‘World music,’ ‘worldbeat,’ and today I heard ‘international music’ – what do all these names mean, if anything? Does Indian classical music count even though it’s a classical tradition? What about Indiana polka? Paul Simon? And are we really only talking about music? Where are the people, the markets, the histories, the cultures? These are but some of the questions which the eminent scholar Philip V. Bohlman (University of Chicago) has addressed in this 2002 contribution to the Oxford “Very Short Introduction” series, and the answers he provides are many.
This multiplicity is already present in the structure of the chapters, each of which includes six brief sections covering different kinds of knowledge and discourse. They begin with a so-called ‘encounter’ with world music. One of Bohlman’s main points in the book is that the othering adjective ‘world’ always already indicates that the named music is the result of an encounter – almost always between the West and the rest. ‘World’ in this context simply means strange, non-Western, different, fascinating. The first of these encounters, chronologically, Bohlman says was the arrival in Brazil of the Huguenot missionary Jean de Lery in 1557 and his writings on the music of the Tupinamba, his initial fright and confusion and his later delight and wondrement. This and other historical encounters which form the birth place of world musics also form the beginnings of the chapters.
The second section of each chapter introduces either a historical or theoretical topic. The ontologies of music is the first – what do various cultures consider music? The Muslim reading of the Koran, for instance, is not music. For the Brazilian worshippers of candomble there is no meaningful separation between music, dance, prayer. At another extreme, the Hausa of northern Nigeria have words for musicians, instruments, and other things and concepts related to music, but not for music itself. It is ontlogically absent from their world. Another chapter deals with the division between folk music and world music; yet another the influence of north African musics and music theory of the middle ages on Europe. Here Bohlman seeks few answers, but provides a great deal for thought in a brief space.
Next, we get a profile of a ‘world musician,’ but not primarily of the kind found in most journalism of world music. For example, Bohlman takes up the musicians of the Middle Passage, a term used to refer to the African slaves brought to the Americas between the 16th and 19th centuries. Although the names of these musicians might be lost, their music is more present than ever before in the African American musics of North America, the Carribean, and South America and further to pop and commercial world music made in countries much farther afield. Thus the scanty details of what these tragic, yet inspiring men and women played, danced, and sang on the decks of the very ships that symbolized their terror are all the more pregnant with meaning.
The fourth section of each chapter discusses an issue of meaning or identity in music as expressed in aesthetics. This discussion in chapter two deals with the pressing issue of the space created between the West and the rest by the very category of ‘world music.’ If world music is that non-Western music encountered, recorded, and then brought back to the home country for sale and/or analysis, then it is nothing other than cultural colonialism made possible by the same imbalance of power – economic, educational, political – which rightly incenses all world citizens bearing any conscience at all. That being the case, what are we to do with the musics we so enjoy, the musicians who so fascinate us? Is it ok to buy their music from multinational record companies and thus support this system of indirect exploitation? Doesn’t simply writing about a musical tradition, as if from a point of authority, further this imbalance? Yes probably, is the answer Bohlman gives us, and thus enjoins us to remain ever critical of this process creating the space/division between these two worlds. Only be being first conscious of what is the case can we attempt to alter it.
The last two sections of each chapter I’ll leave to the readers to discover for themselves, as I believe the scope of this introduction has been sufficiently displayed. World music is anything but a simple topic and Bohlman has not given simple answers, but has done an admirable job of putting both breadth and depth of thought into a lively and jargon-free form. If you are seeking a brief introduction to the main products…I mean…musicians in world music today, then look elsewhere. But if you are interested in a critical and thorough introduction to the worlds of music, then this may well be a very good start.
Reviewed Work:
Bohlman, Philip V. 2002. World Music: A Very Short Intrduction. Oxford University Press: Oxford. 177 pages.
