OK, the first week we did contemporary marching band music from Romania, then Evan wrote about weird electronica by Russians (some of them in Russia!)… Then Stravinsky’s RITE OF SPRING. And Hope Hale wrote about the tune, Серёжа Местный - Дети. Oh, and Led Zeppelin and the theremin.
I sat down to write about Georgian music, but got distracted by YouTube’s suggestions.
O.M.G.! It’s Turkish music! [Not exactly… He’s singing in Azeri, which is pretty much the same language as Turkish. Azeris consider Turks to be “brothers,” though Turkey is overwhelmingly Sunni and Azeris are overwhelmingly Shiite… It’s complicated…What’s true is that the areas now known as Azeribaidzhan and the state now known as Turkey were, until around 1917, part of the Ottoman Empire.]
Ah, Turkey.
Remember that “our region” was long dominated by non-European powers, like the Persians (Sassanid Empire) and the empire that took over that empire, the Ottomans (the Ottoman Empire). Remember that the Turks are descendants (it’s complicated) of the Mongol tribes that originated in what’s called Mongolia today in the 13th century. So, you could think broadly in terms of empires replacing empires: Mongols, Sassanids, Ottomans, Russians, Soviets…. I’ll let you complete the list.
Anyway, my point is something like: Trying to draw define music as “Turkish” is… a fool’s game. (Pretty sure this guy is playing Sufi prayer music, but I’m too lazy to investigate.)
Music in so much of “Europe” and “what used to be called the Soviet Union” is… distinctly not Western, whatever that it. (I challenge anyone to define Western music in terms of modes. Satie! I win. 👏 )
This observation about how music owes so much to tradition… The area that Armenians would probably identify as “the real Armenia” lies mostly in what we call now Turkey, more specifically in Anatolia (around Kars). (The nation state we now call Armenia isn’t in a place where most Armenians would identify as distinctly Armenian.) And I think basically all of Armenia was part of the Sassanid Empire, and Persian influence is still very strong in Armenia.
A lot of what is now in Georgia used to be part of the Ottoman Empire (the bottom third) and before that, the Eastern half of Georgia lay within the Sassanid (Persian) Empire.
They’re independent countries now, but we only need to page back a little in our history book, and they weren’t.
This non-European heritage has left clear traces on musical traditions of, say, Serbia, Georgia, Armenia, Ukraine, Russia, etc… Places that we now think of as European.
Music has always been global.
Anyway, back to the music.