Henry Cowell commented that, as a child growing up in San Francisco, he heard Chinese opera far more than he heard European classical music. Cowell was the first to insist that Asian and African music are every bit as much a part of the American heritage as European music.

Asian and African music offered many properties that threw the limitations of European music into sharp relief. African drumming revealed a wealth of rhythmic complexity that went far beyond simple meters based on 2, 3, 4, and 6. Indian music exposed composers like Lou Harrison and Ben Johnston to subtleties of tuning that Europe had avoided for centuries. For many, many composers from Colin McPhee on, Balinese and Javanese music opened up a world of nested melodic structures and new ways to compose music as highly detailed and yet static and unmoving, as opposed to the more linear and narrative forms of Europe.

For many American composers, the musics of Bali, Japan, China, and India came as revelations, helping them move away from European aesthetics. Slowly, this Asian influence crept through American music, discrediting European music's insistence on relentless forward motion, and establishing the idea that music could very profitably spin in one place, pointing the way toward minimalism.

Colin McPhee
Claude Debussy
Lou Harrison
John Cage
The Beatles
Henry Cowell
Steve Reich
Charles Seeger

Music heard in the radio show:

Balinese gamelan ("Bopong"/Lyrichord LYRCD 7408)

COLIN MCPHEE: "Tabuh-Tabuhan," 3rd movement (Esprit Orchestra/Pauk/CBC Records SMCD51810

Japanese ethnic music ("Honshirabe"/Kohachiro Miyata/Nonesuch 9 l72076-2)
African ethnic music ("Akiwowo"/Olatunji/Rykodisc RCD 10107)

STEVE REICH: "Six Marimbas" (Nonesuch 79451-2)
Balinese gamelan ("Penyelah Gelar Keramas"/Lyrichord LYRCD 7408)

Chinese ethnic music ("P'ing sha lo yen"/Professor Liang Tsai-Ping and his Group/Lyrichord LYRCD 792)
Italian folk music ("Mattinata"/Laserlight 15 209)

HENRY COWELL: "Persian Set" (Manhattan Chamber Orchestra/Clark/Koch 3-7220-2 HI)

HARRY PARTCH: "Delusion of the Fury" (Innova 406)

LOU HARRISON: "The Perilous Chapel" (The San Francisco Contemporary Music Players/New Albion NA 055 CD)

LOU HARRISON: "Varied Trio" (Abel-Steinberg-Winant Trio/New Albion NA 015 CD)

JOHN CAGE: "Sonatas and Interludes" (Karis/Bridge 9081A/B)

JOHN CAGE: "Music of Changes" (Sultan/Concord Concerto CCD-42030)

The Beatles: (Harrison): "Love You To" (Parlophone CDP 7 46441 2)

STEVE REICH: "Drumming" (Nonesuch 79451-2)

TERRY RILEY: "Atlantis Nath" (Sri Moonshine Music 001)

LA MONTE YOUNG: "The Well-Tuned Piano"

PHILIP GLASS: "Music with Changing Parts" (Elektra Nonesuch 9 79325-2)

PHILIP GLASS: "Satyagraha" (excerpts from Scene 1/CBS Masterworks M3K 39672)

TAN DUN: "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" (Sony Classical SK 89347)