Traditional/ethnic music and you.

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The topic of Celtic music came up in another thread, and this led me to wonder about everyone's opinions on different types of ethnic music. It seems likely that musical tastes formed around more modern types of music colour the way we percieve traditional music, but does this end up being bassackwards since the traditional music was that which originally laid the foundations for much of 'modern' music? Can this be twisted around to say something clever about society, if true? And, most importantly, what kind[s] of ethnic music do you like and why?

― matthew m., Monday, 30 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

i love disco and i suck cock . Does this count.
Seriously i got Childes as lullabyes. Part of my parents ongoing efforts to terroize me. This is where i get my love of traditional celtic folk.

― anthony, Monday, 30 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

It would appear that specific tonal quality is the most important factor here, as the sound of 'traditional instruments' is usually signifies too much to be smoothly integrated into 'modern music' without changing the whole meaning of the song, e.g. is it possible to use bagpipes purely aesthetically, without being perceived as being anthemic, windswept, nationalistic-overtoned etc. (Only instance I can think of is AC/DC's "Long Way to the Top"), or a digeridu (sp?) without the 'new-age'/future-primitive tag?

As for me, I like Balinese music because of the berserk stop/start tempos, and Armenian duduk music because it's an ocean of melancholy

― dave q, Monday, 30 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

tango is great music to kill to

― Geoff, Monday, 30 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

There's a great tango opera called 'Maria of Bueno's Aires' (i think that's what it's called)...

― Jason, Monday, 30 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

traditional musics influence modern musics, of course. But modern musics can also influence traditional musics.

― Mike Hanle y, Monday, 30 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I was listening to Celtic music before I ever listened to "modern types of music," and it's very comfortable to me. I don't listen to a wide variety of traditional music from anywhere, but I find flamenco and bluegrass very pleasant when I do. I think ethnic music from anywhere is fascinating. I'd like to hear more from China and Russia.

― Lyra, Monday, 30 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I go for the traditionalist samba stuff -- Afro-Samba, I suppose -- but I'm not sure how much of my listening in that area is specifically "ethnic," wrapped up as that whole thing is with bossanova and post-bossanova nationalist backlash stuff. . .

Best of all: west African, specifically Senegalese. One of few folk music traditions that really gets me -- but again, there's a lot of African-American vocal music filtering back through that stuff, so who can say how "pure" it is? (Apart from west Africans, obviously.)

― Nitsuh, Monday, 30 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

At a tender age: more affected by pop songs with obvious residual folk song structure in the chorus (Scritti Politti's "The Word Girl", Nik Kershaw's "The Riddle" - and it isn't often you hear *those* two mentioned in the same sentence) than by songs without said structure.

These days: getting into Fairport / ISB / Pentangle affecting my view of other late 60s / early 70s music in all kinds of ways.

So, yes, I suspect.

― Robin Carmody, Monday, 30 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

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