Warren wrote:
X-rated Bob wrote:
An early influx of "non-european" influences, both in terms of music and instrumentation, would have come in the 8th century with the invasion of the Iberian peninsula by the Moors. Some musicologists hold that just about all modern string instruments derive from the Ud and the Gimbri.
So...
...all music is basically brown?
I can't say. I've only read superficially on the matter. The Moors didn't make it up to Scandinavia. Did the Roman Empire get up there?
The bag pipes seem to be middle eastern in origin, and they made it all the way up to Scotland.
Instruments and music may have travelled independently of each other. If you think of the names of the modes, the Greeks came up with that system because although everybody had the same 12-tone system that the Greeks devised, people in different areas played with different selections and sequences from those 12 tones. So the Phrygians played like THIS and the Ionians played like THIS etc etc
There is though little doubt about the Moorish influence on Spanish and Portuguese music.
There were huge movements of people in the ancient world, and those people would have taken their culture, including their instruments and their music, with them wherever they went.
A lot of people think of rhubarb as being a very English thing, but in fact it came from China with the Mongols. An illustration of how things got around in those days.
The banjo is perceived as an American instrument, but it almost certainly evolved from traditional instruments that slaves bought from West Africa.
Things get around.
