From the sound up: Building World music ensembles in public places

A portion of this book is a narrative about the World Music Ensemble Program at the Florida State University from 1973 to 2008, the time period of my employment at FSU. While admittedly this narrative history is somewhat of a memoir, my major goal with this book is to provide philosophical bases and even practical instructional strategies for creating world music ensembles in public places where such participatory musical groups can be educational and constructive vehicles for creating cross-cultural communication, good will, understanding, community well-being, healing, and, perhaps, world peace. Not limited to institutions of higher learning, the instructional strategies presented in this book can apply to other public places, such as public and private primary and secondary schools, after-school programs, churches, community or junior colleges, community recreation and learning centers, autism and mental health centers, detention centers, public libraries, retirement homes and rehabilitation facilities, and other organizations interested in learning about diversity through musical participation in world music ensembles. Why are world music ensembles important? What are their roles in education and elsewhere? Who teaches them? Who funds them? Who performs in them? How can they be developed, supported, and assured of success? This book, From the Sound Up: Building World Music Ensembles in Public Places, seeks to answer these and other questions. What I call the "world music ensemble concept" is built on the premise that we all have the capability to play musics from cultures other than that (or those) we have been born into. To seriously learn to play musics from different cultures by participating in world music ensembles, regardless of how accomplished one becomes as a performer, will help to create cross-cultural understanding. At every moment of the day, as our world becomes more and more complex, cross-cultural understanding becomes more vital to our very existence. The world's survival, in fact, depends on such cross-cultural awareness, sensitivity, and acceptance.