There are many varieties of folk music in Europe. The most famous of them are:
Irish songs;
Spanish flamenco;
In North America, you can hear the music of the native inhabitants of this country – the Indians, as well as the music of the peoples of many other countries of the world and music created in the USA, including jazz, rap, barbershop, rock and country and western.
The music of the inhabitants of the Caribbean islands, Central and South America is no less diverse than that of North America.
The influence of European, African and Asian musical traditions is felt in it. There are also musical styles peculiar to the native inhabitants of South America, such as the music performed on the pan flutes of the Andean peoples, and recently invented styles, such as the music of the noise bands of the inhabitants of the Caribbean islands.
Unique musical traditions live on all the islands of the Pacific Ocean. Aborigines of Australia sing, preserving and developing their religion and culture. For them, the singer is an important figure, he conveys messages from nature spirits to people.
Solomon Islanders have been playing bamboo flutes since time immemorial. Musicians perform both individually and in large orchestras. In the 19th century Christian missionaries banned such music, but the aborigines were able to preserve it.
Traditional percussion instruments are still popular in Southeast Asia. The Indonesian gamelan orchestra includes gongs, xylophones, drums and other instruments. Gamelan accompanies dances and songs, and also takes part in shadow theater performances based on legends and myths.
Many theatrical traditions have survived in East Asia. Peking Opera performances in China are speech, singing, acting and acrobatics, which together form an extremely impressive spectacle. And in the Korean pansora theater, all parts are performed by the same singer, who also narrates the story.
In Asian countries, music was heard not only in theater performances. Over the past three centuries, Japanese composers have been writing works for bamboo flutes – shakuhachi. The musical notation here was nothing like the European one with its notation of several lines. Composers wrote special symbols in a vertical column explaining to the performer how he should play.
Most East Asian countries did not have music notation systems at all. For example, in Mongolian singing, one performer simultaneously whistles the melody and makes low sounds.
Music of the countries of the Middle East
The music of the countries of the Middle East was significantly influenced by the culture of Islam. For example, the professional musical styles of African countries are impressive in their diversity. Music is often inextricably linked with spoken language and dance. Only in some cases is it recorded, and songs and performance samples are orally transmitted from generation to generation.
One of the features of African music is a kind of dialogue, when one musician sings or plays a phrase, and the others respond to it. In many pieces, voices or instruments come into play gradually, one after the other. Plays may consist of short themes that are repeated with variations. The most common instruments are drums, xylophones and mbiras, on which the keys (metal strips) are pressed with different fingers.
Music of the peoples of the world
On our native planet there is a huge number of different countries with their own traditions, customs and culture. The relationship between these cultures and people is sometimes quite tense, since there are national characteristics that are individual for each people.
It’s no secret that those traditions that are considered normal for a European are absolutely unacceptable, for example, for the peoples of Asia. It is very important to understand the various subtleties that affect the cultural traditions and characteristics of the peoples of the world. After all, non-observance of etiquette, traditions and cultural heritage of an individual country can lead to various conflicts. Today, it is very important that the peoples of the world preserve their traditions and not be influenced by the ubiquitous civilization. The uniqueness of a single people lies precisely in its cultural features, which are peculiar only to it.
Seven billion people live on planet Earth, there are about 300 countries and thousands of different peoples. They all have unique traditions and customs. It is impossible to know the culture and customs of different countries in the smallest details. Therefore, conflicts often arise between people of different nations.
The musical culture of different countries and peoples is rich and diverse. In some peoples of the world, music almost does not change over the centuries, in others, new musical works based on folk music appear. But the most important thing is that music is the only language in the world that is understood by all people of the globe. Music is capable of uniting the peoples of the entire globe in a great friendly dance.
There is a beautiful legend about the origin of the word “music”. It tells of the fact that Moses heard the divine command on Mount Sinai in the words Muse ke – “Moses, listen”, and the revelation that appeared to him consisted of rhythm and tone, and he called it by the same name: Music ; and such words as “Music” and “Musike” came from that word.
The ideas about music that were formed, like the term itself, in European culture, are not always present in other cultures of the world. For example, in most peoples of Africa, Oceania, and American Indians, it is not traditionally distinguished from other spheres of life. Musical action is, as a rule, inseparable here from ritual actions related to hunting, initiation rites, weddings, military gatherings, ancestor worship, etc.
The concept of music in some tribes is sometimes completely absent, there is neither the term “music” nor its analogues. When trying to specifically single out musical phenomena and describe what, for us Europeans, is definitely music – the knocking of sticks, the rattling of hunting bows, the playing of drums, flutes sung by a choir or independent motives, etc. – the aborigines, for example, of Oceania, usually tell myths and various fairy tales.
They explain the origins of certain musical phenomena that arise in some afterlife and were brought to the world by supernatural forces (gods, spirits, totemic ancestors) or sound phenomena of nature (thunderstorms, the sound of the tropical forest, birdsong, the cry of animals and etc.); often indicates the birth of musical instruments and musical abilities of a person in the world of spirits or jinn (spirits of the forest, dead people, gods).