Just a semi-empty placeholder for now. The kind of mixing I have in mind is the one that has been happening since antiquity: musical styles/phrases/rhythms/instruments meeting and mixing along cultural boundaries or in areas of co-habitation, or individuals/groups traveling over long distances, leaving drops of their ink in the waters they pass, bringing some of those waters back home.

This is, of course, not specific to music. Languages, stories, legends, religions, dances, games, techniques, all meet, mix, mingle and hybridize, sometimes dissolving in each other, sometimes keeping their separate essences. The game of tracing the origins always has a strange appeal. (Why?)

With our newly found channels of communication, it all became much more confusing. I don’t intend to consider the more recent kinds of mixing based on modern telecommunications (and transportation) here. Maybe a separate node on that (and diffusion/mixing on networks in general), sometime.

Just a few preliminary links:

• A very distinctive style of music found along the Black Sea region of Turkey has a counterpart in Romania: The Geamparale(le?) I got mental goosebumps when I first heard an example of this, and realized that it is found on the Black Sea coast of Romania. A few examples (for those of you who are familiar with the Turkish version):

A few items from Robert Garfias:

• Survivals of Turkish characteristics in Romanian Musica Lauteraesca.
• A wonderful course: Music and Human Migration. (Has a  syllabus and music samples.)
• on the history of the guitar and its derivatives in Latin American music. (I’ve watched this with the hope of learning about the history of the charango. Unfortunately, he mentions it only once.)

More to come, hopefully.