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What types of music do other parts of the world outside Europe and North America have that's comparable to classical music?

I once found a list of the top 200 classical composers along with their nationality, and noticed that every one of them is European except a dozen or so from the last couple of hundred years who were from the USA, and a couple of Canadians. None at all from Japan, China, India, Australia, Africa, Latin America or the Middle East, and chances are those from North America were of European descent.

This led me to conclude that classical music is a Eurpoean genre, but it left me wondering, what do these other cultures and regions of the world have that is comparable to classical music, that represents the same niche in their cultural history?

3 Answers

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  • ?
    Lv 7
    5 years ago
    Favorite Answer

    What you have discovered for yourself is a basic fact: The music that Europeans and most North Americans call 'classical' is music that developed in Europe and came to North America within a certain time frame. But similar things are true in other parts of the world and at different times in history as well. It's just that the term 'classical music' is mostly associated with European art music.

    Much of the rest of the world including the nations of South America, Africa, and 'The Orient' also have marvelous musical forms. Many of these rival anything the European tradition has to offer. In particular I'd recommend searching out and studying the Chinese traditional opera for a beginning point in the journey. Keep your mind open to all the world's possibilities. You will hear the voice of humanity expressed in countless ways.

  • bka
    Lv 7
    5 years ago

    Right, there are several different definitions for classical music.. And you are using the one for western European common practice art music.

    There is a stricter definition that limits it to only the music from the mid 1700s to the mid 1800s, Mozart and Haydn era. Under this definition Bach is baroque and tchaikovsky is romantic.

    But there is also a wider definition which categorizes 3 main divisions for everything: pop, folk, classical

    Under this definition, the classical forms from every culture are included. Chinese opera, Persian classical, carnatic (south india), hindustani (north india)...etc

    So you didn't find that because you weren't specifically looking for it, and when marketing to an English speaking audience, "classical music" gets the default European definition so you have to specify if you want something else.

    But western classical tradition is found in more countries than you listed. It was written in south America as early as the baroque, and there are Japanese and Chinese composers from the mid 20th century.

    Still if you research those other classical styles, dont have an assumption that you will find exactly the same thing. Many of them use far more improvisation, so the european concept of the "composer" may not be as present as you expect. Teachers/masters/theorists may fill that respected space.

  • 5 years ago

    There have been (and still are) composers in nearly every country of the world who compose western-style classical music. If you look up composers from South America, Asia (especially including Japan), Africa and Australasia, you will find that we Europeans/North Americans are not alone.

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