[aoeu]

Not directly related but Bob Brozman has some interesting thoughts on music -

"African-based music normally has as the fundamental meter: both 2 and 3 at the same time. This opens the door to syncopation, polyrhythms and musical creativity, which occurs on a more primal level in the brain than harmony. It is acknowledged that Europeans developed harmony further than any other culture; but rhythmically their culture is among the planet's most primitive."

"Put simply, marching (colonizing) cultures see the downbeat as something to follow, and the "marched-upon" (colonized) cultures see the downbeat as something to react to, using the backbeat."

http://www.bobbrozman.com/tip_rhythm.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7oPXRWRxda8

Additionally, the majority of western music is now performed in equal temperament which adds to the blandness. As hackers you may find the math of music interesting..

http://www.kylegann.com/microtonality.html

http://music.case.edu/duffin/

http://www.larips.com/

[jerf]

That entire article sounds like pop psychology bullshit. There are far more likely explanations which don't involve implicitly claiming that before Africans even knew Europe existed, they somehow just knew they were going to be oppressed and developed backbeat-based music as a result. (Get real. Maybe you can build all of African-American culture as a reaction to slavery, I still think that simplifies beyond usefulness but whatever, but African culture in general can't be based on that, it's temporally impossible.)

[aoeu]

Maybe the implication is the opposite - backbeat-based music has been lost over time in our countries. Perhaps to the expense of gaining harmonic complexity. Perhaps due to the rise of marching music? Just thinking aloud.

In any case, I think it's an interesting observation from his travels.

[jerf]

Yes, that at least gets the temporal ordering correct, and I agree the observation is interesting. I just object to the pop psych additions. I find it more likely that local materials lent themselves to drums, and since they had drums, drums are what they developed.

Many European instruments, especially in the era when European music as we know it today really started to take off (Bach's time), require significant technological advances to create. Not all of them, necessarily, but a harpsichord is not a trivial instrument. Having harmony, they developed harmony.

It is worth pointing out that both have spread the world over (with changes as they go, as cultural artifacts should travel), which I think further knocks out the "oppression" aspect. Plenty of non-oppressed people love a beat.

[aoeu]

Good points, thanks. The other issue is more interesting to me, the proliferation of equal temperament, which seems to be finding it's way into classical music also. Hopefully I'll have some info up on the web at some point once I've finished refretting my guitars.

[catz]

That is true. At least drum music was developed before colonisation took place. The style of music is probably influenced a lot by the instruments.

There is some evidence that these drums were used for communication.