We are surrounded by new musical encounters today as never before, and the experience of musics from elsewhere is progressively affecting all arenas of the human conscience. Yet why is it that Western listeners expect a certain cultural and ethnic ''authenticity'' or ''otherness'' from visiting artists in world music, while contemporary musicians in Western music are no longer bound by such restraints? Should we feel uncomfortable when sacred rites from Asia or Africa are remade for Westerners as musical entertainment? As these thorny questions suggest, the great flood of world musics and of their agents into our most immediate cultural environment is not a simple matter of expanding global musical exchange. Instead, complex processes are at work involving the growth of intercontinental tourism, the development of new technologies of communication and our perceptions both of ourselves and of the new musical others now around us. Elegantly tracing the dimensions of these new musical encounters, Laurent Aubert considers the impact of world musics on our values, our habits and our cultural practices. His discussions of key questions about our contemporary music culture widen conventional ethnomusicological perspectives to consider not only the nature of Western society as a ''global village'' but also the impact of current Western demands on the future of world musics and their practitioners.
Industry Reviews
'It is really a wonderful work - it seems to me like a work of the same broad appeal and import as Blacking's How Musical is Man, but calibrated for our own times, now very different from the global musical environment that Blacking wrote about more than twenty years ago'. Theodore Levin, Dartmouth College, USA 'This short book uses a limpid, pleasing style of writing to effortlessly bring the researcher down from the ivory tower to guide the ordinary reader into a deep consideration of the cultural consequences of musical globalization.' Roberte Hamayon, Cahiers de musiques traditionnelles, 2002 'The book cohesively presents a strong scholarly concept and a no less strong yet highly provocative approach to the most disputable questions of contemporary ethnomusicology. Dr. Aubert's fearless engagement with numerous sharp problems of modernity is always marked by a rare broadness of erudition and no less rare personal nobility.' Journal of Folklore Research '... this short book, in excellent translation, provides insights of considerable depth into the world of ethnomusicology as it faces fundamental changes in the life of music during the twenty-first century. Not a survey or precis of the field, it nevertheless speaks to some of the most fundamental issues with which ethnomusicologists are engaged... A work with unique perspective, and a good read.' The World of Music 'This collection of articles by L. Aubert offers essential keys on the globalisation process of traditional music at work in Europe, and on comprehension of traditional cultures by Europeans.' Central Eurasian Reader '... the issues and problems that Aubert raises are of ongoing relevance to the discipline of ethnomusicology, and this book is therefore useful in providing a fresh perspective.' MUSICultures
