Excursions in World Music [with Study Guide]

by Bruno Nettl, Thomas Turino, Isabel Wong

This dynamic book takes readers on a vivid exploration into the major musical cultures of the world by first presenting a lively vignette of a musical occasion, and then placing that occasion in the context of a general description of the society and musical culture. KEY TOPICS The book divides the world into ten major culture areas—and devotes a chapter to each, exploring the musical cultures of such fascinating lands as India, the Middle East, Indonesia, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Latin America. The presentation features a synthetic treatment of musical life and ideas about music, musical style, music history, and musical instruments; briefly describes additional musical genres or contexts; and considers recent developments. For individuals interested in the music of the world.

Genres: Music, Textbooks, Nonfiction

384 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2003

About the author

Bruno Nettl is professor emeritus of music and anthropology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. An internationally renowned musicologist, he is both a founder and past president of the Society for Ethnomusicology and the author of many books.

Reviews

[QianJunYu · Rating 1 out of 5]

Terrible book, terrible content, the authors are not good. They did not do good Ever since they publish their first edition of this book. They did not do good Ever since they start their work at university of Illinois or even back in university of Michigan

[Kim Browers · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was assigned this book as part of my undergrad studies in 1998. I decided, upon forming a Near-Eastern music ensemble this year, to go back and re-read this in its entirety. My goal was to see if there was more detailed information about maqamat or cultural terms for musical ideas from the Middle East, North Africa, and Baltic regions. I found the material to be already outdated by the 90's when it was written, finding most of the fieldwork or examples were from the 1970's. That was disappointment #1. Disappointment #2 was that much of the terminology, instrumentation naming, and styles were barely touched on, or were using terms that were Anglicized or simply no longer employed. I did learn a bit about Chinese and Japanese music that I didn't know from before, but that's because I knew essentially nothing!

And disappointment #3 was that there is supposed to be an audio recording companion to this text, which was missing. I wanted to look at the discography, but none of the artists are credited by name, and not even song names were used. They use things like "karnatic song". That's not even remotely useful if you're using this as a launch point for primary music sources.

In summary, there wasn't enough technical/ethnic background to make this interesting for even intermediate-level studies of Ethnomusicology, but you would require some background knowledge or training to follow some of the nuances of music theory (meters, phrasing, AABB, etc.).

Overall, I wouldn't recommend this as a course book nor as layperson reading, as it fell short in both arenas.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nettl was a visiting lecturer when I was in college and I took his ethnomusicology course, for which this was assigned reading. It recently popped up in a box of old materials from college and I reread some of the chapters. The pieces are designed for a beginning reader and don't delve into great detail. There are separate sections on a variety of ethnomusicologies - Japanese, Native American, etc. Puzzlingly all of Sub-Saharan Africa is represented by one section about an mbira performance. I thought the piece by Nettl on music in prerevolutionary Iran was the most interesting, with another good one the piece on ethnic communities in the United States.

[Nancy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Had to read it for a college course. It was not riveting, but I learned some good info.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

Textbook. Not bad.