[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.