10:30 am: Today we had a special treat in class when the students from the Fusion Arts Exchange program came in to tell us about their experiences learning about American music and improvising with one another. What I found extremely intriguing was the idea that America is NOT without culture. We hear that so much just because the mainstream has helped to drown out the real cultural centers, but the fusion of different traditional musics that has occured in the States is tremendous. They got to go to some of those cultural centers in NYC and see jazz musicians and sing spirituals in a gospel church setting. It was also interesting to learn about how some of their cultures are not as strongly represented with traditional music as we might think. I was shocked to learn that none of the Irish students was trained in traditional Celtic music and they had event mentioned that they never really encounter it that often. Or to hear that an Indian student was learning their classical music (which is based in tradition), but that he also was psyched to go to a Steely Dan concert while here in the States. I guess globalization is really having an impact on music- good or bad, I am not sure. It may be the same thing that occured centuries and centuries ago, and we’re just continuing the trend.
