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Music From Around The World Will Get Your Heart Pumping

By Stacie Allison


From its indigent roots, music from around the world has come into its own. In an increasingly globalized multi-culture, we have access to musical styles that in former decades would have required extensive travel to appreciate. During the eighties, pop stars like Sting and Paul Simon corroborated with musicians from around the globe adding depth to their individual sounds. With intriguing embellishments from third-world musicians, Western genres expanded.

With a varied geography and instrumentation, the indigenous roots are defying categorization as cultures assimilate. What may have once been a pure traditional form, is taking on nuance and variety as musicians access other styles from other regions. Musicians are going eclectic.

International groups now regularly tour Britain and North America. Once playing small venues, they are now playing larger concert halls with sold-out shows. A billing trend to have indigenous groups open for major pop stars has added to their stature and record sales.

If you are interested in hearing some Tibetan chants, Japanese koto or Indian raga, all are increasingly booked to play for Western audiences. Offered up, tribal music from the Middle East, Asia, Central America and Africa are proliferating. Reggae as been assimilated so deeply into the mainstream it almost seems like an American roots style instead of Jamaican.

No longer strictly ethnic, it has a broader approach. This hybridization now requires new categorical labels. We have World Fusion, Ethnic Fusion, World Beat, Lounge, Global Fusion and Club Fusion. It now crosses over into new-age, jazz, country, soul and disco. It has grown its eclectic styling and it is only just beginning.

Today, West and North Africans offer a thriving musical scene and nowhere is it more prevalent than in Paris. France offers support through its many cultural institutions that promote diversity in the arts. Algerian and Moroccan sounds are widely presented in this European capital. Middle Eastern groups tour the United States and Canada. South American rhythms are thrilling audiences everywhere.

There are many web sites dedicated to this genre and one of the better ones, The World Music Network, can begin your musical appreciation voyage. On this site you will find out the latest styles causing excitement, be able to access an archive the best indigenous groups and purchase CDs or MP3s. You will find links to radio stations. With stunning photography, this is user-friendly, professional site.

If your sixties, seventies and eighties classic rock records are beginning to sound like, well broken records, leave your comfort zone and check out the exhilarating offerings from around the world. If you could use a new groove, find out what is happening in Peru, Ghana, North Africa, Bolivia, Brazil. Access to the global culture is definitely one of the perks of our ever expanding world.




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