APHG: Musical Diffusion In 1951, a man by the name of Alan Freed created the idea of Rock and Roll. Rock and Roll derives from blue's quite a bit, but with a more aggressive lead to it. Alan Freed’s Rock and Roll music idea has spread all across the world and back since its creation. This is shown in a history of rock and roll article, which states that, “Rock-and-Roll (räk'n roll') n. first so used (1951) by Alan Freed, Cleveland disc jockey, taken from the song ‘My Baby Rocks Me with a Steady Roll’.” Rock and Roll had no delay in taking the world by storm, and making epic rock stars that we know today, like Elvis Presley. Rock and Roll was quickly on radio stations all around the globe, on every continent. The electronics that could contain Rock and Roll music is the main way that Rock and Roll spread. Vinyl, CDs, televisions, radio channels, and even cassette tapes were all things that helped spread Rock and Roll. A lot of western ideals were spreading everywhere with the introduction of Rock and Roll, and some places didn’t like that, mainly places like China, which started restricting American television, but even this couldn’t hold off the spread of Rock and Roll for long. The spread of Rock and Roll was also pretty contagious, a lot of people who encountered Rock and Roll were inspired to create it. A great example of this would be a European rock star, Led Zeppelin. Different forms of rock, like punk rock, were inspired by Rock and Roll as a new alteration of it. No specific places made major alterations on Rock and Roll, but every place probably had its own different take on it. Unluckily, not everyone accepted Rock and Roll, mainly those of religion, who believed it promoted sin, and is so called, “Devil’s music”. Rock and Roll definitely isn’t the only music form that has diffused around the world though. Back in 1989, Lo-fi wasn’t a genre, but something much like how it was present in London, called “chill-out” music. This music was quite rare in fact, it was nearly unique to one place in London, called the “Heaven Nightclub”. After a while though, in a small amount of time, it started spreading across the world under its new name of Lo-fi. It got the name “Lo-fi” from the quality of it, as shown in this article, which states, “The term ‘lo-fi’ was first commonly used in the 1950’s. It is short for ‘low-fidelity’, which means low quality.” This process started in around the 1990s, where it was recognized as a popular form of music, and started its rapid spread across the globe. Nothing really slowed the process of it’s spread, and nothing really wanted to, since it was a very nice and chill form of music. Modern media, like the internet, was the main way this spread, through apps like Spotify, Youtube, and other musical media sources. Nothing majorly slowed or prevented the spread of Lo-fi music, in fact, by the time it was already posted on the media, it had such a major boost in popularity in the 2000’s, that there was nothing that could be done about how fast it spread. The popularity of it was crazy, so of course there was an alteration of it at some point, this alteration was given the name, “Lo-fi hip hop”. This new alteration didn’t originate from anywhere specific, but even so, the concept of Lo-fi, and Lo-fi hip hop, was widely accepted by those who listened to it. Even so, there are older, more obscure forms of music that have been diffused, before media even existed Long ago, stories and songs were made with music, and different types of that music. However, in the 11th millennium BCE, shows some of the earliest references of traditional folk music of Japan. This spread across the world very slowly, the whole world soon knew about it when it came into the spotlight, but other than that it was overtaken by pop culture, fading into obscurity. After all, it was made tens of thousands of years ago. More recently, games based off of ancient asia, like hit titles “Ghost of Tsushima” and “Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice”. This traditional Japanese music style mainly consists of traditional Japanese instruments, like the Samisen, Koto, and various different types of wind instruments, mainly derived from old bone flutes in the beginning ages of human intelligence. This technically meant that it took multiple millennia to actually spread everywhere through the electronic media. Other than that, it has spread mainly through tradition, and spreading of the folk songs down generations. The age of the music made it very difficult for it to spread anywhere, but it still found a way through electronic media, even though it isn’t really “popular”, it is still a known genre, and is respected for its deep rooted cultural connection to ancient Japan. Ancient japan is well respected too, the age of the samurai were seen as some of the coolest parts of history to date. Unluckily, no help was given, for the spread of it wasn’t contagious, and didn’t have any sort of alteration in its style over the years. The only thing that could be considered an alteration is a newer type of it, using electronic elements with the old instruments creates a beautiful clarity. This specific “alteration” of sorts didn’t originate from anywhere specific. Even with all of these difficulties though, this music somehow spread all across the world, millenia after its creation. That shows that even the most obscure things can come into the light with effort, and that is exactly what traditional Japanese music did. Sources https://www.history-of-rock.com/ https://www.britannica.com/art/Japanese-music/Samisen-music https://www.musicorigins.org/the-origins-of-lo-fi/ https://www.rockmusictimeline.com/
