Music in World Cultures

Reviewed by Peter Schimpf, Professor, Metropolitan State University of Denver on 12/4/23

Comprehensiveness rating: 4 see less

The study of world music is impossible to cover "comprehensively." In general, I found this book's concise approach to be both its strength and its weakness. The book gets straight to the point and delivers the essential information efficiently and with great clarity, which is often rare among textbooks, particularly those dealing with this subject. Yet at the same time, I was surprised how short this book is, and there were many instances where I would have appreciated more content, particularly a revisiting of the topics outlined at the beginning.

Content Accuracy rating: 5

As mentioned above, the subject matter is delivered with great clarity and efficiency. It seems free of bias and errors, and leaves plenty of room for the instructor to get deeper into the issues surrounding the various case studies used throughout the text.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 4

This book deals with issues in a broad, fundamental way that will certainly give it a long shelf life. Updates should be easy, and there is room for instructors to add and expand with their own materials. It is always a challenge identifying examples to demonstrate the concepts among the hundreds of millions of options around the world. I did like the mix of examples that might be commonly encountered (Mariachi, Hip Hop), mixed with less familiar, less commonly-encountered examples (Bhangra, Jingju). It's as good of a sampling as you'll find in any other textbook. As mentioned above, more examples, particularly from global traditions that students might encounter in their everyday lives, would be a welcome addition. Instructors, of course, can provide their own.

Clarity rating: 5

Clarity is the main strength of this text. Complex ideas are delivered with a simplicity that doesn't demean the subject, but gives a strong, central definition from which discussions can start. The field of ethnomusicology is complicated as it is, with a host of ethical issues which can paralyze the discipline. This book manages to elegantly navigate these things and sidestep some of the thorny problems, leaving that to the instructor of the class.

Consistency rating: 4

The different voices of the two authors is apparent in the text, but not in an overly-problematic way. The presentation of examples and links to videos are sometimes laid out in different ways, and it wasn't always clear which link I was supposed to click on to get a video or to get a picture. Nothing too problematic, but something that could be reviewed and made more consistent by the authors.

Modularity rating: 5

Modularity is another strength of this book, and an element that is crucial to this subject matter. With so many options to demonstrate fundamental concepts, it is crucial that no one example is made to exclusively represent a concept. The concept section could easily be used on its own and an instructor could use their own case study examples based on their own area of expertise. It would also be easy for an instructor to augment any of the various case study topic areas (theater, dance, religion, and so forth).

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 5

The organization is clear and unfolds in a logical, intuitive way. This is as straightforward and as effective an organization of a world music textbook as I have seen.

Interface rating: 5

Overall the book is very easy to navigate. As mentioned above, the layout of video links is not always clear and consistent, but I did easily find my way to everything I needed. Using YouTube links is always risky as that platform is subject to changes so quickly, and in general is an unregulated mess. However, all but one of the links worked for me as I read through the book. The one that didn't work was, not surprisingly, one that utilized a popular song and was thus subject to copyright issues on YouTube. All instructors should know this about YouTube links and should be prepared for links that don't work and be able to search for new or alternate ones. Nevertheless, it could be helpful if the author's also created am optional playlist that could be used on Spotify and/or Apple Music if an instructor were to require that of their students. That would be more consistent and reliable, and it would also make the more popular commercial examples more accessible. Spotify does have a free version and a highly discounted paid version for students.

Grammatical Errors rating: 5

I did not notice any grammatical problems.

Cultural Relevance rating: 5

As mentioned above, I thought this successfully navigates its way through the potentially problematic issues of representation. Its simplicity is its strength in this regard. The whole issue of a "world music course" is problematic, and the best we can do is identify the issues and discuss. This book sets up these kinds of discussions effectively.

Comments

The one thing I would like to see from this book is a more deliberate effort at showing the fundamental concepts addressed at the beginning of the book throughout each of the examples presented in the various case studies. The only way students will retain concepts such as timbre, dynamics, pitch and so forth, as well as the instrument categorizations, is to very explicitly and consistently use those terms in every examples. The authors do this in some instances, but many examples don't recall these fundamental concepts as thoroughly.

Reviewed by Bernadette Mondok Keller, Adjunct Music Instructor, Southern Oregon University on 3/11/22

Comprehensiveness rating: 4 see less

As established in the introduction of the text, Music in World Cultures offers a "small sampling" of traditional uses of music in ways that most hearing people are able to relate. Other than using primarily Youtube as its multimedia platform, which itself encourages the viewer to dive deeper into a topic, the most comprehensive section of the book were the two chapters in the Introduction section.
However, it would be difficult for the book to cover ALL existing cultures' music with the same amount of depth, so I appreciate the sorting of music into the five themes. I would argue that there wasn't a big enough difference for me between the Place and Identity&Politics themes. I would have loved to see a specific Children's Music section, though I know there would again be crossover with other sections.

Content Accuracy rating: 5

I enjoyed the detail in the book backed by news articles and webpages. The book is painstakingly thorough especially in its listening guides; they include translated titles, artist names, year published, country of origin, by-the-second descriptions, and lyric translation where the text is important to the theme. I also appreciated how it shows how samples of some world music has been adapted to other popular songs through direct sample or quote.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 3

My FAVORITE part of the text book was the deliberate multi-media approach, but this is also its Achilles heel. Here are a list of youtube links that no longer exist:

1. Orchestral cymbals
2. The Message
3. Tumira Vana Kuhondo
4. Begin Japanology Kabuki (NHK Documentary). 2018

There was an image missing as well:
(image: chinaculture.org)

Clarity rating: 4

The book is enjoyably approachable! My favorite chapter of the book was the Fundamentals, which did well to lay groundwork for the rest of the text.

Some of the videos, vocabulary, and graphic choices I found only questionably demonstrated each topic:
Dynamics= Bob Marley and the Wailers
Harmony= "relaxed" vs. "tense" vocabulary and the use of the word "happy" to describe Jarabi
Homophonic= The Kossoy Sisters; maybe a video of multiple singers or instruments singing the same thing would be better

Consistency rating: 4

I would have loved to have seen specific links to Eurovision performances referenced, and seen images/videos of instruments in the Jingju. In that way, I find the book to be a bit inconsistent in level of detail.

Modularity rating: 5

This text can be done in any order after the Introduction section. It can be used or referenced in other classes, like Music Appreciation, World History, and other culture-specific classes.
There were three videos that were used twice:
1. Etenraku
2. I’ll Fly Away
3. Dhol
I think the book could have used other videos in the Fundamentals chapter instead of these OR referenced the dual use of the videos

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 4

The book adheres to its structure by theme, and is easy to follow.

Interface rating: 4

Other than links that went nowhere, navigation was fluid.

Grammatical Errors rating: 5

The only questionable bit of text for me was in Fundamentals: “However, if the instruments are playing the same,...” The same what? The listening guide for the youtube link clarifies this.

Cultural Relevance rating: 5

I found the book's effort to find different terms for dynamics effective, not limiting vocabulary to Italian. Of course it is a lot of hard work to make such multi-media text about cultural uses of music inclusive for non/hard of-hearing and non/hard of-seeing people, so this is the only point where I find the text lacking culturally.

Comments

This is my kind of text book; multi-media and user friendly! I encourage the authors to stay on top of the media links, as they're my favorite part of the text. I anticipate that future editions will take care of this, and will include more recent developments in the popular music world, as globalization brings us closer together.

Reviewed by Man Yang, Instructor, Kapiolani Community College on 12/10/21

Comprehensiveness rating: 4 see less

As an OER textbook on world music, the first of its kind, this text offers a great selection of musical culture of the world. Instead of introducing music cultures based on geographic location, this book organizes its six chapters based on different issues relating to place, identity and politics, theatre, dance, religion and spirituality as well as an introduction chapter. A great mix of traditional and contemporary musical cultures from Europe, Africa, North America, South America, Oceania, East Asia, South Asia and the Middle East are analyzed in a consistent format (including historical background together with music examples, followed by a brief listening guide). Some very helpful maps and images are also used. As the authors point out themselves, “this text provides just a small sampling of some of the various musical styles and traditions,” and it serves as a strong springboard for future editions and related texts that will expand OER resources in this field.

Content Accuracy rating: 5

The content in the book is accurate.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 5

This book is most likely to be used in an introductory world music class together with other visual aids (image and video examples) and learning materials. Certain chapters could also be used in area studies classes, like Asian Studies, African studies, and American studies.

Clarity rating: 5

The text is easy to read, concise and without any academic jargon.

Consistency rating: 5

The structure and terminology are consistent across all chapters.

Modularity rating: 5

The textbook can be used as a whole, or adopted by chapter in addition to other learning material.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 5

The chapters in the text are efficiently organized by topics.

Interface rating: 5

I found the text easy to navigate. The video links work great.

Grammatical Errors rating: 5

I didn’t find any major grammatical issues in the text.

Cultural Relevance rating: 5

This text is written in a culturally responsive manner as it intends to build a better understanding of world music cultures.

Comments

The authors did an outstanding job creating this text! It’s well-organized, consistent, and easy to use. I have adopted some of the maps used in this textbook in my own courses (thank you!), and plan to include selections from its chapters in my introductory world music class. This is a really wonderful first edition, and I am looking forward to seeing a second edition that could extend the scope of the text’s coverage of world musical cultures in terms of both breadth and depth.

Reviewed by Hillary Harder, Program Director, Community School of the Arts, Goshen College on 12/1/21

Comprehensiveness rating: 3 see less

This book provides snapshots of several styles of music from around the world. This sampling of musical traditions from around the world is fascinating and varied and I appreciated the organization of the book into different themes, i.e. place, identity and politics, theatre, dance, religion and spirituality. However, this book is not terribly comprehensive - and I don't think it was necessarily intending to be. The title may be somewhat misleading: rather than giving broad overviews of the function of music in as many world cultures as possible, this book instead presents more in-depth examples of thirteen styles of music from different countries. These musical styles were not necessarily evenly distributed across different regions of the world: for example, three styles of music from Zimbabwe were included, but only one was included from all of Latin America.

Content Accuracy rating: 5

The content of the book was accurate and highly interesting. It was refreshing to encounter a music textbook that did not center around Western Classical European music and instead prioritized diverse musical traditions from around the world.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 3

The written content in the book is fairly relevant, as it discusses historical and contextual information about each style of music. I didn't find the information particularly up-to-date: for example, the chapter on hip-hop did not discuss any music written after 1982, which leaves out huge and crucial developments in that genre of music. Furthermore, while I appreciated the YouTube video examples linked in the text, I imagine these videos will quickly become out of date and could even be removed from YouTube in coming years, rendering the book far less useful.

Clarity rating: 5

The book's introduction gives excellent and clear explanation of musical terms like timbre and dynamics.

Consistency rating: 5

This book maintains consistency in its terminology and framework.

Modularity rating: 5

The chapters are of a manageable length and include subsections within them.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 4

I appreciated the way that the different musical styles were grouped together by theme. I would have appreciated some subthemes as well: for example, religion/spirituality is a huge category that could include music for holidays, celebrations, mourning rituals, and more that could be highly different from one another.

Interface rating: 4

One mild obstacle was having to wait for the ads to play before viewing the videos on YouTube.

Grammatical Errors rating: 5

The text contains no grammatical errors.

Cultural Relevance rating: 5

This book did an outstanding job of highlighting rich and complex styles of music that are often ignored in scholarly music texts.

Comments

Overall this is a fascinating and worthwhile book to consider teaching from. This book's greatest benefit is its in-depth look into several specific styles of music from around the world (particularly the non-Western world). This is not a comprehensive text on the ways in which music is broadly used in cultures around the world; I wished for a more even representation of music from all broad regions of the world, and moreover I just wished for more content - more styles of music chosen, more details presented about each style of music, and more countries represented. However, the styles of music that are discussed are interesting and relevant, and they are effectively grouped by theme of function within a culture. The video examples are useful and bring these styles of music to life.