reviewing

In his words it can be inferred that is of the opinion that mass media is the only way through which music can get shared from across the globe. He explains that mass media does quite explicitly include all types of medium that people can use and rely on to connect with each other from different points. Thus going by that definition, he seems to want to suggest that Facebook and others like WhatsApp are also part and parcel of mass media. This author thinks that without mass media there would be nothing like what music is produced in the western countries getting to reach to the African or the Asian countries.[footnoteRef:3] To him the presence of a lingua franca too has been key in helping the dissemination and spread of every kind of music. When the world was without the mass media there was little known about what was taking place in the other side of the world. That also means people could not be in a position to know what kind of music was being produced where. They were only conversant of what they were used to hearing in their locality which did not change much. The advent of the mass media brought with it the aspect of sharing of ideas. These were not educational or design ideas only but also the musical ideas. The exposure therefore that mass media brought amongst people enabled them to buy ideas from one another and merge them with what they knew so that new kinds of music started coming up. [3: Ibid ]

For example the author says that a music genre like rock was birthed as a result of the interaction between westerners and the Indians.[footnoteRef:4] That explains the soft and at times slow rhythms that accompany this kind of music. It is because it is an amalgam of the Indian Carnatic music and the classical music that was popular in the Western countries. When the musicians from western countries heard the Indian Carnatic they borrowed a lot from it especially the way of playing the instruments that was generally slow and the dance style and incorporated it with the classical music which was generally fast in the way of pronouncing the words. This was as result of listening to the Carnatic music of the Indians by the western musicians. This thus is a perfect example of how mass media has impacted on the production and the consumption of the music. [4: Ibid ]

Through mass media too when music is heard and listened everywhere in the world, it becomes popular especially if it is a good one. Thus it gets to enjoy worldwide attention and through that it quickly becomes a world music. This is precisely how Michael Jackson’s rock songs got to spread to more than four continents.[footnoteRef:5] [5: Nettl, Bruno, Thomas Turino, Isabel Wong, Charles Capwell, Philip Bolman, Byron Dueck, and Timmothy Rommen. Excursions in world music. Routledge, 2015. ]

Q. 7

What is musical “authenticity,” why is it problematic, and why are people still invested in this idea?

Musical authenticity refers to the state of a music being original and not containing some borrowed ideas or lyrics or beats from other types of music genres (Byren, 1999). In an accurate way, this is an aspect of a musical genre being independent from the rest and not containing contamination. That is to say that it is not an amalgam of one genre, say salsa and another genre like hip hop. It also means that a song by one composer is not mixed with borrowed words or ideas including beats from other musicians in which case that would amount to parody.

This issue of music authenticity is problematic because it is hard to tell in the world of today who or which an authentic music is. The reason for this being that what used to be authentic in the las few decades or years might have changed in the current generation. Thus people will keep looking for authentic things and they will be engaged in an exercise in futility. Another reason is that of change of focus in the new generation that has an impact of changing things such that what gets considered authentic today was probably some kind of bastard fusion a few years ago. This state of affairs definitely presents a problem to anybody who cares to get and for that matter promote only that kind of music that is authentic. The author gives examples in trying to bring out the problem in the whole idea of authentic music. For example according to him, all-Japanese salsa orchestra's record (Orquestra de la Luz) was No. 1 on the salsa charts in the United States not long ago. Did the New York salser so care? No, most loved the songs and were frankly amazed. African guitar bands were doing their level best to copy Cuban rumbas, and in their twisted failure they came up with something new. So let's not make any rules about who can make a specific style of music. This is what the author says or presents as the main problem in the issue of authenticity.[footnoteRef:6] [6: David Byrne, Crossing Music's Borders: 'I Hate World Music' Oct, 3rd 1999, The New York Times.]

People are still bothered about authenticity because, especially those who still hold on to honesty would want to support the efforts of those musicians who have sat down and come up with music or songs that are purely their own composition without having to add anything that is borrowed from some other people.[footnoteRef:7] Most people still and especially the whites would want to have a feel of that they are having the reals thing. That is, if it is a music by a certain artist, they want a feel of that they are not being given what does not belong to that artist exactly but a borrowed or stolen musical ideas. When it is about a music genre, it has to be that it the exact kind of music genre and not an amalgam or mixture of two kinds of genres. [7: Ibid ]

Bibliography.

Bohlman, Philip V. World music: A very short introduction. OUP Oxford, 2002.

David Byrne, Crossing Music's Borders: 'I Hate World Music' Oct, 3rd 1999, The New York Times.

Nettl, Bruno, Thomas Turino, Isabel Wong, Charles Capwell, Philip Bolman, Byron Dueck, and Timmothy Rommen. Excursions in world music. Routledge, 2015.