World Music
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World Music
A Global Journey
Fourth Edition
Terry E. Miller Kent State University
and
Andrew Shahriari Kent State University
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Fourth edition published 2017 by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
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Third edition published by Routledge 2012
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Names: Miller, Terry E., author. | Shahriari, Andrew C., author. Title: World music: a global journey / Terry E. Miller and Andrew Shahriari. Description: Fourth edition. | New York ; London : Routledge, 2017. | "2017 | Includes index. Identifiers: LCCN 2016010412 | ISBN 9781138911314 (paperback) | ISBN 9781138911277 (paperback + CD) | ISBN 9781138911284 (hardback + CD) Subjects: LCSH: World music—History and criticism. Classification: LCC ML3545 .M54 2017 | DDC 780.9—dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2016010412
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Cover image credits (clockwise from top left) for paperback edition: A dance scene typical of Indian film with actress singing a filmi song (testing/Shutterstock.com); Yari Yari men play the kundu goblet drum and dance in Papua New Guinea (Michele Westmorland/Corbis Documentary/Getty Images); King Sunny Adé (Jack Vartoogian/FrontRowPhotos); Japanese taiko drummer (Manuel Fernandes/Shutterstock.com); The Chinese pipa, played by Yang Jin (Courtesy of Kent State University); Lord Kitchener performing at the Caribbean AllStar Calypso Festival at Radio City Music Hall, New York City (Jack Vartoogian/FrontRowPhotos)
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Contents
Preface
Scope Organization The Fourth Edition Listening Guides
Structure of Each Listening Guide
How Instructors Can Expand Course Coverage Website Our Own Journey (Thus Far)
Terry E. Miller Andrew Shahriari
Acknowledgments 1 Before the Trip Begins: Fundamental Issues
What is Music? Music: Universal Language or Culturally Specific Activity? Beware of Labels An Inside Look: Terence Liu An Inside Look: Nguyen Thuyet Phong Knowing the World's Musics The Life of an Ethnomusicologist Representation: What Musics Does One Study? Resources for the Study of the World's Musics
Reference Works Video Audio Recordings Journals
Questions to Consider
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2 Aural Analysis: Listening to the World's Musics
How to Listen to World Music "Talking" about Music Timbre and Medium
Vocal Timbre Instrumental Timbre
Aerophones: Flutes, Reeds, and Trumpets Chordophones: Lutes and Zithers Idiophones: Plucked, Struck, and Shaken Membranophones Summary
Pitch
Tuning System Scale Interval Range Melody
Melodic Contour Ornamentation Text Setting
Rhythm
Beat and Tempo Accent and Meter Rhythmic Density
Phonic Structure Dynamics An Inside Look: Bruno Nettl Form Need to Know: Fundamentals of Music Questions to Consider
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3 Cultural Considerations: Beyond the Sounds Themselves
Cultural Knowledge An Inside Look: Judith Becker Value Systems and Hierarchies Music and Identity Use versus Function Music and Spirituality Music and Ethics Music and the Environment New Theoretical Perspectives Music Technologies and Media Music and the Arts Transmission and Pedagogy Notation Systems and the Creation of Music Exchange and Adaptation Cultural Intersections A Case Study of Istanbul, Turkey: A Lesson in Geography, History, Religions, and Musical Exchange Questions to Consider
4 Oceania: Australia, Papua New Guinea, Hawai'i, Kiribati
Background Preparation Planning the Itinerary Arrival: Australia
Site 1: Australian Aboriginal Song with Didjeridu
Arrival: Papua New Guinea
Site 2: Susap (lamellophone) from Papua New Guinea
Explore More: Singsings of Papua New Guinea Arrival: Hawai'i An Inside Look: Amy Ku'uleialoha Stillman Explore More: Hawai'ian Steel Guitar and Ukulele
Site 3: Hawai'ian Drum-Dance Chant
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Dance: Tongan Dance Arrival: Kiribati
Site 4: Group Song for bino (sitting dance) from Kiribati
Questions to Consider
5 South Asia: India, Pakistan
Background Preparation An Inside Look: K. S. Resmi An Inside Look: Aashish Khan Planning the Itinerary Arrival: North India
Site 1: Hindustani (Instrumental) Raga
Need to Know: Fundamentals of Indian Classical (Hindustani) Music Arrival: South India
Site 2: Carnatic Classical (Vocal) Kriti
Explore More: Kathakali
Site 3: Hindu Bhajan Devotional Song
Explore More: Indian Filmi Git (Film Song) Arrival: Pakistan
Site 4: Qawwali (Sufi Devotional Song)
Explore More: Bhangra Questions to Consider
6 Southeast Asia: Vietnam, Thailand, Laos and Northeast Thailand, Indonesia (Java and Bali)
Background Preparation Planning the Itinerary An Inside Look: Sumarsam
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Arrival: Vietnam
Site 1: Vietnamese Central Highlands Bronze Gong Ensemble Site 2: Nhac Tai Tu Amateur Chamber Music
Arrival: Thailand An Inside Look: Priwan Nanongkham
Site 3: Classical Piphat Music
Dance: Thai Classical Dance Arrival: Laos and Northeast Thailand Explore More: The Ramayana
Site 4: Lam Klawn Repartee Singing Site 5: Luk Thung Popular Song
Arrival: Indonesia (Java and Bali)
Site 6: Javanese Court Gamelan Site 7: Balinese Gamelan Gong Kebyar
Explore More: Kecak—The Balinese "Monkey Chant" Questions to Consider
7 East Asia: China, Mongolia, Korea, Japan, Tibet
Background Preparation An Inside Look: Luo Qin An Inside Look: Masayo Ishigure Planning the Itinerary Arrival: China
Site 1: The Guqin (Seven-String "Ancient" Zither) Site 2: Jiangnan Sizhu ("Silk and Bamboo") Ensemble from Shanghai Site 3: Beijing Opera (Jingju) Site 4: Chuida Wind and Percussion Ensemble
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Explore More: Popular Music in East Asia Arrival: Mongolia
Site 5: Mongolian Urtïn Duu (Long Song) with Khöömei (Overtone or "Throat" Singing)
Arrival: Korea
Site 6: P'ansori Narrative
Arrival: Japan
Site 7: Gagaku Court Music
Explore More: Komuso Dance: Japanese Music and Dance
Site 8: Kabuki Theater
Explore More: Taiko Arrival: Tibet
Site 9: Tibetan Buddhist Ritual
Questions to Consider
8 The Middle East: Islam and the Arab World, Iran, Egypt, Sufism, Judaism
Background Preparation Planning the Itinerary An Inside Look: George Dimitri Sawa Arrival: Islam and the Arabic World
Site 1: Islamic Adhan, "Call to Prayer" Site 2: Arabic Taqasim for Ud and Buzuq
Arrival: Iran
Site 3: Dastgah for Santur and Voice
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Arrival: Egypt
Site 4: Takht Instrumental Ensemble
Arrival: Sufism
Site 5: Sufi Dhikr Ceremony
Arrival: Judaism
Site 6: Jewish Shofar and Liturgical Cantillation
Questions to Consider
9 Europe: Greece, Spain, Russia, Scotland, Ireland, Hungary, Bulgaria
Background Preparation "Classical" versus "Folk" Planning the Itinerary Arrival: Greece
Site 1: Creek Orthodox (Byzantine) Chant
Arrival: Spain
Site 2: Flamenco
Dance: Flamenco Dance Arrival: Russia
Site 3: Balalaika Ensemble
Arrival: Scotland An Inside Look: Mick Moloney An Inside Look: Walter Mahovlich
Site 4: Highland Bagpipes
Arrival: Ireland
Site 5: Uilleann Bagpipes
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Arrival: Hungary
Site 6: Tekerölant (Hurdy Gurdy)
Arrival: Bulgaria
Site 7: Bulgarian Women's Chorus
Questions to Consider
10 Sub-Saharan Africa: Ghana, Nigeria, Central Africa, Zimbabwe, Uganda, Senegal, The Republic of South Africa
Background Preparation Planning the Itinerary An Inside Look: Adesanya Adeyeye An Inside Look: Habib Iddrisu Arrival: Ghana
Site 1: Polyrhythmic Recreational Ensemble
Dance: West Africa
Site 2: "Talking Drums"
Arrival: Nigeria
Site 3: Jùjú Popular Music
Arrival: Central Africa
Site 4: Mbuti Pygmy Music from the Democratic Republic of the Congo
Arrival: Zimbabwe
Site 5: Mbira Dza Vadzimu
Arrival: Uganda
Site 6: Akadinda
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Arrival: Senegal-Gambia
Site 7: Jali with Kora
Arrival: The Republic of South Africa
Site 8: Mbube
Explore More: Ladysmith Black Mambazo Questions to Consider
11 The Caribbean: Haiti, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Puerto Rico, Cuba, The Dominican Republic
Background Preparation Planning the Itinerary Arrival: Haiti
Site 1: Vodou Ritual from Haiti
Arrival: Jamaica
Site 2: Reggae
Arrival: Trinidad and Tobago
Site 3: Calypso
Explore More: Soca An Inside Look: Olivia Ahyoung An Inside Look: Ellie Mannette
Site 4: Steel Band (Pan)
Arrival: Puerto Rico
Site 5: Puerto Rican Plena
Arrival: Cuba
Site 6: Cuban Son
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Dance: Caribbean—Trinidad, Haiti, Latin America Arrival: The Dominican Republic
Site 7: Merengue
Questions to Consider
12 South America and Mexico: The Amazon Rainforest, Peru, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico
Background Preparation Planning the Itinerary An Inside Look: Martin Pereira Algarita Arrival: The Amazon Rainforest
Site 1: Amazonian Chant
Arrival: Peru
Site 2: Sikuri (Panpipe) Ensemble
Arrival: Argentina
Site 3: Tango
Arrival: Brazil
Site 4: Samba
Explore More: Carnival
Site 5: Capoeira Music
An Inside Look: Gilbert Valez Arrival: Mexico
Site 6: Mariachi
Questions to Consider
13 Canada and the United States
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Background Preparation Planning the Itinerary An Inside Look: Natalie MacMaster Arrival: Canada
Site 1: Cape Breton Fiddling
Arrival: The United States of America
Site 2: Ballad-Singing Site 3: Old Regular Baptist Lined Hymn
An Inside Look: Hugh McGraw
Site 4: Singing School Shape-Note Music
Dance: American Folk—Square Dance
Site 5: Bluegrass Site 6: African-American Spiritual Site 7: African-American Gospel Choir Site 8: Country Blues Site 9: "Nuyorican" Salsa
Dance: Ballroom Dance
Site 10: Cajun Music
Arrival: Native American Reservations
Site 11: Plains Indian Dance Song Site 12: Native American Flute
Explore More: Inuit Throat-Singing Questions to Consider
Glossary Resources for Further Study Index Recorded Examples
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Preface
This textbook is inspired by a class we taught (and Andrew continues to teach) at Kent State University for many years, “Music as a World Phenomenon.” In the mid-1990s, when the university established a requirement for cultural diversity classes, the course was a natural fit and enrollment exploded overnight. Fifty students a semester turned into over 500 within a few years. Dissatisfied with the introductory world music textbooks available at the time, we set out to write one that would serve this greater number of students, few of whom had formal music training. Its success has encouraged the class to grow to nearly 1500 students per semester and is one of the most popular courses on campus. Other universities have experienced similar growth in their world music surveys. The online version of the class at Kent State, which accommodates nearly 500 students, remains full, and the textbook with its accompanying interactive website has proven an invaluable resource, especially for those students. We hope this fourth edition of World Music: A Global Journey will encourage the same enthusiasm in both instructors and students for teaching and learning about the world and its music, as it has for us at Kent State.
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Scope
Anyone who attempts a book such as this must settle on answers to a few questions:
• Breadth or depth? You cannot have both, unless you want a tome that could hold down your loose papers through a hurricane. We have chosen breadth. While we recognize the impossibility of doing justice to all the world’s notable and interesting musics, we also feel that doing what you can is better than doing nothing. The second major question is:
• Geographical or topical organization? As ethnomusicologists we are tempted to organize our studies topically, in order to explore such issues as identity, gender, representation, meaning, globalization, and so on, but we have found that this approach leaves most students in a state of geographical disorientation. While such a plan would make it easier to discuss many of the issues at stake in “cultural diversity” courses, it would make it difficult to communicate a coherent view of the music of a given area. Thus, we have chosen a geographical organization. A third question is:
• Should the concentration be on music as sound or music as culture? The study of world musics is the focus of a discipline known as Ethnomusicology, which seeks to understand both music and its cultural associations. This field of scholarly research has long had a fascination with the anthropological aspects of the music studied—what we used to call “the context”—but some of our field’s critics have noted a growing reluctance to discuss musical sound at all, complaining that ethnomusicologists do “everything but the music.” Others scoff at ethnomusicology as eth-NO-MUSIC-ology. We have striven for a balanced approach, choosing first to emphasize music as sound because we realize that many of the instructors using this book are situated in music departments and are naturally inclined to focus on music as sound. However, we also include important cultural aspects, allowing teachers using this book to choose which to emphasize.
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Organization
Travel is the central metaphor of the book, in part because that is often how the authors experienced the music we present. After three introductory chapters in which we discuss the elements of music, we present ten chapters on specific geographical areas, be they a continent (e.g., Europe) or a subcontinent (e.g., South Asia). As with any major trip, preparation is necessary before a specific area can be considered in depth.
“Background Preparation” provides the big picture giving the general lay of the land, some of an area’s history, and raising certain issues related to music-making in the region. We then give an overview of music the region has to offer before landing in a particular country or area. Here we review the background information pertinent to this particular place and give the reader some feel for the locale’s history and culture.
After this, we begin visiting our individual “Sites.” These are the audio tracks and discussions we have chosen to represent the area—though you should always bear in mind that we have omitted many others of equal significance. As with travel, so with music: we simply cannot visit every interesting place. Hopefully, you can return to some areas later and experience more on your own. Each Site is explored in three steps.
1. “First Impressions”—In this section we attempt to convey the impressions and associations the music might inspire in a first-time listener. These are necessarily subjective and intended to encourage readers to consider their own first impressions in comparison to ours.
2. “Aural Analysis”—Here we focus on the site in terms of musical sound, discussing whatever is most relevant. This could include the medium (instruments and/or voices) and any of the prominent musical elements that distinguish an example.
3. “Cultural Considerations”—The final section is where relevant cultural matters are raised. These are the “contexts” and “issues” that have differentiated ethnomusicology from most other music disciplines.
This process can serve as a framework for exploring an infinite array of world music traditions. Instructors may wish to bring in some examples, based on their
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own focus and experience, as a supplement to the materials provided here.
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The Fourth Edition
Following the release of the first edition in late 2005, we were gratified so many of our colleagues in schools of all sizes and missions adopted World Music: A Global Journey and found it useful. Although we feel fortunate that so many chose this book over the increasing number of other choices, we continually think about how we can improve it. Hopefully, the fourth edition offers many of the improvements suggested by users along with those originating with the authors.
• New Sites
Plena from Puerto Rico replaces the site of rhyming spirituals from the Bahamas Chuida from China replaces Revolutionary Opera from China Gagaku from Japan has returned from the second edition, and replaces the sankyoku site
The former (third edition) sites have been moved to the textbook website.
• Updated “Inside Look” features: Many of the musicians and scholars featured have revised their entries. While some of the earlier writers have been rotated off, we welcome a number of new and distinguished people to this feature: Dr. Terence Liu (public ethnomusicology), K. S. Resni (South Indian classical singer), Dr. Sumarsam (Indonesian gamelan master and professor), Dr. Mick Moloney (internationally renowned singer of Irish music, folklorist, ethnomusicologist, National Heritage Award fellow), Walter Mahovlich (comprehensive performer of Eastern European music), Natalie MacMaster (pre-eminent Canadian fiddler, niece of the late Buddy MacMaster featured in the first through third editions), Gilbert Velez (Mariachi master musician, scholar, and “father” of the Mariachi movement in the United States).
• New photos: As we try to do with each new edition, there are many new photographs throughout the book drawn from our own field research and others in the field, as well as professional stock footage archives with an eye for fieldwork-oriented images that complement our original list of figures.
• New “Dance” boxes: A new feature we are excited to include are essays focusing on world dance, which in many cultures is inseparable from musical activity. Our introductions to ballroom, flamenco, Thai classical,
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Ghanaian, American folk, and Japanese dance will hopefully be well- received, such that we can add features on other world dance traditions in future editions. The articles were written by specialists in the areas they discuss, which has the benefit of offering experiential perspective on their particular dances.
• One less chapter: Chapter 14: “Discovering Yourself Through Music” and “On Your Own Time” suggested resources have been removed from the hard-copy textbook and placed on the textbook website. After much deliberation, we decided this would benefit students in that the fewer pages would help keep the cost of the book down and the practicality of including web resources was better suited for the website than the book itself. We also learned that many instructors did not utilize these resources with great frequency, but they are still available to those readers and instructors who encourage such self-exploration as part of their world music study.
• Additional Resources: These have been updated to include more recent publications and online resources.
• Instructors’ Resources: These have been revisited to include new presentations, exam questions, class time activities, and a more integrated website that can be used to expand course coverage.
• Interactive Listening Guides: More of these have been incorporated on the website so that students can listen to streamed music at specific prompts.
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Listening Guides
The purpose of the Listening Guides is to encourage active listening, rather than passive listening. Many students find they lack experience in listening actively to music. The music washes over them as a complete sound without much thought toward the details. Most everyone does this on a daily basis, such as listening to the car radio, walking through a mall, waiting in a doctor’s office, or even while attending a concert. They passively “absorb” the sound without really thinking about it.
Active listening requires more than just your ears. You must focus on individual elements in the music in order to understand a variety of features, such as its organization or its rhythmic/ melodic elements, its correlation to movement in dance/theater, the sound as a manifestation of emotional/spiritual expression, etc. Such intentional listening promotes a greater appreciation of the music, which will hopefully make it more appealing, if only from an intellectual perspective.
Each listening guide focuses on key features of the example that help you identify the timbre of different instruments, important melodic and/or rhythmic elements, as well as aspects of form and variations in dynamics, if applicable. Every guide begins with an introduction to the specific example, that is, track title, chapter and site number, etc., followed by a description of the sound elements (vocal and instrumental) heard. The time outline indicates the minutes/seconds (0’00”) of each “Listening Focus” item described. (These time codes may vary slightly according to the device you are using to play the example.) The guide concludes with the source for the example and an “Ethno-Challenge,” (short for Ethnomusicology Challenge).
The Listening Guides will help you with the “Aural Analysis” section of the readings. Our recommendation is:
1. Listen first through the entire example without the guide, just to get a “First Impression” without concern over the details of the music. Compare your first impressions with those we have offered.
2. Read the “Aural Analysis” for the example. 3. Listen again with the guide and take note of each “Listening Focus”
description. You may have to start/stop and rewind the example several times to hear each item. That’s a good thing! It means you are actively
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listening to the music. If you get through the entire example without stopping once, this probably means you have returned to passive listening.
4. Listen through the entire example again after you feel confident that you have heard and understood all of the “Listening Focus” items. You will find you are hearing the music with a keener sense of its details. That gong sound missed before will now “jump out” at you, or you may find yourself humming the basic melody or tapping out the fundamental rhythm.
To test your new perspective on the music, try playing the example for someone else and see if he or she notices the same details before you point them out.
We also hope that the Listening Guides will assist instructors in highlighting these key elements during lectures. To know the difference between the sound of a tabla and a tambura, for example, the instructor may have to highlight the distinction in the classroom. The time code references will help expedite searching for such “Listening Focus” items during class time.
Each guide ends with a feature called the “Ethno-Challenge.” Some of these are quite simple, while others may be quite difficult. As ethnomusicologists ourselves, we tried to imagine an activity that would have benefited us in researching each music genre. This may involve library research, such as hunting down a video of Beijing Opera; learning a performance technique, such as circular breathing; or even making a musical instrument, such as a mouth harp, etc. Instructors may have their own ideas for such challenges, but the end-goal remains to encourage more active participation and understanding of the music. The challenges are also meant to be fun projects for your own enjoyment or even to present to the rest of the class.
Finally, we encourage you to add your own “Listening Focus” points to these guides. We may have overlooked or intentionally omitted features due to their repetition within the example or other factors, such as space considerations for the page layouts. You will better develop your active listening skills by adding to these guides, which will ultimately make any music you hear a more meaningful experience.
Structure of Each Listening Guide
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Listening Guide CD 0.0 (0'00")
Chapter 00: Site 00 Country: Example Title
Instruments: Trumpet (aerophone), Guitar (chordophone), etc. Voices: Male/Female
TIME LISTENING FOCUS 0'00" Example begins...
Source: World Music: A Global Journey
ETHNO-CHALLENGE (CD 0.0): Listen to each track on your textbook CDs at least three times.
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How Instructors Can Expand Course Coverage
“Teaching a textbook” is a widely and often effectively used method but also one that raises thorny issues. The problem with any world survey is that the authors must of necessity choose a certain set of examples and ideas based on their own thinking and experience—but course instructors may have a different view. We suggest therefore that teachers consider the following ideas when using this book:
Be selective. If you find that seventy music examples are too many for your class, then select those that suit your needs. We have attempted to provide reasonably good surveys of each area— considering the limitations of space—but for some instructors this will be too much and for others too little.
Use our plan as a model. Just as you can exclude specific sites, you can also add your own. These additions can be accomplished by either the professor or student. An excellent assignment would be for students to write about a music track not selected by us, using the three approaches employed in this book: first impressions, aural analysis, and cultural considerations. Such exercises could become class papers or presentations as well.
Research further on your own. Just as easily as additional sites can be researched and written about, those presented herein can be developed by students into class presentations that include audio examples, video/DVD clips, and even performances on substitute instruments or the real ones. Students and teachers may locate living representatives of a culture—or even musicians from the tradition under study—who can come to class to discuss the culture or perform the music live.
Consider utilizing additional resources in the neighborhood or university community. We have intentionally focused on pathways available via the Internet, but you might also consider some other areas of investigation, such as libraries and museums.
• Libraries. Most libraries, both public and those associated with colleges and universities, have collections of recordings and video materials. Anyone wishing to venture beyond this book might do so in places as diverse as one’s local public library to world-class collections in places such as Indiana University’s Archives of Traditional Music in Bloomington, Indiana, to the Library of Congress’s American Folklife Center in
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Washington, DC. Similar collections can be found in Canada and Europe. • Museums. Many large cities have excellent museums devoted to local
history, culture, or general anthropology of the world. These often include displays of musical instruments, dioramas that include musical activity, and sometimes sound resources. A few have major collections of musical instruments, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, The National Music Museum in Vermillion, South Dakota, and the Musical Instrument Museum in Phoenix, Arizona.
• Internet. The Internet offers virtually unlimited possibilities for exploration. Two sites relative to this book dominate: YouTube and iTunes. iTunes (and other similar sites) offer many kinds of music for paid download. These sites can be searched by genre, title, or artist; what kinds of music are offered will change constantly. YouTube similarly offers a nearly bottomless series of free video clips of most forms of music, dance, and theater known in the world. Searches of the Internet will also turn up many other kinds of information and resources. One of them is Wikipedia, a free, online encyclopedia. While many of the articles discovered (in numerous languages, too) are quite fine, users must remember that these entries are not peer-reviewed, and their reliability varies widely since anyone (including you) can write and post entries.
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Website — www.routledge.com/cw/miller4e
The website is vital to World Music: A Global Journey. At Kent State, the book is used for an online course, so the website has been crafted to be adaptable for all kinds of teaching situations, with audio and visual elements and numerous teaching and learning tools:
For the student
• Flashcards of vocabulary words • Additional articles and regional sites from previous editions of the textbook • Practice quizzes • Links to online videos • Links to other suggested resources e.g., books, DVDs, websites, etc. • Selected Listening Guides in an interactive listening guide application
For the instructor
• Downloadable classroom presentations • Test banks, hosted in the Routledge QuestBank application • Additional articles and Sites from previous editions of the textbook • Suggested classroom activities and additional projects • Select images from the book • Author/Instructor Interactive Portal • E-Package materials for online course development
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http://www.routledge.com/cw/miller4e
Our Own Journey (Thus Far)
Neither author, of course, has been everywhere or heard every kind of music the world has to offer. Writing this book has been a humbling experience—only fools think they can cover the world’s musics in a single volume. Regardless of our qualms, however, world music courses have become a normal part of the academic environment, and the need for such introductory courses will not go away because of philosophical reservations. If anything, the demand for them will grow. We have attempted to play to our strengths while recognizing our limitations. In the following pages of this Preface we engage in a kind of “truth in advertising,” by revealing some of our own personal histories with regard to the musics of the world. Perhaps after having read of our experiences, which we present separately, you will better understand why we wrote what we wrote and perhaps see more clearly what your own trajectory might become in the future.
Terry E. Miller
My first experience hearing non-Western music came during my undergraduate years at the College of Wooster (Ohio), where I was majoring in organ performance. Ravi Shankar, India’s most famous sitar player until his recent passing, came to the campus as part of the Community Music Series in 1964, several years before he became famous in his own right and as the teacher of George Harrison (member of the Beatles). After his performance, the music majors met with Shankar, but our attempts to understand the concept of raga were mostly unsuccessful. We simply had no conceptual framework for understanding modal improvisation. Further, we had never seen a musician perform seated on the floor, or encountered incense at a music event, and we also failed to understand the significance of the tambura lute player and tabla drummer accompanying Shankar. In those days there were virtually no world music courses anywhere, and recordings other than those on the Folkways label were rare.
My next encounter with an “exotic” music did not come until after I had been drafted into the U.S. Army in 1968 and sent to the Republic of Vietnam in 1969 to help fight the war from a swivel chair in front of a Remington typewriter. As a “chairborne” soldier working at a huge base about twenty miles from Saigon (now
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Ho Chi Minh City), I could have ignored Vietnam entirely. Instead, I decided to explore Vietnamese music. Doing so, however, required trips to Saigon. Having no official business there and no authorization, I had to go illegally on weekends. In Saigon, I attended theatrical performances, bought instruments and recordings, and visited the Saigon Conservatory of Music, where my language abilities were too limited for effective communication. A one-week leave to Bangkok, Thailand, in January 1970 brought me into contact with Thai music. During my visit, I purchased a long, bamboo mouth-organ instrument called the khaen, simply because its appearance reminded me of a pipe organ. I did not know how significant this instrument would become for my later life.
Co-author Terry Miller (on right) with fellow soldier while serving in the United States Army in Vietnam
(1969)
After returning to the United States, I enrolled in a Western Historical Musicology graduate degree program at Indiana University. In spite of the program I was in, I decided to write my master’s thesis on an Ohio shape-note teacher and my doctoral dissertation on the music of northeast Thailand. With a generous grant in hand, I went with my family to northeast Thailand in late 1972, for a fourteen-month stay during which I researched that region’s music. The resulting dissertation completed my Ph.D. and luckily I stumbled into a teaching position at Kent State University just as they were starting a graduate program in ethnomusicology. I taught at Kent State until my retirement in January 2005. Since that time I have remained actively engaged in research and writing, and I spend about two months a year in Thailand (wisely, during the American winter).
To make a long story short, I kept up my interest in Thailand during my tenure
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at Kent, but my interests also expanded in other directions. With the help of a succession of “native musician” graduate students, I started two ensembles, one to play traditional Thai music, the other to play Chinese music, and I played in both from 1979 and 1987 respectively until the ensembles were disbanded in May 2005. In 1998 the Thai Ensemble toured Thailand, performing in six cities and appearing on most television channels. The musics of mainland Southeast Asia—Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Burma, and Malaysia—remain my core interest, with the greatest emphasis being on Thailand and Laos. I also developed a now long- standing interest in orally transmitted hymnody in the West, which has led to extensive and continuing fieldwork in the United States, Scotland, Jamaica, Trinidad, and St. Vincent, the latter three being part of the English-speaking Caribbean. My third area of interest has been Chinese music, and I have done fieldwork in China itself but much more in the overseas Chinese community of Thailand.
Lastly, I have collected material and experienced live music when possible in each country I’ve visited. In addition to Vietnam, Thailand, and China, these include the United Kingdom, Ireland, France, Germany, Spain, Hungary, Slovakia, Croatia, Greece, Israel, Nepal, Japan, Korea, Burma, Malaysia, Laos, and South Africa. All of these experiences have contributed to my bank of knowledge. Even so, they have exposed me to only a small percentage of the world’s musics. The rest have thus far been experienced, if at all, only vicariously through audio and video recordings or at concerts given by resident or touring musicians. Naturally, knowledge gained through first-hand experience goes deeper than that gained from books and CDs, but even an introductory book like this and carefully listened-to recordings can shed some light on a corner of the world that would otherwise remain totally unfamiliar.