few of his albums are available in the US, but the greatest hits collection "Minha Historia" is usually available in larger chain retailers. That's a very good sampler of his music.

[davich]

I'm with d.

 

My origin is Indonesia and there are a lot of tribes and cultures within the country. That makes a very broad spectrum of music that being produced. Though I don't know whether music from East Coast US is different than West Coast.

 

Javanese style (the most recognizable island where Jakarta: the capital is, other than Bali off course) is usually pentatonic. I cannot say much for there are a lot of traditinal music types even in Java.

 

Some collaboration has been made between national jazz band Karimata (which is as good as US musicians) with Indonesian style with GRP all stars before: Dave Grusin, Lee Ritenour, Ernie Watts, Phil Perry, and Don Grusin.

 

There was one hot number called Seng Ken Ken which music types coming from Bali Kecak dance. This Kecak dance is unusual, for there is a part where the dancer are reaching the state of "in trance", so you will find the music is very intense in one part.

 

I think Karimata produced it as an album called Jezz, coming from ethnic jazz. I don't know how you guys in US can get it.

 

The efforts to blend the ethnic music with western music is still on going, unfortunately we are not Brazil, which is closer to US and getting all the chances of collaboration.

[Greg and Sterling]

My college has a Gamelan group, I saw them last November and it was quite cool.

[Jode]

I have had the opportunity to learn Indian peyote songs in the last several years. They are performed with a water drum, a gourd rattle, and voice, preferably many voices. They are direct, intense, and beautiful, and quite an experience to perform. An old Indian once said, "A white man goes into a church and talks about God. A red man goes into a tipi and talks to God."

[fig]

It really is amazing the diversity of music around the world! I've been fortunate to travel quite a bit, thru my parents working overseas and my 'trips' during 20 years in the Navy. I counted one time, and came up with 22 different countries that I've been to, a couple I lived in.

 

I was always enthralled with the differences of music in various regions of the world. Such different approaches, tonalities, the whole shebang. Beautiful stuff.

 

Many industrialized countries (example, England, Ireland, former Communist countries) embrace American music, but their mindset is different about what is currently popular. I listened to a band in Ireland, and recognized only one tune they played. Talked with them, got to jam only after finding out what we all could do. Settled on some Credence Clearwater, as John is Irish. In Bulgaria, I met a few younger guys who wanted me to send really old rock and roll to them, stuff that was years outdated as 'cool' in the US.

 

But that was refering to Western style music. Where it got wonderous was in the third-world countries, or the indiginous music of the industrialized countries. Scalings, phrasings, instruments, etc, we're just not exposed to.

 

It's a great world out there for musicians who really want to open up whole new creative pathways. There is stuff going on we wouldn't think of doing, and it's all valid. It's music, the universal language.

 

Cool thread. I haven't thought about this stuff in awhile, as I don't 'get around' anymore.

[The Bear Jew]

My man JeremyC raised an interesting point in his initial post -- many of these foreign forms of music use scales we (as westerners) recognize, but the approach is absolutely alien to our western ears. Hearing these differing approaches is like having your ears blown wide open -- it's so fucking COOL. It's like really hearing the notes as what they are for the first time. By virtue of having a radically different cultural backdrop, I almost always find myself to be at a total loss when I hear music from around the world. I don't even feel like a musician when I hear this stuff... I feel like an explorer or a sociologist. I'm lucky -- I've been exposed to a lot of cultural music from other countries (as well as this one.) I try to absorb whatever I can into this luddite brain of mine, but nothing I can do will make me truly understand what makes African guitarists play in that "chimey" style or how Indian percussionists play those odd signatures so naturally. I'll never understand the sitar and all those sympathetic strings. I just try to get my head around those sounds and keep them in my mental arsenal whenever I feel stuck for ideas.

Ain't music cool?

[Cup]

Jeremy mentioned Natty Fred, everyone who hasn't read a thread called "World Music" should get that search button going. Natty Fred (a well travelled female) and Greenboy talk in great depth about many different musical cultures. Most of it concerns Tribal African music and way out Reggae....I've only travelled to 2 other countries outside of Ireland/Great Britain, but from reading that topic I got severe Jetlag!

 

Do yourself a favour, "World Music" and SEARCH!

 

CupMcMali...this monkey's gone to heaven

[conguiño]

Even for those for those of us who live in Latin America, homogenous influences are a problem.

 

In Guatemala alone there are over 20 different languages spoken. Within Central America, we sometimes fail to communicate due to our different slang and accents.

 

This also happens with music of course. Go near the Carribean and you got African stuff like Reggae, Colombia has Vallenato, Cuba has Trova, Dominican Republic has Bachata, Merengue and some other styles, etc., etc., etc.

 

Yet I STILL see local bands gravitating towards western music. In fact most of my peers listen to nothing but mainstream rock. A few people listen to and play jazz and practically no one is into ethnic music.

 

Don't get me wrong though. Western music is great. I love Jaco Pastorius, Marcus Miller, Joe Satriani, Spyro Gyra, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Jimi Hendrix, Pearl Jam, Dream Theater, etc., etc., etc. But the thing with western music is it's tendency to degenerate while it finds it's way into the mainstream. Then you get the Backstreet Boys.

 

From the time I spent in the U.S. (10 yrs.) I think the problem with this lack of diversity isn't really from a lack of cultures. Having European ancestors makes for a lot of different influences, not to mention all the immigrants from around the world that live in the larger cities.

 

IMHO what happens is that globalization and pop culture kind of make us adapt/evolve into people who don't really remember their roots. We're so caught up in moving forward as fast as we can that we don't look back often enough.

 

My solution: lets all stop watching MTV and spend more time pursuing artistic and cientific endeavors and communicating our thoughts and ideas on places like this forum.

[jeremy c]

Thanks for writing, Conguiño.

 

I know how much my approach is broadened by listening to South American styles. I hope that when South Americans listen to North American music they can add it to their own traditions and still not lose what they already have.

[conguiño]

DBB, thanks for posting that link man. Great stuff in there.

[Wrave]

I picked up a copy of Habib Koite's "Ma Ya" a couple of years ago. His playing is so expressive and so different. The cultural differences are why Paul Simon has brought African music into some of his work. It is very refreshing.

 

There are a couple of interviews with Habib at Afro Pop .