The Impact of Western Society on the Music Cultures of Other Societies in the World

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Table of Contents

Introduction
Australasia & Oceania
Wangga
Sub-Saharan Africa
How the western music has infiltrated into Australian and African Music
Conclusion
Works Cited

Introduction

The impact of the Western Society has been argued to be quite in immense throughout the human history. Regardless the magnitude of influence, it is impossible for a person or society to claim immunity against the penetration and ultimate influence on the Western Society.

The most amazing thing is that all these aspects of our identities carry either visible or invisible elements of the Western Society. Nevertheless, of great significance has been the evolution of music cultures in different world regions.

If any region of the world was to analyze its music culture today and compare it with what is used to be considered as a culture decades ago, what the would be observed is a substantive and quantifiable magnitude of change (Eaton 360).

This essay, therefore, discusses the impact of the Western Society on the music cultures of societies from at least two world regions covered in the course.

Australasia & Oceania

The following segments explain the components of Australian music culture, including musical instruments, songs and some of the functions in which music plays a fundamental role.

Wangga

This is a traditional music genre in Australia that originated from the northern region of the country several years ago. The song is mainly played during the certain functions like circumcision of boys, disposing the property of a deceased person or for a general entertainment in the country.

Traditionally, the song is believed to be delivered to songmen by spirits at night in the form of dreams. Like any other music, Wangga has several musical characteristics like text and vocables that are strophic coupled with melodic lines that are short, below eight octaves (Richards 19).

Accompanied with Didjeridu which maintains a constant drone, the music derives its metric feel from clap sticks, although the music is generally non-metric.

It is important to note that ritual songs play a core role in the lives of Australians and those who misuse them risk being attacked by spirits, as described by the traditionalists.

Although this was the trend decades ago, the original role and recognition of Wangga and other traditional music genres is fading off (Richards 188).

Due to the systematic racism that was propagated by different people like Captain Cook, Australian music culture has continuously been placed on the verge of being overshadowed by the external cultures from Western countries and other parts of the world. What are some of the factors that have contributed to this?

Australian music has been affected by immigrants from the West. Being a country dominated by immigrants, the initial culture of the country has been eroded for advancing ethnocentric agenda against the natives.

For instance, Euro-Australian prohibition of the Aboriginal languages was a way of ensuring that cultural identity of the Aboriginals was faced out from the front and replaced by a hybrid culture that demonstrated the elements of immigrants and the Western world (Davis 230).

Another way in which the Western Society has influenced the Australian music culture is through education. With the coming of European missionaries to Australia, several things changed including the education system which inclined to the West, leaving the culture a compromised and unstable state.

The education system also emphasized the use of foreign and international languages, thus lowering the power of native young people to learn and appreciate their music culture without Western interference (Bennett 80).

Australia has maintained its ties with European countries for trade and other economic relationships. As a result, several foreign forms of culture have found a way into the country, carrying people away from what they knew as cultural music (Davis 226).

The impact of all these can be seen through several manifestations in Australian music. For instance, many young Aboriginals are unable to learn ritual practices and the role of music that is currently known to a few elderly people in the country. Many youths have been influenced by hip-hop culture and other English songs.

In general, Australian music culture has been affected through the abandonment of Aboriginal language, introduction of Western education, industrialization and trade.

Sub-Saharan Africa

Sub-Saharan Africa comprises people who speak different languages and subscribe to various music genres (May 172). In other words, the music culture of the region cannot be described in general as it is a network of interlaced cultural fibers.

Another aspect of Sub-Saharan Africa music culture is its high level of localizations and customized traditions that are usually unique to a given group of people. This is to say that one village may not be able to recognize the importance of their neighbors’ culture because of its uniqueness.

The question which we need to answer is whether there are any unifying features within the music culture of Sub-Saharan Africa. It has been found that Sub-Saharan African music depends on layered parts, which may be shared among several songs unlike in other cases where music is main feature in the independent layered parts (May 179).

This approach involves playing of different music strands simultaneously to produce vertical complexity that is felt through the texture of music. Other features include rhythmic complexity, polymetre and repetition of certain parts during a presentation. Many Africans argue that Western Music is mono-rhythmic, a property that makes it boring and unappealing.

As noted earlier, Sub-Saharan Africa is made of different groups of people who have different economies and different music. As a result, they have a wide range of adaptive strategies for meeting their daily needs. They have different music sounds, practices and support systems to sustain them.

For instance, inhabitants of the rain forest region do not specialize in any music and embrace simple technology. On the other hand, the pygmies have few instruments, which are played by specialists. They also clap during musical performances with their music making use of vocables (May 172).

Unlike the inhabitants of the two regions above, forest dwellers are musically organized with a wide variety of musical instruments. Additionally, they have moderated music specialization that allows them to have customized music organization.

Even though some Sub-Saharan Africans do not have music organization and specialization, their music has become popular in the world, drawing the attention of people from other regions. For instance, Kora, a common string instrument in West Africa has gained popularity in global “world music” (Kubik 432).

With increasing demand and attention for Sub-Saharan African music, the region has witnessed cases of commercialization and commoditization of its music by musicians from other cultures around the globe.

Many believe that Sub-Saharan African music culture has inspired several musicians from the West through cultural interaction and other mutual relationships. Because of the richness of Sub-Saharan African music, other cultures have borrowed from it without any form of attribution.

This is common with Jazz, pop and blues which the Western Society significantly borrowed from Sub-Saharan Africa region.

How the western music has infiltrated into Australian and African Music

The first and very clear element showing the infiltration of the western music culture into the African as well as Australian music are the musical instruments used. Gradually, the African music instruments are being relegated to the museums as musicians adopt the modern westernized music instruments.

The same case is seen to apply in the Australian context. This has led to the composers of native music from Africa as well as from Australia adopting some of the modern music instruments in composing the native music (Scaruffi 1).

Another element that is quite clear is the purpose of music. In most cases, western music is purely meant for entertainment but the African and Australian music serves more than the entertainment purpose.

Music in the African context played a specific purpose, for instance, there are circumcision songs, which were only sung during a specified period, and planting songs were only meant for the planting seasons.

It is evident that of late, music in Africa and Australia is continuously being composed to serve all season around and, in particular, to entertain. In the African context, funeral songs, for example, could only be sung during funeral moments but with the infiltration of the western music, funeral songs have been modified to be sang all year round irrespective of the season at hand.

African and Australia native music was quite conservative and selective in their audience and the choice of words used by the composer. For instance, there was music, specifically for children which old people could not sing at all. This is slowly changing and music is being shaped to be all rounded.

There were some words, which could not be found in music; words which directly referred to actions of sex and other related words were avoided but the current trend is that these are the words which are becoming the catchwords (Nettl 237).

Mostly, western music has much to do with being “flashy” in contrast to native African and Australian music. In Africa, it has however become a fact that at least some degree of flashiness has to form part of the music (Scaruffi 1).

Conclusion

As an element of human identity human culture has continuously evolved throughout history. Consequently, no single region in the world today can claim to have an original and pure culture free from any form of external infiltrations.

Through various forms of interactions among countries and communities, different elements are shared among people, making it possible to appreciate other people’s identity. Notably, the Western Society has tremendously impacted cultures of other regions.

From the above analysis, Sub-Saharan Africa and Australian music culture represent several other cultures of the world which have been influenced. Due to globalization and other factors, the Western culture has infiltrated into other regions as manifested through global recognition of hip-hop and jazz cultures, which have Western roots.

Works Cited

Bennett, Tony. Rock and Popular Music: Politics, Policies, Institutions. London: Routledge, 1993. Print.

Davis, Geoffrey. Ar̲atjara: aboriginal culture and literature in Australia. Bulgaria: Rodopi, 1997. Print.

Eaton, David. The Influence of Music on Self and Society – Values in Music in Eastern and Western Cultures. The Words of the Eaton Family, 2003. Web.

Kubik, Gerhard. Theory of African Music, Volume 1. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010. Print.

May, Elizabeth. Musics of many cultures: an introduction, Part 1. California: University of California Press, 1983. Print.

Nettl, Bruno. “Ibo Songs from Nigeria, Native and Hybridized.” Midwest Folklore 3.4 (1953): 237-242.

Richards, Fiona. The soundscapes of Australia: music, place and spirituality. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2007. Print.

Scaruffi, Piero. “A Brief summary of African Popular Music.” Scaruffi Articles, 2002. Web. <https://www.scaruffi.com/history/african.html>.

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