Non-Western Music Quotes

I don't purchase records. I do enjoy listening to things like Japanese folk music or Indian music.

I'm a big fan of cultural music, and that's how I try to expand my playing, by listening to music that is not conventionally American.

I decided that I wanted to explore all kinds of music with my cello, not just the Western classical tradition. I just wanted to try and expand my vocabulary and bring that different kind of music to my audience.

Western ears have a hard time hearing anything that isn't in four-four time. A lot of cultures experience music in five-eight, for example, five-four.

Music that is considered minimalism - or post-minimalism music in general - things of that nature or that come from that tradition, or even drone, or non-western music, have a more subtle and more open-ended verticality to them that allows for your own mind and body to be involved.

It's great to see Latino music coming to the mainstream, but at the same time, there are also a lot more styles to explore: African music, Indian music, Chinese music.

World music can be sometimes like the lumber room in which all the non-English singers are dumped. When you are singing in Arabic, no matter what your style of music or artistic proposition is, you are faced with some of that reality.

The art music of the West has developed through out its history by means of individual geniuses, and out of the soil supporting them; non-Western musicians were born, and grew like the grasses of the field.

Western music is alien to my ears.