Tuesday, July 23, 2019, 12:30pm
I first learned of the Garland Encyclopedia of World Music 10 Volume Series in 2017 while attending an ethnomusicology conference in Washington, DC. With that discovery came the name Ruth M. Stone. Her credentials are as impressive. Her body of work is even more so. Stone's research continues to...
Friday, March 8, 2019, 12:30pm
The Oxford American Magazine offers insights on a host of important literary and cultural topics to which I find edifying, educational and entertaining. Their recent publication the "Southern Music Issue" with a CD of music featuring Nina Simone, my mother's favorite singer, is one I'm looking...
Thursday, March 7, 2019, 12:30pm
I am delighted to partner with Smithsonian Folkways Recordings with the airing of some of their most diverse, informative, and celebrated releases over the last handful of years. This spring tune-in, hear, and enjoy them as each will be blended with other world music works from "lands near and far...
Thursday, March 7, 2019, 12:30pm
Want to learn how to play West African guitar style? To be sure, there are many online courses to consider. Among them is one lead by West African guitarist Zoumana Diarra. I'm attracted to his story because of the important role Griots play in the lifeblood of African culture, storytelling and of...
Friday, August 3, 2018, 12:30pm
First published in 1980 and now available only from the University of New Mexico Press, this classic compilation of New Mexico folk music is based on thirty-five years of field research by a giant of modern music. Composer John Donald Robb, a passionate aficionado of the traditions of his adopted...
Tuesday, April 17, 2018, 12:30pm
This is a welcomed addition to my library of world music resources and finally in paperback! At this post , I'm just beginning to turn the first pages and really thrilled to read the text's connection with humanity's sacred, cultural, and ethnic expressions. This is a rich read that hints early one...
Friday, February 16, 2018, 11:30am
The Rough Guides series of full-color dictionary phrasebooks are unrivaled, featuring over 5,000 words and phrases and free mp3 downloads of common travel dialogue scenarios. Each dictionary phrasebook includes an extensive two-way dictionary, a food and drink menu guide, and free audio downloads...
Friday, September 1, 2017, 12:30pm
I discovered the musical world and work of Ethnomusicologist Jean Jenkins during my first visit to Edinburgh, Scotland in 2016. I traveled to there to review solo artists and musical ensembles from around the world performing at the Festival Fringe. By chance I visited the National Museum of...
Thursday, July 20, 2017, 11:30am
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, affectionately known as “the brightest star”, was a legendary Punjabi musician from Pakistan. Ali Khan was primarily a singer of devotional music called qawwali , the well-known vocalized form of sacred musical expression of the Sufis, equally edified in Pakistan and India...
Friday, April 21, 2017, 11:30am
ARC Music is a invaluable resource for Higher Ground. I'm pleased by the label's affinity for so many genres of music edifying to diverse music traditions from around the globe. ARC is a good source to consider when building your world music library. “Those familiar with some of the staggering...
Friday, April 21, 2017, 11:30am
Early enslaved African Americans existing in the South and Appalachia crafted banjos after instruments they had generously employed in their original homeland - Africa. Some students of music history call the earliest banjos "gourd banjos". Examples include the akonting - a spike folk lute of the...
Wednesday, April 19, 2017, 11:30am
O. Gosvami's book "The Story Of India Music" is a well-written text perhaps best suited for college students or a reader who has more than just a passing interest in Indian Music. I'm just beginning to read it after skimming over the entire work. Because the book discusses Indian music indepth,...
Friday, October 9, 2015, 11:30am
The gimbri, a three stringed rectangular lute-like instrument from Morocco is commonly is used by Gnawan musicians readily attached to a repertoire of rich and ancient African Islamic spiritual songs and rhythms used in prayer and healing. Learn more by visiting The Odyssey Series on the Hg page.
Friday, September 18, 2015, 11:30am
Krakebs are large heavy metal percussive castanets that serve as the all important rhythmic underpinning to Morocco's and Algeria's Gnawa music. And though they are considered to be a hypnotic instrument, practitioners of the Gnawa music as a healing tool, are oftened engulfed in a trance-...
Thursday, February 26, 2015, 11:30am
Bongos (Spanish: bong ó ) are an Afro-Cuban percussion instrument consisting of a pair of small open bottomed drums of different sizes. In Spanish the larger drum is called the hembra (female ) and the smaller the macho (male). They are membranophones, or instruments that create sound by a...
Wednesday, February 4, 2015, 11:30am
The Chekere is an instrument hailing from West Africa and consists of a dried gourd with beads woven into a net covering the gourd's surface. Throughout the continent there are similar gourd/bead or gourd/seed percussion instruments. This particulary instrument is used both within folkloric...
Thursday, November 6, 2014, 11:30am
Rarely do I travel abroad without returning home to Wisconsin with a percussion instrument unique to the land I visited. My collection includes several from East and West Africa, Cuba, Peru, and Morocco. Getting some of them through Customs has been an adventure in and of itself. And though I don...
Thursday, November 6, 2014, 11:30am
While traveling just a few years ago in the Caribbean, I landed on the island of Curaçao in the southern Caribbean Sea. The island is just off the Venezuelan coast - a part of the Dutch Caribbean region. When and wherever I travel, my first thoughts upon landing usually zero in on finding...
Friday, October 17, 2014, 10:00am
The traditional Chinese Pipa is a four-stringed lute with up to 30 frets and a pear-shaped body. The instrumentalist holds the pipa upright and play with small plectra attached to each finger of the right hand. The history of the instrument dates back at least 2000 years and developed from a...
Tuesday, June 3, 2014, 2:45pm
Cymbals are as common in classical music as they are at home in rock, jazz, R&B, Latin, Balkan gypsy and, just about every other form of music on the planet. Cymbals are common members of the concussion family where pairs of similar objects are clashed together to make sound. Imagine their...
