East and Southeast Asia

This season we dive deep into the music and cultures of East and Southeast Asia! For some songs we'll travel back in time, through into the area's ample past, while other tunes will rocket us right to the region today.    

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.

In class we explore East and Southeast Asia by taking a tour that starts in China and primarily works its way down the East Asian coast.