The Globalization of Music in History

This book contextualizes a globalization process that has since ancient times involved the creation, use, and world-wide movement of song, instrumental music, musical drama, music with dance, concert, secular, popular and religious music. Integral to the process have been political, economic, military, and religious forces that motivated or compelled performers to travel, often far beyond the borders of their homelands, to practice their art and craft. That this music was often a traveling companion to non-musical movements—military campaigns, religious missions, political events –does not make the distance it traveled, nor its cultural and social impact, less remarkable.

The Globalization of Music in History contributes to a growing awareness of the power of music to give insight into those things that all cultures and civilizations hold in common, and that promote and nurture mankind’s most noble virtues. The book adds a philosophical perspective to ongoing work in ethnomusicology, musicology, music therapy, and what may be an evolving global music. It attributes this evolution to the motivation by musicians to travel and to spread music around the globe, and even into outer space. It also provides connectivity between the people, activities and events in which music is used and the means by which it moves from one place to another.

Richard D. Wetzel is Professor of Music History and Literature and Chair of Graduate Studies in the School of Music of Ohio University. He holds a Ph.D. in Musicology from the University of Pittsburgh where he studied under Denes Bartha, Theodore Finney and Robert Snow. Wetzel also studied with Roland Leich, Nicolai Lopatnikoff and Robert Newell (composition) and Joseph Esposito (piano), and holds active memberships in ASCAP, The American Musicological Society; The Society for American Music.