Whose World Music?

Abstract

World music might be defined most benignly as an attempt to conceptualise all of the world’s music. More cynically though, world music can be also seen as just an advertising label for all non-Western music. Many scholars have gone even further and argue that world music is a delusional subjective fantasy, an unreal utopia and an oppressive discourse of western hegemony. Defining what world music is really depends on who is asking the question. Whose world musi is it? This paper will focus on the philosophical conundrums of ‘world music’ within the context of the current BA World Music at the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance at the University of Limerick. The paper will be framed through the following questions: what is world music; whose music is it; why should we world music and how it can be done? In this article, I will trace the shifting meanings of world music from its origins as pedagogical framework, to its use as a popular music marketing term and finally its significance as part of a post modern critique of globalisation. I will outline how students at the Irish World Academy engage with ‘world music’ both as a problematic concept but also an exercise in exploring transcultural musical relationships, particularly through practical ensemble work in five different cultural areas: popular music, Javanese gamelan, Indian Classical music, Ewe drum and dance and Turkish maqam. I will also discuss my own journey as a musician and outline how this practice has influenced both my pedagogical and theoretical framing of what it means to be a performer in the contemporary global music landscape.