Western Music and Its Others: Difference, Representation, and Appropriation in Music - Assignment Example

Due: Music Genre Fusion – Western Music borrowing from Non-western and Nonwestern music borrowing fromWestern Music Music is often regarded as a universal language through which the musicians can communicate and interact with the people around the globe regardless of their different languages and cultural backgrounds. However, the strong relationship of music with the respective culture, race, nationality and society could never be overlooked since the musicians at large tend to represent the local traditions and values through their compositions and hence, music of every society possesses its distinguished features. Despite this fact, music can’t be apprehended in cultural or societal boundaries and for several decades, musicians from western as well as nonwestern world have been experimenting to combine the western musical traditions with the nonwestern music style and these experiments have eventually produced several masterpieces that represent music fusion genre and gain popularity and appreciation from critics and people from all over the globe (Manuel 98). The term world music has also evolved as a result of these efforts that try to diminish the boundaries between western and nonwestern music through the presentation of well composed infused music pieces. The trend of borrowing music styles from other cultures and societies is by and large regarded as act of open mindedness and empathic gesture of interest since it paves the way towards the creativity and evolution of new music genre that usually possess great appeal for the people of both the societies. From the early sixties to modern day, the western musicians have been attempting to infuse nonwestern musical traditions in their composition and this practice has been adopted by the nonwestern musicians as well who have composed nonconventional music through the bland of western and nonwestern music (Born and Hesmondhalgh 11). The music of Asia and India has especially admired the western musician at large because it has attained its level of perfection and hence, the western musicians find it very fruitful to infuse with the Asian musical traditions. On the other hand, the nonwestern musicians also tend to have great influence of the western musical style and structure and by borrowing from it, they become able to produce something genuinely new (Manuel 122). Western musical history is full of examples that indicate the borrowing from the nonwestern music and culture. In 1950s and 1960s, the American Jazz composer Sun Ra incorporated African rhythms in his western compositions and also used some recordings by Yusef Lateef featuring the traditional Islamic style instruments. American Jazz Trumpet Don Cherry who has been regarded as the pioneer of world music fusion incorporated the influence of Middle Eastern, traditional African and classical Indian music styles in his compositions (Manuel 124). He worked for this incorporation with great devotion and properly learnt the methods and technicalities of the Indian music from Vasant Rai and in his albums, there were many compositions in which table and sitar were played (Born and Hesmondhalgh 12). In 1965, George Harrison played sitar in his song Norwegian Wood in which the Indian hand drum pair “table” was also played by Indian musician Anil Bhagwat. Later in 1966, his English rock band Beatles sung his composed song Love You to that has been considered as the first Beatles song that truly indicates the strong influence of Indian classical music upon the western music. In this song, the “sitar” and “table” were played by the band. In 1970s, Dizzy Gillespie performed A Night in Tunisia on the recordings by Keith Jarrett in which the Middle Eastern instruments and harmonic style were used after certain modifications. In 1970s, American composer Don Ellis also borrowed some musical styles from the music of India and Bulgaria. American Jazz composer Andy Narrell used the Trinidad instrument in his jazz compositions created in 1990s. Later, English composer John McLaughlin also used some Indian musical traditions in his compositions during 1970s and 1990s. On the other hand, the nonwestern composers and musicians were also continuously in quest of creating some masterpieces with perfect blend of their own musical traditions and western music style. In 1956, the Indian musician and composer Pandit Ravi Shanker visited America and made his debut by performing in New York. His talent was widely appraised in the western world after this debut very soon he went into collaboration with western musicians. In 1958, he performed at the UNESCO music festival that was held in Paris. In this music festival, Shankar got the opportunity to perform with the American legendry violinists Yehudi Menuhin and David Oistrakh (Lavezzoli 418). Shankar then composed an album with the blend of violin and sitar for Yehudi Menuhin that was called West meets East (Slawek 24). They performed their collaborative masterpiece at the Human rights day celebration arranged by the United Nations. This album was widely appraised by the critics and audience and in 1967; it also won the Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music Performance (Lavezzoli 418). In 1999, the Indian music wizard A. R. Rehman worked with Michael Jackson and produced an album Akam Satyam. Indian musician U. Srinivas also went for borrowing the western style in his album Dream, in which Canadian guitarist Michael Brook collaborated with him. Talvin Singh produced an album OK, in which he well presented the fusion of Indian classic music with the contemporary British dance rhythms. This album also gained Talvin the UKs Technics Mercury Music prize in 1999. Indian musician Hariharan and Lindsey Levie were for the fusion album The Colonial Cousins and this idea was very much appraised by the people and critics in west as well as in India (Lavezzoli 419). Hence, revealed that western and nonwestern music style fusion has been practiced successfully for many decades. The western composers and musicians widely borrowed the music styles and methods from the nonwestern music whereas the nonwestern musicians also found great attraction in creating their compositions while borrowing the idea and styles from the western music. This fusion has provided benefits to the musicians of both the sides as they gain more popularity in their own culture whereas also succeeded to gain international attention. In the modern world, this fusion has been inevitable and the wide appreciation of such experiments also indicate that people of both western and nonwestern societies are looking for creative pieces of work along with their traditional music compositions. Work Cited Born, Georgina and Hesmondhalgh, David. Western Music and Its Others: Difference, Representation, and Appropriation in Music. USA: University of California Press, 2000. Print. Lavezzoli, Peter. The Dawn of Indian Music in the West. Continuum International Publishing Group, 2006. Print. Manuel, P. (1988). Popular Music of the Non-Western World: An Introductory Survey. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Print. Slawek, S. "Shankar, Ravi". In Sadie, Stanley. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians 23 (2nd ed.). London: Macmillan Publishers, 2001. Print. Read More