WO on Music Theory Print

Wolof music

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Griot tradition#

Wolof musicians were traditionally drawn from the griots (géwél), or of the blacksmith caste (tëgg), who were masters of drumming. Griots taught history, ethics and religion using their songs and recitations, and were employed by powerful members of the community as praise-singers and historians. Today many modern Wolof musicians still come from Griot families. After the 19th century conversion of major Wolof kingdoms to Islam, the tagg, or ode song in Wolof, was reused in an Islamic Nasheed tradition—an important integration of pre-Islamic style into the new Muslim paradigm.

Women's music

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Roots#

At the beginning of the 1970s, as second-wave feminism began, feminists did not fight for lesbians. While the Stonewall riots in 1969 became the cradle of the gay liberation movement, political feminists felt the danger of their past efforts and that their activities may be negatively labeled. They were often hostile to lesbians. Further fragmentation between straight women and lesbians during the era was caused by the National Organization for Women (NOW)’s rejection of lesbians. The first NOW president Betty Friedan labeled lesbians as the “lavender menace.” A series of movements against the gay and lesbian communities began, with the central figures labeling gay liberation as counterrevolutionary and bourgeois. The rejection of lesbians led many politically-concerned women to join lesbian feminist collectives, and it sometimes led to lesbian separatism. Women’s music bands, such as Deadly Nightshade and the Chicago and New Haven Women’s Liberation bands, were initially capturing the feminists’ central point. They broadcast feminists’ positions but did not highlight lesbians’ points of view.

Wong shadow

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Wonky (genre)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

Wonky initially emerged in 2006 as a colorful, exuberant style drawing on hip hop, synth-funk, glitchy electronica, and more eclectic influences, in contrast with the austere sound of the UK’s ongoing dubstep and grime scenes. Other influences included American hip hop producers J Dilla and Madlib, with some artists drawing more explicitly on an instrumental hip-hop sound rather than dubstep. The term “wonky” has been rejected by various artists associated with the style.

Wonky pop

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Definitions#

“Wonky” is a British English word meaning “unsteady, shaky, awry, or wrong.” The BBC reported that the term “wonky pop” was both coined by and is owned by Mika’s manager, while The Independent reported the term was coined by Peter Robinson, founder of the blog Popjustice. The BBC describes a UK wonky-pop club night as involving “cutting-edge pop, dance, hip hop and everything in between”; club organiser René Symonds states that “the iPod shuffle generation will not be limited to one genre and wants a return to authenticity after years of manufactured pop”. The wonky pop website sets out a manifesto that states, “We want to show the world that pop is not a four letter word, and for every flaky reality TV winner there’s a myriad of cool, credible and weird acts.”

Work song

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Definitions and categories#

Records of work songs are as old as historical records, and anthropological evidence suggests that most agrarian societies tend to have them. Norm Cohen divided collected work songs into the following categories: domestic, agricultural or pastoral, sea shanties, African-American work songs, songs and chants of direction, and street cries. Ted Gioia built on these categories by dividing agricultural and pastoral songs into subsections: hunting, cultivation and herding songs. Gioia also highlighted the industrial or proto-industrial songs of cloth workers (see Waulking song), factory workers, seamen, longshoremen, mechanics, plumbers, electricians, lumberjacks, cowboys and miners. He also added prisoner songs and modern work songs.

World music

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Lexicology#

The term “world music” has been credited to ethnomusicologist Robert E. Brown, who coined it in the early 1960s at Wesleyan University in Connecticut, where he developed undergraduate through doctoral programs in the discipline. To enhance the learning process (John Hill), he invited more than a dozen visiting performers from Africa and Asia and began a world music concert series. The term became current in the 1980s as a marketing/classificatory device in the media and the music industry.

Worldbeat

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Definition#

Worldbeat is akin to world fusion and global fusion, each of which primarily manifest as a blend of non-Western music tradition and Western, popular music. These particular music genres can also reflect in a cross-blend of more than one “traditional” flavor, producing innovative, hybrid expressions of world music. As with most “world”-laden genre categories, worldbeat is not clearly defined as are the many classic world music subgenres, such as gamelan, or calypso. In general, the expanding family of ethnic music subgenres under the world music umbrella represents an intrinsically nebulous terminology, which depending on how one interprets a particular hybrid of world music, can be interchangeable to a significant degree. Worldbeat defines a hybrid of what can be listed under the generalized world music term, even though it features a prominent interbreeding with elements of Western, pop music. As an ethnically coloured genre, worldbeat is a part of the world music movement that is steadily influencing popular music in every corner of the globe. This is partially due to the advance of digital music production and the availability of high-quality ethnic music samples to artists and producers in the recording arts. The globalization of texture and style between indigenous and modern music genres has rapidly expanded the scope of 21st century, popular music, and continues to reshape how the world defines the increasing number of genres conceived with world music elements.

WO on Music Theory Print

Wolof music

Griot tradition#

Women's music

Roots#

Wong shadow

See also#

Wonky (genre)

History#

Wonky pop

Definitions#

Work song

Definitions and categories#

World music

Lexicology#

Worldbeat

Definition#