This week in our online class we started a new adventure — a three month, no holds barred tour of the many musics of East and Southeast Asia. Learning about Asia through music will be such a good time…HAI!
With the exception of some stunning forms like Japanese taiko, Chinese “thunder” drumming, and Korean pungmul gut, driving drum beats are not at the heart of East and Southeast Asian traditional music….Instead, most ancient East and Southeast Asian music, such as Japanese gagaku, Thai piphat and Indonesian gamelan, developed over hundreds if not thousands of years, primarily in the courts of powerful dynastic emperors, and rely primarily on gongs, cymbals, shakers and other kinds of light, mesmerizing percussion to accent the xylophones, strings and wind instruments that provide their melodies.
Let’s make it happen.
