17 - On the history of the musical arts in Southeast Asia

Summary

This chapter provides an overview of Southeast Asia's music history and examines some of the main themes in the historical discourse, including historical aspects of publications on the music cultures of the region. It focuses on a few of the sources, focusing mainly on the most-studied music cultures in Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, and the Philippines. A number of sources show that between the first and the tenth centuries CE, many parts of Southeast Asia experienced commercial, artistic, architectural, and religious contact with India and China, which substantially influenced the musical arts. Muslim proselytization, partly through the musical arts, continued to spread in the Netherlands East Indies (NEI), Malaysia, and the southern Philippines. Over the past half millennium, Southeast Asia's musical expressions have been closely related to its economic and political history, experience of colonialism, achievement of independence, grappling with modernization, and gradual entry into the global market economy.