(Part 2) Reddit mentions: The best ethnic & international music books

Look, I'm not trying to insult you or push you away. I apologize for upsetting you, and I have no problem with you. It's good that you're composing and the composition is mostly fine, apart from some occasional odd note choices, wide spacing, unbalanced voicings and the fact that the double stops are unplayable. It's still better than anything I was writing in high school. The important thing is that the melody is serviceable.

The issue is that you're calling this something that it's not, and anyone with a stake in this stuff is going to call you out on it. You can circumvent some of the doubtfulness of the title by calling it "Irish Quartet," because it's still a quartet even if it's not a proper "string quartet." The "Irish" part, you'll have to be careful with because now you're dealing with people's nationality and ethnicity. If it's your own nationality/ethnicity, you should still make the effort to familiarize yourself with the style you're drawing from and decide whether you want to take it upon yourself to be a representative of that identity. Ireland has a long colonial history starting with the Norman invasion of Ireland in the 12th century, though the English invasion in 1536 is perhaps the one with deeper cultural ramifications for this conversation. European appropriation of Irish music and suppression of indigenous Irish culture is part of that history. European publishers would do things like make piano arrangements of Irish folk tunes, editing the melodies to match the harmonies (which they added – chordal harmony was not there before). The Irish people largely received no benefit from their exploitation. I'm not saying you're duty-bound to produce faithful folkloristic music, but make an effort to understand the historical currents going in if you do projects like this. I absolutely support you getting in touch with your roots, just try to be aware of the history and stakes.

Some books:

Ríonach uí Ógáin - Going to the Well for Water: The Séamus Ennis Field Diary 1942-1946

Barry Foy - Field Guide to the Irish Music Session

Gearóid Ó hAllmhuráin - O'Brien Pocket History of Irish Traditional Music

Nicholas Carolan - A Harvest Saved

Kevin Burke has a few lessons on Irish fiddle on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AMesSTGSd8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zj3HdqHEsgI

Here's a set of jigs from Kevin Burke's 1984 album, Up Close. And here's something a little more unusual. Seamus O'Donnell on saxophone (!), John Carty on banjo, Brian McGrath on piano, and Jim Murray on guitar, playing a set of reels.

Birds often don't sing clean notes, and you shouldn't think of birdsong as tonal in the way we do with music, but a fair number of people think that we may have derived what we think of as notes from them. If you record a large enough set of samples, you will find that many of our notes line up with theirs, and mimicking birds is almost certainly as old as music itself. This is especially true of the pentatonic scale.

My instructor started me out on "Folksongs and Ballads Popular in Ireland" for exactly that purpose. There are four volumes and I bought the first two: https://www.amazon.com/Folksongs-Ballads-Popular-Ireland-Vol/dp/0946005001 They've been useful to me.

Additionally, there's an app I found on iTunes store you might find helpful as you learn notes on the mando fretboard: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/fret-trainer-learn-fretboard/id1279576225?mt=8

Finally, just remember lines: E-G-B-D-F, spaces F-A-C-E.

Sukiyaki isn't the real name of this song. It was called Ue o Muite Arukou which means something in the effects of Looking UP When I Walk. It was given the name Sukiyaki to appeal to Westerners more.

It should also be noted that this happened in the early 1960s. Why not before? Of course, we can point a finger to the anti-Japanese sentiments of the 1940s. You could also point a finger to the fact that until 1952, Asians had been banned from immigrating to the US. However, it wasn't until 1960 that JAL (Japanese Airlines) finally announced a route connecting Japan to the US. Before that, travelers had to come by boat. With the advent of the jetliner, Japanese musicians could startcoming to the US - Hawaii and California mostly - to play to Japanese populations there.

If anyone's interested, this is a pretty good read on the topic although it's a little dry.

Not every culture relies solely on "western medicine" and some of it is fairly effective at healing.

Check out http://www.amazon.com/Healing-Sounds-Malaysian-Rainforest-Comparative/dp/0520082818 for a really interesting look at an alternative medicine system involving song and dance.

I'd recommend Pops by Terry Teachout.

Also, Subversive Sounds, while not an biography per se, talks a good deal about Armstrong while contextualizing the careers of early jazz musicians within the social atmosphere of early 20th century New Orleans.

It's largely a result of the Soviet era and their ass backwards policies regarding music and culture. It's true that after Stalin died in 1953 there was a partial thaw of a lot of the extraordinarily conservative policies that stifled composers like Shostakovich and Prokofiev, but a lot of the fear of branching out remained. Not many people realize that in the twenties there was actually a pretty solid amount of experimentalism as folks were trying to get the hang of what the cultural climate would be, and Stalin's policies didn't take place until the thirties. If you can find it at a nearby university or something, I highly recommend The Music of the Repressed Russian Avant-Grade, 1900-1929 as a good starting place.

Basically, they're still working on bouncing back from super-conservative policies.

you need lessons for both.

In the mean time, start with this for walking jazz lines, and this for latin lines and styles.

As stated, this takes a lot of time and practice. I have been playing jazz bass since I started 6 years ago, and I consider myself an average jazz bassist. The only reason I'm even that good is because I studied jazz trombone all through high school and college before that.

As far as I understand it, studies have shown that children who have learned "tonal" languages, have a better chance of reproducing or recognizing pitch when they receive music training. A book I read by a "music psychologist" says that some part of your brain deciphers all of this at a huge degree when you are young but is never lost! I think it was this book. I got it from the library.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.amazon.com/Why-You-Love-Music-Metallica-ebook/dp/B0169ATKWI&ved=2ahUKEwj3_vOL9PneAhWMCHwKHTFoDI4QFjAAegQIBBAB&usg=AOvVaw26nzbuAcMFlh49mpFUeydO

They're certainly not all the same, not sure what that would mean. There's overlap in books that cover the same fundamental rudiments, sure, but that's the tiniest tip of the iceberg anyway (and even so, there is a lot to be said for differing pedagogical approaches).

How could this be at all the same as this, for example? Or this and this?

Folk music:

This music is not based on chord progressions and such type of accompaniment was introduced like last century in arrangements. If anything, they used drones for tonic and dominant pitches and that's it.

Get a book with folklore songs and learn some music.

(Stravinsky used such anthology sourcing the melodies in some of his works, despite denying this, but musicologists later found all of his sources, wow.)

After you learn enough songs, you will start spotting common melodic motives and motions.

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https://www.amazon.com/Russian-Song-Book-Dover-Collections/dp/0486261182/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=russian+folk+songs&qid=1565505024&s=books&sr=1-1

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https://www.amazon.com/Russian-Folk-Songs-Musical-History-ebook/dp/B00FF9PWTK/ref=sr_1_4?keywords=russian+folk+songs&qid=1565505024&s=books&sr=1-4

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Art music: anything goes, copy the style of some Russian composer you like...

https://www.amazon.com/Music-Songwriting-Journal-Manuscript-Songwriters/dp/1544895429/ref=zg_bs_10095049011_12/145-6101800-8377662?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=NQ848T1FKC58VCJ798RC

Something like this?

I'd recommend Diccionario de la Música Cubana by Helio Orovio (translated as Cuban Music From A to Z). Orovio was a Cuban musicologist, considered by many Cuban musicians the most knowledgeable person on the subject.

Edit: Found it @ amazon

I'll second Adorno. I haven't read it, but this looks to be the definitive collection of his work on music theory: https://www.amazon.com/Essays-Music-Theodor-Adorno/dp/0520231597

Just be careful about what he has to say on jazz.

This book taught me everything I know: http://www.amazon.com/MIDI-For-Musicians-Craig-Anderton/dp/0825610508

http://www.amazon.com/The-Dresden-Dolls-Companion/dp/157560888X

I got the Dresden Dolls Companion: http://www.amazon.com/The-Dresden-Dolls-Companion/dp/157560888X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1342843460&sr=8-1&keywords=dresden+dolls+companion

There's one I know of:

The Local Scenes and Global Culture of Psytrance: Edited by Grahan St John

2010 Taylor & Francis

Routledge Studies in Ethomusicology