Robert P. Taylor's: Bahrain: Reflections on Globalizaton and Arab Higher Education

Musicians and audiences reflect globalization

Above are the drawings I made of: (1) four musicians (one is depicted twice) playing, and (2) two individuals listening to music.

Though three were performing traditional Arab music, a singer among them used a mike, a piece of 20th Century technology which globalization has made ubiquitous. These three were performing in the ancient city, in a room preserved for this purpose under a government program to support the performing of traditional music. Following tradition, all musicians and listeners sat on the floor, against the wall, facing each other. The fourth musician, drawn at the Holiday Inn, was performing typical music for such a venue, in a style common around the world in such hotel restaurants. The technology enabled him to perform alone, simulating other players by means of the digitized set-up he used. Part of the fulfillment in making music is the communal experience involved in making it. Today, though, the economic pressure to use just one person and to have that one "perform" as several by using technology to simulate other musicians, is a global tendency in our time.

The two listening to music through earphones are typical of millions today. They were global in their use of that technology, in being enroute by air as they listened, and in the fact that the music being listened to was doubtless a variety accessible across the world through recordings of various sorts.

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