Now Playing on Festival Radio
Monday, March 21, 2005
Why Play World Music?
I received the most recent Oasis World Music sampler in the mail today, and as I was listening to it in the car on the way to Westerville for a church meeting, it occurred to me that I've never made any comments on this blog about why I choose to play world music (or non-North American/British Isles-derived music, to be more precise) on the Online Folk Festival.
It would be easy to program the station without it. Certainly playing what we here in the states narrowly define as folk music (traditional, old-time, singer/songwriter, Celtic/British Isles folk, cajun/zydeco, etc.) would fill out the format successfully. And it would probably improve my listener retention as well, since I know from my listener statistics that the world music tunes generally have the largest dropout.
One reason is that I think the non-English-language music adds "texture" to the station. I think that we listen to songs differently when we do not know the language . We become more aware of the non-verbal portions of the music - the rhythms, the instrumentation, the technical skill of the musicians, even the sounds of the words themselves, once separated from the meaning, become part of the soundscape.
A second reason is that I think using the word folk music to apply only to the music of one region is pretty ethnocentric. Lots of people make folk music around the world, and narrowing the definition of folk music down to one little patch of the globe does not really reflect that reality. Like the water, my definition of folk music is wide. The concept of this station was really nailed down upon reflecting upon attending the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival several years ago, where I heard a wide variety of musicians, including a couple "world" music groups, all performing from the same stages one after another, spanning a wide variety of genres. Hearing the world music included with the folk music there lent the concept some additional credibility.
The third reason, and the one that trumps them all, is that it's my station and I dig the music and want to hear it as part of my workday listening. I like to groove along with Kanda Bongo Man or the Afro Cuban All Stars. I like to hear the rich voice of Cesaria Evora or the Andean flute music of Quichia Machas. It puts some variety in my day.
I'm not an expert in world music. That's why most of what you'll hear has already been vetted for me by experts on samplers from Putamayo, or the World series by Charlie Gillett who has that great show on the BBC, or Rykodisk/Hannibal. And when I find artists on these samplers that I like, I know to snap them up when I see them in the $3 bin at Used Kids.
More than you wanted to know, I expect.
It would be easy to program the station without it. Certainly playing what we here in the states narrowly define as folk music (traditional, old-time, singer/songwriter, Celtic/British Isles folk, cajun/zydeco, etc.) would fill out the format successfully. And it would probably improve my listener retention as well, since I know from my listener statistics that the world music tunes generally have the largest dropout.
One reason is that I think the non-English-language music adds "texture" to the station. I think that we listen to songs differently when we do not know the language . We become more aware of the non-verbal portions of the music - the rhythms, the instrumentation, the technical skill of the musicians, even the sounds of the words themselves, once separated from the meaning, become part of the soundscape.
A second reason is that I think using the word folk music to apply only to the music of one region is pretty ethnocentric. Lots of people make folk music around the world, and narrowing the definition of folk music down to one little patch of the globe does not really reflect that reality. Like the water, my definition of folk music is wide. The concept of this station was really nailed down upon reflecting upon attending the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival several years ago, where I heard a wide variety of musicians, including a couple "world" music groups, all performing from the same stages one after another, spanning a wide variety of genres. Hearing the world music included with the folk music there lent the concept some additional credibility.
The third reason, and the one that trumps them all, is that it's my station and I dig the music and want to hear it as part of my workday listening. I like to groove along with Kanda Bongo Man or the Afro Cuban All Stars. I like to hear the rich voice of Cesaria Evora or the Andean flute music of Quichia Machas. It puts some variety in my day.
I'm not an expert in world music. That's why most of what you'll hear has already been vetted for me by experts on samplers from Putamayo, or the World series by Charlie Gillett who has that great show on the BBC, or Rykodisk/Hannibal. And when I find artists on these samplers that I like, I know to snap them up when I see them in the $3 bin at Used Kids.
More than you wanted to know, I expect.
