resistorman wrote: ↑Tue Aug 03, 2021 3:36 pm
I've been thinking about this for awhile, and it seems to me that what's missing is cultural isolation. New forms of music come about when musicians of different cultures meet, dig what the other is doing and combine it with their own. The 20th century is full of examples, particularly the final fusion of the great tectonic plates of European and African musical traditions, which seems to be complete.
An example comes from my own experience. Living in a small town in Pennsylvania, I was never exposed to the Blues, so when I heard Led Zeppelin and Cream I thought that it was cool new English music, not even knowing it was based on music from my own country, that the roots of Rock and Roll are the Blues. That's some serious cultural isolation. Even though there were a lot of recordings of the Black Blues pioneers, I just didn't hear them because of the deep racism in my country.
Most people on the planet are exposed to the same music now, so there are few isolated pockets for new language to develop, if you will. There are plenty of accents, just like English around the world, but nothing genuinely new.
I think that’s very true. But there’s a more positive aspect to the situation in that musicians now have instant access to music of every culture and era - millions of tracks. So it’s possible to select ideas from an absolutely vast palette.