The origins of world music are as debated as the meaning and breadth of the term itself and the scope of genres and regions it includes. A journey into understanding world music is as exciting as the exploration of listening.
A Definition of World Music
For many people, world music is simply all non-western music; in other words, popular music produced in Western Europe and North America. As this is where much of global music distribution, promotion and genre categorization take place, this definition is rather biased and exclusive. Plus, it falls short in terms of including the world music produced in these countries.
The global folk and traditional music produced by any culture might be a better – yet very broad definition – of world music. It is important to note that the term “culture” refers not only to geographical and political boundaries but to sub-cultures as well – fusion, hybrid and niche groups that come together to form their own culture. Thus, world music is one of the most fluid and constantly evolving genres and involves many different styles and instruments.
Origins of the Term World Music
Wesleyan University Professor, Robert E. Brown, is usually credited with coining the term “world music” in the early 1960s, when describing his Ethnomusicology program. Drawing on the concept of bi- or multi-linguality, the program advocated bi-musicality, namely students acquiring skills in the music of another country after mastering that of their own. Needless to say, this was quite an innovative approach to music education at the time.
Philip Yampolsky, Director of the Robert E. Brown Center for World Music at the University of Illinois’ School of Music explains: “The idea behind the phrase was not that all kinds of music should be blended together to make a sonic stew, but that the study of music should take in the astonishing variety of the world’s traditions.”
World Music Day
Though world music is by no means new – music as a form of expression is as old as the human race – its history as a genre and commercial branch of music is. Here, many roads lead to France, or Paris, to be precise, one of the European capitals of world music. Immigrants from Africa have long influenced the city with their music, coming from Algeria, Morocco, Senegal, Guinea, Mali, Ivory Coast and other countries. It was in France that the first World Music Day was celebrated.
On June 21, 1982, World Music Day, or Fête de la Musique, was proclaimed in France and has been celebrated on that day ever since. It is now held in around forty countries worldwide. Apart from organized free concerts for the public, World Music Day also encourages amateur and professional musicians to come together and communicate through music by performing in the streets.
WOMAD – the World Music Festival
Another big event had a humble beginning in 1982 – WOMAD, the World of Music, Arts and Dance festival. Though planned two years earlier, it took Peter Gabriel and co-founders, Thomas Brooman and Bob Hooton, two years to actually make it happen. Initiated to “celebrate the world’s many forms of music, arts and dance”, WOMAD’s non-commercial orientation was its biggest strength and weakness at once.
Only a temporary reunion of Genesis could draw in the crowds that the festival needed to be commercially viable. Today, the crowd has grown from a few thousand to over a million. WOMAD’s mission of wanting to “excite, to inform, and to create awareness of the worth and potential of a multicultural society” is a timeless one. Needless to say, attracting big names is no problem any more, but the festival is first and foremost a celebration of world music and world artists.
World Music Today
Since the creation of the label “world music” a few decades ago, clever marketing has brought into the average household what was once deemed “exotic” or “ethnic” music. Today, bhangra beats are part of the dance floor selection as much as reggae, raï and ragas. With its own charts, celebrations and thousands of artists worldwide, world music is everywhere, for example even at the Jaipur Literature Festival.
Fusion is the word of the hour and hip hop, pop, jazz, heavy metal, New Age and other genres have been influenced by world music as much as world music has been influenced by them. In view of this hybridization, the question should not be, "What is world music?" but "What musical style or genre is not world music?"
Readers of this article may also be interested in New World Music by Marcome, Best Bollywood Dance Songs or Gregorian Chants in Pop Music.
Simone Preuss - Simone is a freelance writer, editor and translator who decided to go solo after a successful career in publishing. That was more than ...
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