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RE: World Music - share some favorite pieces that, for whatever reason, grabbed you
RE: World Music - share some favorit... (in reply to devilhand)
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What Barbarians was flamenco dependent upon for its existence? And what on earth do Trump, Mexicans, and the wall have to do with my comment?
I thought you knew about history. If you knew about it well you wouldn't have used this word no matter in what context. Berbers mean Barbarians. The meaning and usage of this word are more than that.
IMO Wikipedia article on Barbarian is very comprehensive.
the merriam-webster link says: Definition of barbarian (Entry 1 of 2) 1: a person from an alien land, culture, or group believed to be inferior, uncivilized, or violent —used chiefly in historical references 2: a barbarous person : a rude, crude, uneducated, or uncivilized person
and the wiki page says: The Greeks used the term barbarian for all non-Greek-speaking peoples, including the Egyptians, Persians, Medes and Phoenicians, emphasizing their otherness. According to Greek writers, this was because the language they spoke sounded to Greeks like gibberish represented by the sounds "bar..bar..;"
RE: World Music - share some favorit... (in reply to Paul Magnussen)
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Heigh-ho, back to World Music…
Yes, that's what we're here for (not for getting a good conversation locked) - thanks Paul.
That is a nice piece, lots of fun. Reminds me of an earlier eon when I listened to Planxty quite a lot, as you'll understand from the similarity of the "Irish bouzouki" sound. Now there's a "world music" instrument...
RE: World Music - share some favorit... (in reply to joevidetto)
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How else could one discover "exotic" (subjective to the listener and their country and culture of course - someone rightly said one's world music is another's local pop music, or something similar) music from around the world they've never heard before ?
For me it has been mostly through programming, either of music festivals, year-round concert venues or even just radio programming. I don't think I've ever bought a CD from the world music bin without already knowing what I was going to get.
RE: World Music - share some favorit... (in reply to joevidetto)
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How else could one discover "exotic" (subjective to the listener and their country and culture of course - someone rightly said one's world music is another's local pop music, or something similar) music from around the world they've never heard before ? Family and friends of different cultures is one way - search terms on Google is a new way - but so much garbage to sift through. Movie soundtracks is another way - I loved the soundtrack put together by Peter Gabriel's "Passion", and the influences it drew from (put together for that controversial movie, "The Last Temptation of Christ".
Have you come across the magazine "Songlines"? The print version comes out once a month with a free sampler CD stuck on the cover of tracks from the latest "world music" albums. I guess the digital version comes with mp3 downloads.
What I find though, is that most of the music sounds to me like the same old western pop/rock meat and potato stew with some local spice from the Middle East/Africa/Asia wherever, and that doesn't seem to interest my ears, heart or soul at all. What does tend to interest and/or appeal to me is the folk and/or classical music traditions from around the world, acoustic instruments, that kind of thing. I guess those musics have little global appeal and/or are dying out. Songlines usually has at least some of this kind of music, but not enough to justify the cover price for me (also I find the journalist style that seems to attempt to hype everything a bit irritating). Also they almost completely ignore flamenco
Having said all that though, someone did introduce me to the music of Anouar Brahem, and I have a bunch of his albums.
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From: Washington, DC
RE: World Music - share some favorit... (in reply to joevidetto)
One of my favorite instruments is the Greek bouzouki, either played solo or as an accompanying instrument to Greek singing. Greek music, especially the bouzouki, has an Eastern cast to it, much like the Arab oud. But I think the bouzouki has a wider range to it than the oud.
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RE: World Music - share some favorit... (in reply to mark indigo)
It's been an interesting discussion, which kind of did put in words things I had in my head. There's another thing/idea that I've been having. I've been reading lots of stuff about the digitalisation and how the world is changing with AI and deep learning. Lots of tasks done by humans are going to get done by machines - But you all know that and that's not my point. I wanted to learn how it would impact music. There are a couple of ressources on the net, with algorythms that compose music, imitate human voices and instruments. But I haven't found yet a good read on how it would impact "world music"...or earth music.
I have the feeling that it will soon change everything. First of all, machines can compose a rock tune and a hit song, better than humans. Then instruments can be played better with all the computerisation. So I predict that Pop music will totally change in the near future.
But...but...Root/classic or folk music might stay in a live form. It's going to be possible, but difficult for the moment, for a machine to follow let's say a singer, to adjust the dynamics to it's singing, and to create an listenning space where dynamics build together.
So in the end, I think that live, accoustic, folk music (folk in the sense of root) is going to survive longer than Pop/elctro/ rock and so on. It's already a bit the case, as anybody can create some rock/pop thing with computers. But for Flamenco? Yeah maybe on a recorded medium...maybe. But live? Forget about it.
So my guess is that accoustic/live/ root culture music is going to save us.
In the end we'll have human music and Ai music... Argh this is becoming dystopian
RE: World Music - share some favorit... (in reply to Fluknu)
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But...but...Root/classic or folk music might stay in a live form. It's going to be possible, but difficult for the moment, for a machine to follow let's say a singer, to adjust the dynamics to it's singing, and to create an listenning space where dynamics build together.
Agreed - computer automation is going to continue to bring social unrest, a widening of the upper and lower class gap (think a small community of kings with billions of peasants) and political problems like we've never seen...throw climate change and mass extinction in for good measure.
But the technical problems in composing music and playing it live that you describe - I think they can soon be overcome by sharp programmers, if that becomes a priority for them. What absolutely cannot be replaced anytime soon imho is the SOCIAL component of music - people looking at each other, smiling, talking, artists creating energy through live performance with human spontaneity and novelty - that is something I believe humans will continue to need ans seek. Music began as a PERFORMANCE art - though radio, phonograph, etc. allowed it to become an activity anyone can partake in at any time. Another aside - social contact is a need that already largely goes unmet for people of all ages, most sadly for older people that are alone and in nursing homes, for example. Back to live music - from a cost perspective, venues that employed lots of local musicians can now rely on recorded playback of music to enhance their atmospheres. Look at the wedding gig thing - almost all DJs.
Let's take teaching as another example - I live in NYC, and the idea of having 1 teacher teach hundreds of students was incredibly appealing to politicians. Think of the teaching jobs you can eliminate while giving access to the best teachers available - and the other ones ? Billionaires and politicians couldn't care less...eventually, the only thing that will change this is civil unrest and a major political upheaval - there won't be enough cake available for the peasants and the won't be able to, as Ivanka said "find something else"....because there is nothing else there.
RE: World Music - share some favorit... (in reply to joevidetto)
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computer automation is going to continue to bring social unrest, a widening of the upper and lower class gap (think a small community of kings with billions of peasants) and political problems like we've never seen...throw climate change and mass extinction in for good measure.
i'm just sending out for some prozac. Still, makes a nice change from sending out for popcorn!
RE: World Music - share some favorit... (in reply to mark indigo)
Another thing about AI music, which goes in the direction of what Joevidetto said, is that I read that they manage now to have machines who can adapt the chords according to the singing- in a live setting. I don't know about the state of the search and the quality of the result, but that raises questions for the accompaniment of singing -in the future.
With a little reflection, I decided not to take the prozac, but work on my eyebrowes, mouth, nose and ear movement to be ready for the next world. :)
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RE: World Music - share some favorit... (in reply to joevidetto)
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I loved the soundtrack put together by Peter Gabriel's "Passion", and the influences it drew from (put together for that controversial movie, "The Last Temptation of Christ".
You maybe didn’t know the collaboration with Gabriel on that album is with electric violinist Shankar…the guy in Shakti that we had been sharing clips of as well. Shankar has a weird blond wig these days, so Shakti seems to have gotten a replacement violinist for the Anniversary Tour. The new album, is arguably their best material. Even a little fusion with buleria de Cadiz:
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From: Washington DC
RE: World Music - share some favorit... (in reply to Richard Jernigan)
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ORIGINAL: Richard Jernigan
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ORIGINAL: kitarist
There is even an exact date - Jun 23, 1987:
"[..]on June 29 1987, a group of music enthusiasts involved in the running of independent record labels met in a London pub, The Empress of Russia, to discuss how they might market music from around the world. The group - which included DJ Charlie Gillett, Ian Anderson (now editor of fRoots magazine), record producer Joe Boyd and Iain Scott - decided on a joint campaign to put “world-music” boxes in record stores to promote their products. This would cost just £3,500, financed by 11 indie record labels."
The term itself did exist in academic circles, coined apparently in 1962 the early 1960s by ethnomusicologist Robert E. Brown.
From personal experience there were "world music" bins in record stores in Austin, Baton Rouge, Hollywood, Berkeley, New York, and London in the late 1960s. The big Virgin Records in Paris had one, labeled in English, in the mid-1970s.
RNJ
Carl Sagan made one of the first “world music compilations” for the gold record attached to the Voyager probes in the 70s.
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Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
RE: World Music - share some favorit... (in reply to Ricardo)
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ORIGINAL: Ricardo
It should have been called “music most Americans and a few Europeans have never heard of”.
I think this qualifies. With the unification of the German Empire in 1871 under Prussian domination, many Germans fled, in part to escape the requirement for universal military service. Many came to Texas. Until the USA entered WW II the Neu Brunfelser Zeitung was published in German.
I remember being taken as a 3-year old to outdoor German dances in Scherz, outside the main gate of Randolph Air Force Base. There were men in lederhosen and Tyroler hats, women in dirndls, barrels of beer, sausages, and oompah bands with horns, accordions and tubas pumping out polkas.
The Tex-Mex were quick to adopt the polka, producing a cadre of accordion virtuosi. When I was 8-years old in San Antonio I used to drive my mother crazy by tuning the radio to a ranchera station. Eventually she would turn the dial to big band swing. I liked it well enough, but I would usually decamp to the shoe repair shop down at the corner of Flores street, where they had the radio turned up loud enough to hear over the noise of the machines. The workers there were used to the kid who spoke español mexicano instead of Tex-Mex.
Little Joe and Flaco Jimenez in "Tú no tienes la culpa." As Little Joe says "el espiritú de San Antonio.¨
RE: World Music - share some favorit... (in reply to Manitas de Lata)
Pretty sure that's Steve Jobs on the left and that guy from Curb your enthusiasm on the right.
@Richard
That's fascinating. Found this example of Texas German from the fantastic "Wikitongues":
(captions available by clicking the CC button at the bottom)
I wonder how she sounds to native speakers of European varieties of German. The US English influence is clearest to me in the retroflex "r". Dead giveaway really. But on the rest I can't really locate where it's from. The way "urg" turns into "uich" when she says "Friedrichsburg" is something I associate with Northern dialects. But then she says "mi" instead of "wir", which is something I associate more with Southern dialects like Bairisch. Granted, I only have a superficial understanding of the differences between German dialects, so I might be dead wrong. Probably am. It's surprisingly intelligible though. I find her a lot easier to understand than speakers of some European dialects like Bairisch or Schwizerdütsch. A shame that variety seems to be dying out.
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Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
RE: World Music - share some favorit... (in reply to Piwin)
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ORIGINAL: Piwin @Richard That's fascinating. Found this example of Texas German from the fantastic "Wikitongues"
As a University freshman in 1955 I took the first course in German. Our instructor was Danish, but to my ear his accent matched those on the Language Lab tapes.
I boarded the bus in Austin to travel to San Antonio, to visit my grandparents. At New Braunfels two middle aged men boarded, sat on the seat just ahead of me, and began to converse in German. I found their Texas-accented version intriguing and a little humorous.
The Wikitongues woman sounds different from my New Braunfels recolllection, but that was a very long time ago.
I was mistaken in my account of German immigration to Texas. It began in the 1840s, rooted in German conditions that led to the revolutions of 1848. New Braunfels and Fredericksburg are the two largest results of German-founded immigration. Fredericksburg was founded a year or two after New Braunfels, by Johan "John O." Meusebach, then Commisioner of the earler colony. Both were supported by the same organization in Germany, the Mainzer Adelsverein.
German culture and language were prevalent in both towns well into the 1940s, a century later.
Another of my spotty memories from age 3 is the epic fistfight of the Beck brothers of Scherz. They owned the main grocery store in town. One of them returned to Germany to visit relatives while the other remained in Texas to mind the store.
I happened to be with my mother at the store when the fight broke out. I was told later that the traveling brother returned as an enthusiastic supporter of Hitler. He spoke glowingly of the autobahns, new buildings and pride of the populace.
The other brother held more American ideas. By 1941 WW II was well under way in Europe, with Germany doing pretty well. Discussion between the brothers led to conflict, and the two robust blond men went at it while we were at the store. Their violence and the resulting destruction of shelves and merchandise made a big impression on me.
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i'm just sending out for some prozac. Still, makes a nice change from sending out for popcorn! 
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