There's Nothing Pure About Music

  Music is essential in our everyday lives and is tied so closely to our identity, and in many cases to our culture. Rasmussen speaks of Islamic music and focuses on Islamic music in Indonesia and how it compares to Islamic music around the world. When reading her work, I could not help but relate it to Jorge Drexler's TED Talk on Poetry, Music and Identity and the lack of purity that exists within the music that we have linked to our religion, culture and identity. 

Drexler takes us through the history of these songs, how they have developed from one another. The Milonga is claimed as being Uruguayan- but its characteristic beat originates from Africa. It travelled from Persia to Spain and five centuries later to America through the arrival of enslaved peoples. During this same time, the Balkans had been encountering the Roma Scale that gave birth to klezmer music that Ukrainian Jewish people took to Brooklyn, NY. In Brooklyn, a heavily Polish, Ukrainian, Argentine and Puerto Rican community at the time- this klezmer music meets the tango with Astor Piazzolla. The identities behind music are so complex, they are anything but pure, but remain one of the strongest examples of how large of an effect globalization and history have on our culture.                                

                                            

       The Decima, the Milonga, the infamous Hava Nagila, and even songs like Adios Nonino are seen as           symbols of culture, identity, nationality, and religion. People claim these songs as having originated           from their proper country or religion- they claim it as authentic and unique, belonging to them. While        this sentiment makes sense, the music we grow up we assume is our own and it is definitely the n             narrative that is passed down to us from generation to generation, it neglects to recognize how                   globalization, immigration, and cross cultural communication have shaped music throughout the               world.                                           

       Cross-Cultural music making is the intentional version of this process and it often comes with many           more implications that can be seen by the eye. Cross cultural music making and musical migrations           are expressed through language, history, memory tradition and identity. Hegemonic and non-                      hegemonic relations within the creation of music represent the ways in which power comes into play        in culture and how theories of purity within music lack substance. These relations allow questions of           how music serves to break and transgress boundaries, if it even can, to arise.

                                                        

       Opera is a genre of music that is associated with hegemonic structures of power, mainly stemming           from Europe but in ‘Aida’ it takes on themes of non-hegemonic cultures. It brings into conversation           the orientalization of Egypt, as well as the power relations between Egypt and Ethiopia. this                       orientalization is more complicated than simply a story of hegemonic power- it extends into the                   exoticization of women and reveals the development of identity through representations of the                   “other.” The othering includes being given exotic and magical “hollywood” qualities in order to find a        place in “Europe’s imperial imagination” This exoticization and othering is an example of packaging        culture for mainstream consumption. This happens all around the world and especially in the United           States- there is nothing the U.S. loves more than stealing, stripping, and profiting from other cultures        all while carefully curating a version of that culture that is appealing to their Westernness.

                                                                

       Musical migrations and cross cultural music making are significant in recuperating unheard voices           that have disappeared through the globalization of the world. Often, with globalization if music is not        selling and profitable, it is on the track of disappearing. Erasure of culture, religion, and identity are           so prominent and yet so unbelievably sad- it is our role to study the history behind the music we listen        to and keep it alive.