Screwtape2
Blue Crack Addict
Cassie, I'm curious if you also learn about specific intruments in your classes?
Cassie, I'm curious if you also learn about specific intruments in your classes?
Not as much in the classes I've taken so far. If I take the world music class the university offers, most of that will be about individual instruments within different cultures' musics.
Cool. I love world music especially percussion in different cultures.
I definitely plan on taking the class, not only for my major, but also because my good friend took it this semester and was always talking about how cool it was.
Have you ever heard Security by Peter Gabriel? I've always loved the fusion of rock and world music in that record.
Yes, I have. I really enjoy how Peter Gabriel uses world music in his music all the time, especially the percussion sections.
It is a shame to me that Security came out in the very early eighties and yet there still isn't much world music influence in music today. Unless you disagree and see a lot more than I do.
No, I'd agree, there's still little world music influences in mainstream or even underground music. I think that Gabriel has been a pioneer of mixing the two for the longest time, but I'm not sure if others are willing to follow him down that road yet.
It's a real shame because for the most part music these days feels like the same influences are being used again and again instead of adding unique influences. I think part of the problem is that there is a backlash in the media or mainstream consciousness. For example, The Police were and still are bashed for trying to be a reggae band when that's not at all the truth. I suppose there is a fear of being labeled because of a world influence.
That's true. I think a lot of it has to do with old, even subconscious feelings left over from colonialism. I mean, both the British and American mainstreams have little world influence, and they were two of the bigger colonial powers from the late 18th-the 20th centuries, and rock/pop music came in the end of that reign of power. There is some influence from other cultures, mostly the black musicians. Other than that, I think there is a real fear of the "other" cultures' musics permeating into mainstream music today. I do hope it changes, and that newer artists can find interesting ways to incorporate world influences into their music. I emphasize influences because I don't think that any mainstream artists should try to only do world music, I think they should mix it in with older styles of American and British rock/pop music.
I never thought of that. Even after colonialism, there was the cold war and there is still very much xenophobia today. I think the first step will come in percussion because foreign instruments will take awhile to be accepted.
Plus, there's also the fact that a lot of musics in other cultures work on a completely different musical scale system than the Western system...which makes it harder to incorporate parts of music from a culture that uses a pentatonic system rather than our twelve-tone system.
I don't know what either of those are but I'll take your word for it.
Basically, Western musics can use up to twelve different pitches within a piece, and pentatonic systems can use up to five different pitches. They give very different sounds because of that.
We don't use the pentatonic system for what reason?
Convention. Western music has just always used twelve pitches. There's not really a better reason than that, unfortunately.
Okay...
I just know how much you like to know why, so I wanted to clear it up right away.
The reasoning is what's confusing me. It seems so...stupid.
Yeah, it happened hundreds of years ago, so what were probably good reasons back then have been lost throughout time.