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Continent with several climate zones and a population of over 800 million (2000 estimate). The extremely diversified languages within Africa are as much the result of long-term separation of local communities during the continent's remote history as it is of borrowing and processes of transculturation triggered by trade contact, migration and economic symbiosis. These formative factors have shaped the continent's expressive forms in music, dance, art, games, theatre, and oral and written literature. These forms of expressive culture should be viewed, therefore, within the context of African historicity as configurations that have been continuously changing for thousands of years. Thus, testimony is given to the immense African resources for innovation, invention, re-invention, resilience and adaptation. This dynamic picture of African cultural history clearly makes earlier notions of ‘traditional’ societies and cultures obsolete (Kubik, Theory of African Music, 1994, pp.30–37).

Music and dance in Africa exist within an interdependent relationship with other forms of expressive culture. Ruth Stone has stressed that African song, language, oral literature, instrumental music, theatre arts and dance are all a ‘conceptual package’ that most Africans conceive of as unitary (Stone, ...

This article examines the musical traditions of North and South America. The two continents, joined by a land bridge and embracing the Caribbean islands, present a multitude of genres and styles performed in a complex network of contexts by communities of diverse cultural and religious backgrounds. The regions, and often the countries, are often described separately (e.g. Chase, 1967; Béhague, 1979; Manuel, 1995). In spite of their differences, certain continuities extend far beyond the boundaries of any nation state, or even continental land mass. These continuities stem from somewhat similar histories of settlement, cultural development and technological innovations and long histories of intense trade and cultural exchange.

In order to understand similarities in musical processes throughout the Americas, chronologies associated with specific centuries must be discarded. Social processes that influenced musical styles occurred at different times and in different places. Amerindian populations were converted to Christianity and their traditional music replaced or modified by Christian church music in the late 16th century and in isolated locations in the Amazon in the late 20th century. Slavery ended at different times, and free African populations varied widely in size in different countries according to the importance of plantation economies. Immigrants moved to different places in the Americas at different times, and musical maintenance and innovation within immigrant traditions were often affected by the number of generations that lived in a country, as well as relationships with neighbours. The influence of mass media was felt in the USA and Canada in the 19th century, and radio and television had a tremendous impact on regional culture in the USA and Canada by the mid-20th century. But in places without large-scale literacy in the 19th century or electricity in the 20th, the mass media may have had a more limited impact on local traditions; in small countries without television programming, the only broadcasts available in the late 20th century were from transnational providers. Thus, when speaking of the Americas, it is sometimes better to describe the processes at work than to focus on particular periods, because the dates vary more than the processes themselves....

(Gk.: ‘eastern land’)

An area roughly corresponding to the Asian part of Turkey. At the time of the Hittite empire (c 1400–1200 bce), which included central and south-east Anatolia, Hittite rule extended into northern Syria. Archaeological research in Turkey since the middle of the 20th century has resulted in a substantial increase in the materials available for a reconstruction of the history of Anatolian music. Evaluation of these finds, which include instruments and depictions of musicians, together with information from Hittite cuneiform texts has led to a new understanding of the musical life of the area. Not only does Anatolia appear to have stood out from the rest of the prehistoric cultural environment of the Near East and Mediterranean, but the range of musical instruments produced and developed there is greater than was previously thought. The widespread belief that Anatolia was primarily a land of transition – a bridge between the advanced cultures of Mesopotamia, the Levant, Transcaucasia and the Mediterranean civilizations – and that the highland population mostly adopted foreign cultural traditions can no longer be sustained. Indeed, the evidence indicates the presence of many indigenous elements in Bronze Age Anatolian musical culture and a strong vein of creativity on the part of the Anatolian people....

Appalachia is the inextricable union of a place and a people bound in a vibrant but invisible web of culture specific to the Appalachian Mountains. While there is the physical reality of a mountain range, the concept of “Appalachia” as a region is a synthetic construct that developed towards the end of the 19th century. The borders of this region are fluid and subject to continuous interpretation and negotiation. Mountains are not constrained by political boundaries; identity is engendered by geography and culture. A highly inclusive definition based on economics formulated by the Appalachian Regional Commission in 1965 included 410 “economically distressed” counties scattered through 13 states. A more focused definition envisions a core “Southern Appalachian Region” consisting of eastern Kentucky, eastern Tennessee, western North Carolina, western Virginia, and the entire state of West Virginia. Small portions of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Alabama, Maryland, and South Carolina are generally considered an extension of this Southern Appalachian hearth....

Music traditions in the Arabic-speaking world. For discussions of the music of specific areas, see also individual country articles.

The art music/folk (or popular) music opposition is a blunt instrument at best, and at various times and places in the Arab world it would be unrealistic or unhelpful to seek to draw a clear dividing line. In Arabic the terminological distinction is a modern importation, and while the earlier textual tradition may recognize regional differences it is more frequently concerned with an ultimately ethical evaluation of the various purposes for which music may be used. However, these imply distinctions of function and social context, and as one major constant in Arab and Middle Eastern Islamic culture generally we may identify a form of entertainment music for which, in fact, the label ‘art music’ is quite apt. Nurtured at courts, patronized by urban élites, performed by professionals (and aristocratic amateurs) and described in explicitly theoretical terms, art music constituted an integral element of sophisticated high culture and, consequently, could be regarded as a suitable subject for scientific and philosophical enquiry....

Region encompassing south-eastern Iraq, Republic of , Kuwait, the Hasa province of Saudi Arabia, Kingdom of , Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the southern coast of Iran . Since prehistoric times, the Arabian (or Persian) Gulf has been an important link on the trade routes between East Africa, the Mediterranean, India and East Asia. The population is predominantly Arab, except in Iran. Until the 20th century, Gulf Arabs were nomads, pearl-divers and – to some extent – fishermen, shipbuilders and merchants. Since World War II, wealth from the region's abundant oil resources has attracted many foreigners to the area, mostly from other Arab countries.

Since ancient times, many non-Arab minority groups have settled in the region. Some have roots in East Africa and eastern parts of Central Africa; they are often (but not always) descendants of freed slaves. A fairly large Persian group lives in Qatar and Bahrain, and many Baluchis may be found in the United Arab Emirates, where UAE citizens represent less than 20% of the population. In the Emirates and Bahrain, Indians and Pakistanis are doctors, tailors and bankers. This demographic diversity is reflected in the variety of the music in the Gulf area....

(Ger.)

A term used of the culture of German-speaking Europe between the Treaty of Vienna (1815) and 1848, the year of revolutions. It is associated especially with southern Germany and with the Austria of Metternich, the architect of political stability in post-Napoleonic Europe. The term is borrowed from the name of a fictional schoolmaster created in the early 1850s by Ludwig Eichrodt (1827–92) as a satirical caricature of a bourgeois philistine. It was later adopted to refer to the comfortable domestic architecture and the decorative arts and painting of the period, and to a way of life founded in peaceful domestic harmony by contrast with the turbulence of the Napoleonic years. In the visual arts it is reflected in the domestic scenes and picturesque genre paintings of Josef Franz Danhauser, Peter Fendi and Carl Spitzweg (see illustration).

The Biedermeier culture of domesticity, associated with a politically quiescent bourgeoisie, presents an image of social stability, underpinned by a political conservatism whose aims were summed up in ...

The two thousand mile border between Mexico and the United States is among the longest and most significant found in the world. The border that separates these two countries—sometimes in sand, other times in water—is also perceived as an imaginary line that separates “America” from Latin America, rich from poor, brown indigenous people of the South from the white settlers of the North; there may not be another border in the world of such stark distinctions from one side to the other. Contemporary views of borders, however, also suggest that these geo-political contact zones are as much locations of historical connection and continuity as they are locations of difference. The transnational movement of capital, labor, and media, however, are now more responsive to the realities of globalization rather than the borders of nation-states. The music cultures that exist along the border are largely ethnic Mexican but are also defined by indigenous nations that reside in the region, as well as a diversity of other ethnic groups that have made the border home over the past 200 years and more, reflecting both sides of the border in traditional and modern ways. As a region, the Mexico–US border is now, arguably, as much a distinct cultural area as it is the meeting point between two nation-states....

French region, south-east of Paris. During the Middle Ages Burgundy was successively a kingdom (c500–800), a group of counties (800–956) and a duchy (956–1477). Under the dukes of Burgundy of the house of Valois (1364–1477), the Burgundian domain became the most powerful political entity in western Europe (fig.1) and the Burgundian court a centre of musical activity. The importance of the dukes of Burgundy as patrons of music was such that the entire era has come to be called ‘the Burgundian epoch’ and the composers of the period ‘the Burgundian school’. These designations do not mean that music or musicians native to Burgundy were important. The Burgundian court was a cosmopolitan centre, French in language and culture, and the music that emanated from it was international in style.

For music history, the term ‘Burgundy’ is geographically misleading. It is important to note that the ‘Burgundian era’ in music had almost nothing to do with either the Duchy of Burgundy (with its capital in Dijon and a major residence in Beaune) or with the adjoining County of Burgundy, also known as Franche Comté (with its capital in Besançon). Initially the dukes were mainly resident in Paris; and their culture was entirely French. But with the onset of political difficulties surrounding Duke John the Fearless the centre of activity moved to the richest acquisitions of Philip the Bold, namely Flanders and Artois; after about ...

The musical cultures of Central Asia have been shaped by a long process of interaction between speakers of Iranian and Turkic languages, and by a longer history of interaction between settled and nomadic peoples. The present article covers the three major geographic regions of what has been called the ‘Turco-Iranian world’: the vast plain (including steppe, desert-steppe and desert) that falls from the Altai, Tian Shan and Pamir Mountains westwards to the Urals and the Caspian Sea; the Iranian plateau, with the Hindu Kush on the east and the Zagros mountains to the west; and the plateau of Anatolia, ringed by the Pontus Mountains along the Black Sea and the Taurus along the Mediterranean. Politically, Central Asia may be said to comprise the republics of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Republic of, Tajikistan and the southern third of Kazakhstan; Afghanistan north of the Hindu Kush; northern Iran; Azerbaijan; and eastern Turkey.

The major Iranian languages are Persian, Kurdish, Pashto and Baluchi. Different dialects of Persian are spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan; more speakers of Tajik Persian live in Afghanistan and Uzbekistan than in Tajikistan. Small groups of Pamir peoples living on both sides of the Pyandzh river in southern Tajikistan, north-east Afghanistan and the adjacent area of Pakistan speak several different eastern Iranian languages (Yaghnobi, Wakhi, Munji, Yidgha etc.). Turkic languages are spoken in much of northern Iran and Afghanistan as well as in Turkey, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. Unlike the political boundaries, the principal ethnolinguistic divisions of Central Asia have remained relatively stable since the end of the 16th century....

A group of cities in North Carolina that includes Raleigh, the state capital (pop. 403,892; 2010 US Census), Durham (pop. 228,330; 2010 US Census), and Chapel Hill (pop. 49,919; 2010 US Census). The metropolitan area (pop. 1,742,816; 2010 US Census) is often referred to as the “Research Triangle” or “The Triangle,” owing to the presence of numerous businesses and industries in the area as well as many colleges and universities, notably the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Duke University in Durham, and North Carolina State University in Raleigh. Throughout its history, the Triangle region has fostered and supported a diverse array of vibrant musical communities performing in a variety of musical styles, including chamber and orchestral music, opera and choral groups and societies, gospel, jazz, folk, blues, rock, hip hop, bluegrass, and country. Touring regional and international performers attract large audiences at the RBC Center and the Time Warner Cable Music Pavilion at Walnut Creek in Raleigh, the Durham Performing Arts Center (DPAC), Memorial Hall in Chapel Hill, as well as numerous smaller halls, clubs, and bars throughout the area....

The fourth largest island in the Mediterranean with a population of 250,400 (1990 census), Corsica has suffered successive domination by foreign powers. From the 11th to the 18th century it was governed in turn by Pisa and Genoa. Excluding a brief interlude as the Anglo-Corsican Kingdom (1794–96), the island has belonged to France since 1768. The indigenous language, Corsican, is still spoken but given little official recognition. While external influences might be assumed, the isolation and inaccessibility of the mountainous interior, whose inhabitants have traditionally pursued a pastoral lifestyle, has favoured the preservation of numerous archaisms in musical structure, style, vocal technique and psycho-social dynamics.

19th- and early 20th-century song collections focus almost exclusively on texts, predominantly laments. Extensive collections of field recordings were made by Félix Quilici in 1948, 1949 and 1960–63; Wolfgang Laade in 1956, 1958 and 1973; and Markus Römer in 1974–5. These and other recordings are being reunited at the Phonothèque of the Musée de la Corse, Corte....

The largest and most populous of the Greek islands. Its traditional music (kritiki paradosiaki mousiki) constitutes one of the richest and most distinctive oral repertories in Greece, well differentiated from mainland and other island idioms, and well supported by a long-established music industry.

Historical references indicate that Cretan music comprises differing and endemic traditions with distinct instrumentation, dances, and repertory. The existence of a multicultural Cretan population up until the beginning of the 20th century also indicates the existence of many and perhaps substantially diverse—but inadequately documented—urban and rural musical traditions. The first solid references in the history of Cretan music are available through the introduction of commercial recordings in Crete and the diaspora in the first decades of the 20th century. These recordings registered internal differences of idiom across the island and they were followed by a gradual pan-Cretanization of the local repertory and performance style. Eventually, they favoured the development of professional standards for the performing and recording musicians....

(New York City)

A collection of Manhattan neighborhoods south of 14th Street, several of which—including Greenwich Village, SoHo, and the Lower East Side—have fostered musical movements in the post-war era. The terms “downtown music” and “music downtown” have been used to refer to different genres—including popular, jazz, avant-garde, and concert music, among others—but they also often indicate the ways such categories have become increasingly blurred since the 1970s.

Urban folk music, originating in Greenwich Village and featuring artists such as Bob Dylan and the Holy Modal Rounders, was the first distinctly Downtown musical movement of the post-war era. By the late 1960s young musicians and artists of all types were priced out of the Village and began moving east, creating new music and arts communities. During this period the counterculture in New York found its home in the tenements of the Lower East Side.

In the late 1960s and early 70s, the variability of Manhattan’s real estate market shifted the locus of the avant-garde to the manufacturing lofts of SoHo. Composers, including Carla Bley, Philip Glass, and Meredith Monk, held events in loft spaces and venues such as Phill Niblock’s Experimental Intermedia Foundation (established ...

East Asia will here be defined mainly as China, People’s Republic of (both the People's Republic and the Republic of China on Taiwan), Japan and Korea. This survey seeks to outline some general similarities and differences within this broad area, restricting itself for practical reasons to the majority cultures of each country. For more detailed discussions of these and the region’s minority cultures, see the relevant country article.

The dominant Han Chinese culture, which has influenced Japan, Korea and to a lesser extent other neighbours such as Vietnam, co-exists with substantial minority populations within Chinese borders. South-western groups have affinities with Thai-Burman tribal cultures, and the far west (Xinjiang) with Islamic Central Asia (see China, People’s Republic of, §IV, 5); to the north and west, Tibetan, Mongol and Manchu cultures are also distinct (see Inner Asia; Tibetan music; Mongol music); to the south, the Taiwanese aborigines constitute a distinct cultural group (...

The region of western Italy occupied by the ancient Etruscans; the name is a Roman one.

The Etruscans (Lat. Tusci, Etrusci; Gk. Turrhēnoi, Tursēnoi) were probably of east Mediterranean origin, migrating to north-west Italy in the 9th to 8th centuries bce. Modern research (Pallottino, Pfiffig etc.) suggests that they did not migrate as an ethnic unity but grew together gradually (from about the 10th century bce onwards) in central Italy from different indigenous and non-indigenous ethnic, linguistic and cultural elements as the ‘populi Etruriae’.

From the late 8th century until the 1st century bce they inhabited the fertile region of west-central Italy between the Arno and the Tiber bounded by the Tyrrhenian Sea and the Appennines, approximating to modern Tuscany. Their economy and culture were based on agriculture, fishing, hunting, metal-working in bronze, gold and iron, and trading by sea as far away as the coast of Asia Minor. They achieved their greatest territorial expansion in the ...