MUS 1080: Global Music: Home

"We are dedicated to supporting cultural diversity and increased understanding among peoples through the documentation, preservation, and dissemination of sound. We believe that musical and cultural diversity contributes to the vitality and quality of life throughout the world. Through the dissemination of audio recordings and educational materials we seek to strengthen people's engagement with their own cultural heritage and to enhance their awareness and appreciation of the cultural heritage of others. Smithsonian Folkways is part of the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage."

"It uses a classification scheme based on geography and history (region, division, subregion, area/people, and culture) to make navigation easier and to support a broad view of culture, artistic expression, and the interconnectedness of peoples in the human family...The songs have also been analyzed and coded for musical traits, so they can be compared and grouped together in various ways...The Global Jukebox explores connections between families of expressive style. One can travel the world of song, dance and language through the Wheel Chart and the Map. Thousands of examples of the world’s music, dance and other expressive behavior are available here. The Global Jukebox is presented as a free, non-commercial, educational place for everybody — students, educators, scholars, scientists, musicians, dancers, linguists, artists and music fans can all explore expressive patterns in their own cultural-geographic and diasporic settings and alongside others’. By inviting familiarity with many kinds of vocalizing, musicking, moving, and talking, we hope to reconnect people and communities with their creative heritage and to advance cultural equity."