Music Influences Around The World

Aside from the vast amount of knowledge in here, I ask this question because there are members from all over the world. For 99% of the world's history, there was no electricity, and social mobility was difficult enough for music to spread around the world. How do you think music was influenced? Do you know of certain trends, and the causes? Or a story from your life, or a grandparent for example. I imagine someone like JP Morgan could have traveled to a colony, hear something he liked, and with a simple mention of it to the newspaper, it would be listened by many.

Every band/artist is a listener before they're in a band, and if you listen chronologically, you can see a lot of trading from east to west, and how the tide is pushed back and forth. By the 20th century, music was a lot more easier, convenient, and in circulation. One could argue the invention of the telephone had influence, considering it's something friends and family discuss, especially when they hear something great they want to share.

The Beatles getting into Indian music probably opened a lot (thanks to The Byrds, too), and many bands trying to cash in on the times, but also the sound. Especially in the mid-60s, you could hear the basics, but with a country's traditional instruments. And to "get back" to The Beatles, that amount of money and fame (thanks to TV) probably created a lot more wanting to get into the "biz" for reasons other than music (money, friendship, etc).

I think certain substances like LSD had influence, too, but I wasn't around then, and so my knowledge is limited only to my experiences. I'm curious what you all think, and if you have anything to add, by all means, use your own interpretation, and if you don't mind, mentioning what area of the world you are from. If any musicians want to talk about half-tone and quarter-tones, awesome!

I would have thought with YouTube that there'd be a lot more "exchange" and variety among countries' music, maybe more originality, but I don't see many who listen to stuff outside their language, despite it being a click away... Does anyone think this might be a reason that music seems more conformist?

I would say that for most of history, music was influenced by nature. Not only the resonance and vibrational frequencies of the Earth at the location of any given destination, but also the flora and fauna around as well as the resources from which to construct instruments.

About my own story, I was born to very small village in north Finland. I have quite recently thought, how it´s quite amazing how in there small village, far from the capital city of Finland, were group of music lovers where my oldest brother belonged to. I have wondered, where they got information all the sixties-seventies great bands, but I believe it was foreign magazines. That time really no internet, Finnish music magazines were really bad and also from the radio you really didn´t hear much popular music, specially new sixties-seventies music. Later my brother and his friends got money from the municipality and they founded "club" that bought vinyls and ordered "discos". Those albums were in the summer holidays in our home, so those were the days I started to listen Dr. Feelgood, the Sweet, Little Richard, the Sensational Alex Harvey Band, Creedence etc.