#391734 in eBooks 2002-05-30 2002-05-30File Name: B0057CZ4SE
Review
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful. a fasinating topic turned boringBy delapedrerait attempts to be a very short introduction to a fascinating topic.that of wrold music. however short. it is difficult to read. badly written. confusing in the scope of concepts. with a poor choice of examples. the author must be knowledgeable. but does not manage to convey good information.2 of 2 people found the following review helpful. Cramped and all over the mapBy HHEach chapter in this book starts with an encounter with world music and builds through a historical or theoretical excursion. adding a musician profile. an examination of aesthetic meaning and identity. a profile of either an ethnomusicologist or a group of scholars. and concludes with comments about popular music and the ethnographic present. The chapter subjects. however. are disparate. never approaching any sort of thematic coverage of world music.Chapter 1. "In the Beginning...Myth and Meaning in World Music". sets the scene. Encounters with world music. we are told. are intensely personal. developing meaning and realities as myths and experience generate histories. The first encounter -- Bohlman is brave to say it this boldly -- between the music of old and new worlds was in 1557. by the Hugenot missionary Jean de Leacute;ry. Epistemologies emerge as we learn how music is embedded in social and cultural practice. Bohlman illustrates his theme through a discussion of Jewish myth. Islamic concepts of music and non-music. Buddhist practice in Thailand and China. ritual in the Andes. and the development of Christian hymnody into African national anthems. The eclectic Charles Seeger becomes the first ethnomusicologist to be featured. Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan the first musician.Chapter 2. "The West and the World". reformulates the history of ethnomusicology and its forerunners. starting with collectors (Bartok. Densmore. Hornbostel. Pinek). and focusing in on Herder. the 18th-century German who coined the term Volkslied (folk song). At the end there is a discussion of two Grammy Award winners. the Chieftains "Santiago" and the Smithsonian reissue of Harry Smiths "Anthology of American Folk Music". Chapter 3. "Between Myth and History". takes up a thread from the first chapter. and starts with an excellent account of the 1932 Cairo Congress of Arab Music. Umm Kulthuuml;m. not surprisingly. becomes the featured musician. Robert Lachmann the collector and scholar. rai the contemporary genre. In this account. North Africa fuses with the Middle East. Chapter 4. "Music of the Folk". takes up the collecting theme from Chapter 2. now zooming in on Bartoacute;k and fast-forwarding to Hungary today. Notions of authenticity are discussed. namely the intervention of ideology as Bartok recorded and/or transcribed the songs of isolated. pre-modern people with modern technology. and the use of folksong as the 21st century dawns. The featured musician -- blues singer Leadbelly -- and the ethnomusicologists -- the Lomax family who. apart from all their other achievements. discovered Leadbelly -- similarly illustrate questions of authenticity and representation. Two music genres/complexes complete the chapter. the first exposing the myth of Celtic music in a manner that I suspect will not go down well with the many exponents of Irish. Welsh and Breton music. and the second a much more positive discussion of the North American polka belt.Chapter 5. "Music of the Nations" contains a highly questionable account of music in Britain (pp. 88-98). Bohlman then discusses national anthems -- good stuff here. as we learn that a national song may be more ideological than musically significant. Beethovens "Ode to Joy" completes the chapter. mentioned first as a transitory national anthem for Zimbabwe. then in an arrangement by Karajan for the Council of Europe. Bohlman doesnt tease out the significance as much as he could: Beethovens melody is surely what makes it popular. even though the ideology in Schillers poem (as a "paean to universal brotherhood") explains why European bureaucrats chose it. Chapter 6. "Diaspora". addresses a topic of considerable contemporary interest within the United States. 1492. and the anniversary of Columbuss "discovery" five centuries on. provides an opening. moving through Sephardic Jews. South Asia and musical instruments as material artifacts that illustrate dispersion and dissemination to Bob Marley and A. Z. Idelsohn. Issues of race are briefly discussed. and the concluding statement celebrates diversity. in respect to which diasporic communities create "one of the most global contexts for world music". Alan Lomax. against the then growing argument that all Americans should share a culture. com mented in 1985 that the world is an agreeable and stimulating habitat precisely because of its cultural diversity; Bohlman would doubtless agree. and would want diasporas to retain or develop their own musical identities. Chapter 7. "Colonial Musics. Post-Colonial Worlds. and the Globalization of World Music". brings the story to the turn of the new century. starting with Eastern European street music and ending with a 2001 world festival complete with pow-wow held in Chicago. Sandwiched into the core of the chapter. Bohlman reflects on how technology shapes ethnomusicology yet challenges our ethical responsibility to protect the music cultures we encounter. From here he offers a brief excursion into the world of the "Rough Guide to World Music". which he rightly notes most ethnomusicologists love to hate but find particularly useful. The conclusion? Well. the section on the "Rough Guide" ends with an acknowledgement that world music today signifies popular music more than traditional music. thereby challenging many of the ideas of ethnomusicology. And the text itself ends with the comment that each of us "will increasingly encounter the music of the world...the identity and culture of which is no longer separable from our own lives" (p. 150).If the conclusion is unsatisfactory. Bohlman s topic was always going to prove problematic. Ethnomusicology. still caught in the paradigm of fieldwork. its exponents kept busy collecting. documenting. and analyzing musical processes and products. is not particularly difficult to write about. World music. a term that according to independent record labels was dreamt up in 1987 to help market vinyl. is much more complex. as the product of globalization. appropriation. diasporas and technology (or rather. the product of one or more of these things). Bohlman tries to find meaning in world music through sampling the history of ethnomusicology. weaving strands of continuity from Jean de Leacute;ry to Manu Dibango. from the Torah to Heidegger. and from Herders "Stimmen der Vouml;lker in Liedern" to the journalism of the "Rough Guide". Essentially. what he offers is not a thorough account. but more a sampling of issues. Sometimes side boxes provide a veritable A-to-Z of a topic. featuring definitions of terms: "ontologies" (pp. 7-8); collections of world music recordings (pp. 32-34); and diasporic world music genres (pp. 126-28). Often. Bohlman assumes some knowledge of the issue under discussion. and this will surely suit students who will be encouraged to delve more deeply by using the suggested further readings and audio recordings listed at the end of the book. Perhaps because the author crams so much in. I find that some sections stop short before the whole story has been told. The shortness of the bibliography is also of note; much of the potentially vast literature is omitted. And finally. Bohlman is an atrocious stylist.2 of 2 people found the following review helpful. If you enjoy World Music and you are looking to enhance your ...By jaxbentriderIf 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).
