Recognizing music as a vital social and cultural force, each volume of this set of book on geographical areas of world music focuses on a single region and examines the role of music in the lives, arts and culture of its people. This volume describes the essential fabric of Europe and then explores the traditions, performance practices, and themes that bind the music together into a dynamic tapestry of art and daily life. The coverage provides an overview of the region, reviews its music heritage and scholarship, and describes specific musical cultures, genres, and traditions. The entire set...

This volume explores the originating encounter in field work of ethnomusicologists with the musicians and musical traditions they study. The 19 contributors provide case studies from nearly every corner of the world, including biographies of important musicians from the Philippines, Turkey, Lapland, and Korea.

Ethnomusicologists believe that all humans, not just those we call musicians, are musical, and that musicality is one of the essential touchstones of the human experience. This insight raises big questions about the nature of music and the nature of humankind, and ethnomusicologists argue that to properly address these questions, we must study music in all its geographical and historical diversity.
In this Very Short Introduction, one of the foremost ethnomusicologists, Timothy Rice, offers a compact and illuminating account of this growing discipline, showing how modern...