World Music: A Very Short Introduction

Very Short Introductions #065

by Philip V. Bohlman

The term 'world music' encompasses both folk and popular music across the globe, as well as the sounds of cultural encounter and diversity, sacred voices raised in worship, local sounds, and universal values. It emerged as an invention of the West from encounters with other cultures, and holds the power to evoke the exotic and give voice to the voiceless. Today, in both sound and material it has a greater presence in human societies than ever before. The politics of which world music are a part - globalization, cosmopolitanism, and nationalism - play an increasingly direct role in societies throughout the world, but are at the same time also becoming increasingly controversial.

In this new edition of his Very Short Introduction , Philip Bohlman considers questions of meaning and technology in world music, and responds to the dramatically changing political world in which people produce and listen to world music. He also addresses the different ways in which world music is created, disseminated, and consumed, as the full reach of the internet and technologies that store and spread music through the exchange of data files spark a revolution in the production and availability of world music. Finally, Bohlman revises the way we think of the musician, as an increasingly mobile individual, sometimes because physical borders have fallen away, at other times because they are closing.

ABOUT THE The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

Genres: Music, Nonfiction, History, Audiobook, Historical, Cultural

192 pages, Paperback

First published May 30, 2002

Reviews

[Lola Karns]

Having read a number of excellent entries in the "A Very Short Introduction" series, this one paled in comparison. Whereas other authors have reduced the academic jargon to provide a true introduction, I was glad I'd read Said's Orientalism, and other theories on colonialism. If that sentence made your head spin, skip this book. The bulk of the researched relied heavily on intrepretation through a Western European cultural lens, without giving a sense of how "world music" differed in instrumentation, purpose, and construction. The most valuable section focused on the role of Diasporas and the spread of musical influences.

[Kurt Yilmaz]

Possibly one of the worst books I have ever read. Not only does he miss key points on world music and ethnomusicology, he coats it in a layer of meaningless words, and paragraphs that end without really relaying a point.

"Very Short Introduction" is probably the most misleading title ever. This book is a lot like a lot of the papers I would write for my composition classes. Feels like he had to write a certain amount of words and would throw a bunch of unneeded drabble in to make it longer. Anyone could have written a better book than this with even slight knowledge of world music.

TL;DR This book could have been condensed to ten pages, easily.

It was also provided to me by my school, I couldn't imagine paying for this garbage.

[Otto Russell]

Nearly managed to make me lose interest in music but, not quite

[Kathleen O'Neal]

An introduction to world music that had the potential to be both better and shorter at the same time.

[MG]

a bit boring but a relatively quick read

[Isabelle G]

This book is full of nice resources, and I appreciated the listening track to guide the reading. However, this book having been written close to 25 years ago, it is a bit outdated. The whole chapter on the Eurovision song contest is unfortunately missing the whole point of the current geopolitical stakes (which admittedly were not as obnoxiously prominent in the beggining of the century). I was also surprised to not see Chopin listed in the folk music chapter and Brahms barely mentioned, but I am not an expert and this is just my understanding of the style of these two composers (towards which I am particularly biased).

[Tom]

As its subtitle indicates, this is a concise guide to world music—what it is, how it came to be, what is at stake (who benefits from the recordings?), and so forth. The writing is crisp and well-paced and the descriptions clear and accessible to non-specialists (i.e., the book’s target audience). Beginning with the development of music via folk songs were widely shared across the territories surrounding the Mediterranean, the songs mediating epic historical myths and adventures, such as The Iliad.

National and diasporic musics are discussed, and three-and-a-half pages devoted to polka, especially its Northern and Southern U.S. border traditions. Famous collectors and publishers of music are named and their works cited, with 10 pages of references and sources for further reading and listening provided.

The analyses, however, are, to anyone familiar with Marxism, entirely replaceable with the phrase: “For all unequal relationships described in this book, assume standard Marxist conclusions.” But, it’s an intro, and it’s all to the good to raise the ethical issues inherent in the subject that newcomers may be unfamiliar with. Better as a resource than as something to pour over, it serves its purpose as a gateway to music of the world’s peoples.

For more of my books, please see https://www.thebookbeat.com/backroom/...

[Benjamin Fasching-Gray]

I was expecting something about the genre "world music" as it exists in some record stores but instead there's a lot of musings about ethnomusicology, at times even personal musings. I had also expected something about music genres that have gone global, like reggae, rock, salsa, or the waltz, and there was a tiny bit about that. There's plenty of concerned signaling about power imbalances, indigeneity, diaspora but not any real owning up to it. Frankly, Oxford asked the wrong guy. He edited a Cambridge History of World Music and he's doing a lot of history here, but as a Very Short Introduction, I think it misses the mark.

[Carolyn Harris]

A densely written book about world music that is more focused on the work of ethnomusicologists and cultural history than the lives and work of individual musicians. I found the book most engaging when the author focused on specific figures in music history such as Bob Marley or Umm Kulthum. The academic analysis of the Eurovision was contest was interesting to read. Overall, there are some accessible sections but the book appears to be written for specialists rather than general readers. The audiobook would benefit from the inclusion of music clips.

[Riccardo Baldi]

Un libro davvero confusionario, senza capo né coda: ogni paragrafo sembra un microsaggio a sè, anche all'interno di un singolo capitolo si fa fatica a trovare un filo conduttore.
È evidente la competenza di chi scrive, ma si perde in salamelecchi intellettuali senza dare effettivamente quello che ci si aspetta: una introduzione alle musiche del mondo.

[M. Ashraf]

World Music
I think a misleading title for the book
It was not as I expected it to be
It was all over the place
From the east to the west, different cultures to verify the word world but not music
And being written in 2001 it is affected by the world events back then
Did not like it

[Uğurcan Orçun]

Albeit sometimes tedious, the book shown me to a new perspective about the global culture and the diaspora.

[tom]

might just as easily be me, but seemed quite unfocused.

[Izzy Shirley]

I just think that the world has more to offer than Ic-V-I

[Michael Thompson]

The topic of world music is vastly broad. The author prefaces the book by stating this and explaining that he won't be able to cover everything, which is understandable. However, the spotty case studies that Bohlman does give throughout the book don't really help the reader learn more about world music. It feels more like reading several unrelated articles on the topic than reading a full book.

[Daniel Wright]

I know very little about this whole discipline, and was hoping this book would be something of an eye-opener, but unfortunately, though there was much to learn, the author never seemed to get to the point with anything systematic.