About Music Around the World
Every known human society makes music, but ideas about scale, rhythm, tuning, notation, and the purpose of performance vary widely. Instruments and styles have always traveled, and recording and the internet have accelerated the mixing of traditions.
Africa
Layered rhythm, call and response, and drums, harps, and the mbira.
Learn MoreEast Asia
Refined solo traditions, court ensembles, and distinctive tunings.
Learn MoreSouth Asia
Raga and tala: melodic modes and cyclic rhythm.
Learn MoreThe Middle East and North Africa
Modal systems, ornament, and the oud, ney, and frame drums.
Learn MoreEurope
Notation, harmony, the orchestra, and deep folk traditions.
Learn MoreThe Americas
Indigenous music and the blending of African, European, and Native forms.
Learn MoreOceania and the Pacific
Chant, body percussion, slit drums, and the didgeridoo.
Learn MoreDiaspora and Fusion
Migration, recording, and the global circulation of styles.
Learn MoreAfrica
Music across Africa often features interlocking rhythms played by several performers, call-and-response singing, and close ties to dance and ceremony. Instruments include a wide range of drums, the kora and other harps, xylophones, and the lamellophone known as mbira or kalimba.
East Asia
China, Korea, and Japan developed court and chamber traditions built around instruments such as the guqin, guzheng, pipa, gayageum, koto, and shakuhachi, with aesthetics that value timbre, silence, and subtle pitch bending as much as melody.
South Asia
Indian classical music, in its Hindustani and Carnatic branches, organizes melody around ragas and rhythm around talas, with extensive improvisation. Core instruments include the sitar, sarod, tabla, veena, mridangam, and the drone of the tanpura.
The Middle East and North Africa
Arabic, Persian, Turkish, and Andalusian traditions share modal systems, called maqam or dastgah, that include intervals smaller than the Western semitone. The oud, ney, qanun, and various frame drums are central, and vocal ornament is highly developed.
Europe
European art music developed staff notation, functional harmony, and the standardized symphony orchestra, alongside a wealth of regional folk music with its own instruments, dances, and singing styles that later fed into popular music.
The Americas
Indigenous American music uses flutes, drums, rattles, and voice in ceremony and social life. After colonization, contact between African, European, and Indigenous practices produced blues, jazz, samba, son, tango, and many other styles now heard worldwide.
Oceania and the Pacific
Pacific music often centers on group singing and chant tied to genealogy and storytelling, with body percussion, log and slit drums, nose flutes, and, in Aboriginal Australia, the didgeridoo. Harmony singing spread widely through mission contact.
Diaspora and Fusion
Migration and the recording industry carried styles far from their origins, producing reggae, hip-hop, Afrobeats, K-pop, and countless hybrids. Musicians now routinely combine instruments, scales, and production techniques from several traditions.