How do we explain the globalized musical world in which we find ourselves in the early 21st century and how did we arrive here? This extraordinary book outlines an understanding of the human musical story as an intercultural—and ultimately a transcultural—one, with travel and trade as the primary conditions and catalysts for the ongoing development of musical styles. Starting with the cultural and civilizational precedents that gave rise to the first global trading and travel network in both directions across the Afro-Eurasian Old World Web in the form of the Silk Road, the book proceeds to the rise of al-Andalus and its influence on Europe through the Iberian peninsula before considering the fusion of European, African and indigenous musics that emerged in the Americas between c1500-1920 as part of Atlantic culture and the New World Web, as well as the concurrent acceleration of globalism in music through European empires and exoticism. The book concludes by examining the musical implications of our current Age of Instantaneous Exchange that technology permits, and by revisiting the question of interculturality and transculurality in music.

The idea of a global history of music may be traced back to the Enlightenment, and today, the question of a conceptual framework for a history of music that pays due attention to global relationships in music is often raised. But how might a historical interpretation of those relationships proceed? How should it position, or justify, itself? What would 'Western music' look like in an account of music history that aspires to be truly global? The studies presented in this volume aim to promote post-European historical thinking. They are based on the idea that a global history of music cannot be one single, hegemonic history. They rather explore the paradigms and terminologies that might describe a history of many different voices. The chapters address historical practices and interpretations of music in different parts of the world, from Japan to Argentina and from Mexico to India. Many of these narratives are about relations between these cultures and the Western tradition; several also consider socio-political and historical circumstances that have affected music in the various regions. The book addresses aspects that Western musical historiography has tended to neglect even when looking at its own culture: performance, dance, nostalgia, topicality, enlightenment, the relationships between traditional, classical, and pop musics, and the regards croisés between European, Asian, or Latin American interpretations of each other’s musical traditions. These studies have been derived from the Balzan Musicology Project Towards a Global History of Music (2013–2016), which was funded by the International Balzan Foundation through the award of the Balzan Prize in Musicology to the editor, and designed by music historians and ethnomusicologists together. A global history of music may never be written in its entirety, but will rather be realised through interaction, practice, and discussion, in all parts of the world.

Since the beginning of the twentieth century, the cross-pollenization of world musical materials and practices has accelerated precipitously, due in large part to advances in higher-speed communications and travel. We live now in a world of global musical practice that will only continue to blossom and develop through the twenty-first century and beyond. Yet music theory as an academic discipline is only just beginning to respond to such a milieu. Conferences, workshops and curricula are for the first time beginning to develop around the theme of 'world music theory', as students, teachers and researchers recognize the need for analytical concepts and methods applicable to a wider range of human musics, not least the hybrid musics that influence (and increasingly define) more and more of the world's musical practices. Towards a Global Music Theory proposes a number of such concepts and methods stemming from durational and acoustic relationships between 'twos' and 'threes' as manifested in various interrelated aspects of music, including rhythm, melody, harmony, process, texture, timbre and tuning, and offers suggestions for how such concepts and methods might be applied effectively to the understanding of music in a variety of contexts. While some of the bases for this foray into possible methods for a twenty-first century music theory lie along well established acoustical and psycho-acoustical lines, Dr Mark Hijleh presents a broad attempt to apply them conceptually and comprehensively to a variety of musics in a relevant way that can be readily apprehended and applied by students, scholars and teachers.

Scholars have long known that world music was not merely the globalized product of modern media, but rather that it connected religions, cultures, languages and nations throughout world history. The chapters in this History take readers to foundational historical moments – in Europe, Oceania, China, India, the Muslim world, North and South America – in search of the connections provided by a truly world music. Historically, world music emerged from ritual and religion, labor and life-cycles, which occupy chapters on Native American musicians, religious practices in India and Indonesia, and nationalism in Argentina and Portugal. The contributors critically examine music in cultural encounter and conflict, and as the critical core of scientific theories from the Arabic Middle Ages through the Enlightenment to postmodernism. Overall, the book contains the histories of the music of diverse cultures, which increasingly become the folk, popular and classical music of our own era.

'World music' emerged as an invention of the West from encounters with other cultures. This book draws readers into a remarkable range of these historical encounters, in which music had the power to evoke the exotic and to give voice to the voiceless. In the course of the volume's eight chapters the reader witnesses music's involvement in the modern world, but also the individual moments and particular histories that are crucial to an understanding of music's diversity. World Music is wide-ranging in its geographical scope, yet individual chapters provide in-depth treatments of selected music cultures and regional music histories. The book frequently zooms in on repertoires and musicians - such as Bob Marley, Bartok, and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan - and attempts to account for world music's growing presence and popularity at the beginning of the twenty-first century. ABOUT THE SERIES: 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.

Music listeners today can effortlessly flip from K-pop to Ravi Shankar to Amadou & Mariam with a few quick clicks of a mouse. While contemporary globalized musical culture has become ubiquitous and unremarkable, its fascinating origins long predate the internet era. In Music and the New Global Culture, Harry Liebersohn traces the origins of global music to a handful of critical transformations that took place between the mid-nineteenth and early twentieth century. In Britain, the arts and crafts movement inspired a fascination with non-Western music; Germany fostered a scholarly approach to global musical comparison, creating the field we now call ethnomusicology; and the United States provided the technological foundation for the dissemination of a diverse spectrum of musical cultures by launching the phonograph industry. This is not just a story of Western innovation, however: Liebersohn shows musical responses to globalization in diverse areas that include the major metropolises of India and China and remote settlements in South America and the Arctic. By tracing this long history of world music, Liebersohn shows how global movement has forever changed how we hear music—and indeed, how we feel about the world around us.

Since the early transformation of European music practice and theory in the cultural centers of Asia, Latin America, and Africa around 1900, music history has to be conceived globally - a challenge that musicology has hardly faced yet. This book discusses the effects of cultural globalization on processes of composition and distribution of art music in the 20th and 21st centuries. Christian Utz provides the foundations of a global music historiography, building on new models such as transnationalism, entangled histories, and reflexive globalization. The relationship between music and broader changes in society is placed at the center of attention and considered a pivotal music-historical dynamic.