As non-Western music gains popularity and acceptance, John Lewis warns against the imposition of alien production values

This brief — ethnic music recording — is so brief, so open-ended that anything I try and put in, keeps falling out. I will block one of the holes by invoking a club in Philadelphia where I once played, in a building that had been offices. In an office which was now a dressing room, I found a copy of Websters dictionary which is famous enough to be referred to in (American) songs and which, despite being eight house bricks big, became my entire hand luggage allocation.

There are two reasons for this anecdotal preamble: to intimate that I am some sort of performer/musician, and to introduce a definition of ethnic (assuming that, as words at least, 'music' and 'recording' provide no ambiguity): 'pertaining or peculiar to race; relating... to community, or designating groups of mankind discriminated on the basis of common customs and characters.'

If that says anything it is that all music is ethnic. And one of the most flamboyant, exotic and diverting styles is midi-cola culture, linguistically English/American, technologically European/American/Japanese.

The range of instruments and techniques in this culture are varied and bewildering. There are no rules, no way for the uninitiated to tell what makes what sound or whether it emanates from a string, a musician, a technician or a string of digits.

But this presumably is not what was intended of an article on ethnic music, it is, after all, the particular ethnic music to which this entire magazine is given over.

Should 'ethnic music' then, for the purpose of this article, be music not made on electric guitars and keyboards etc (or 'classical' instruments), not dependent on 'western' technology? And if so what does that make the Bhundu Boys? DX7, headless bass snapping away, two guitars and drums. But they are distinctively Zimbabwean. The lyrics are in Shona and the Shona people have a long tradition of mbira playing which is reflected in the guitar styles of many Zimbabwean bands (Bhundus included).

The mbira is found in many forms throughout much of Africa, but the sound-producing elements are always plucked metal or wooden bars attached to a soundboard. The number of these varies from five to 50 and among the Shona there are several types with distinct tunings and purposes ranging from beer parties to contacting spirits.

Does the fact that bands like the Bhundu Boys, following on from people like Thomas Mapfumo in using guitars not mbiras, make them not so ethnic? Obviously not. So, as they are soon to be produced by Elvis Costello, perhaps that is how to record ethnic music, with a name producer. Does it then cease to be ethnic? I imagine some people will think so. Should the Bhundu Boys produce themselves? Not if they think Costello can do it better.

Many people who like the Bhundu Boys think Costello will have little if anything to contribute, but it could be that he has a better understanding of their jit music than people give him credit for. He will obviously have a familiarity with the equipment and recording medium which someone in a decision-making position thinks will be of value to them.

Lucy Duran of the National Sound Archive thinks that an understanding of the music being recorded is essential, which although she admits to a slightly purist stance, sounds like common sense. As recording is not what would normally be considered an 'ethnic' process, someone who understands recording and the available facilities and someone who has some knowledge of the music and its context are equally essential for the process to work to mutual satisfaction.

If those two roles are combined in one person, all the better. But this is not just a problem for 'ethnic' musicians. So many bands/musicians come out of a studio complaining at the treatment they have received from a producer or engineer who has not 'understood' them.

The difficulty is that music and recording are different processes which combine to make a record/tape, and the balance between the two must be maintained. This was not a problem when recording was recording, pure and simple: a reproduction of something that was played, a microphone or two and a tape recorder.

Now, here in the US of midi-cola, a recording is not particularly expected to bare any noticeable relation to what might have been played by 'musicians' on 'instruments'.

Why should it? Different music places different emphasis on aspects of the whole recording process. But favourite old records are enhanced by the fact that they were done relatively live on what would now be considered sub-demo quality equipment, and this 'charm' (I hesitate to use the word but I think it appropriate) is still applicable to 'ethnic' recording where the primary intention is to demonstrate or frame a style of music, instrument or playing.

Rogue Records have recently released Tanante, an album recorded by Lucy Duran of two kora players, Dembo Konte and Kausu Kuyateh. The kora is a double harp with (usually) 21 strings attached along a rosewood neck, crossing a bridge which is mounted on a large half-gourd resonator. The player sits facing the gourd and plucks the two rows of strings with thumbs and fingers while holding the kora by two handles projecting from the gourd.

These handles are also used percussively by tapping them with finger rings. In West Africa (Senegal, Gambia, Mali) kora playing is a traditional skill of Jalis, hereditary musicians with the right to perform before the Emperor of Mali.

Their music is complex, unique, involves skilled improvisation and needs no enhancement from technological sophistry. This album was recorded on a Marantz cassette machine with two Beyer mikes in Dembo Rome's home. In some ways Duran feels the album has benefited: 'You can get a lot by recording in someone's house when they're comfortable and relaxed. It was night, you could hear crickets, but the acoustics were actually quite good and what you lose in sound quality you gain on the atmospheric side.'

Although there is considerable truth in this and it is an album which you probably should have, it does not fully do justice to the actual sound of the kora. This will be remedied though as the same players have recently recorded another album in Topic Records' studio during a short tour of the UK. It was still done basically 'live' but obviously employs modest EQing and reverbs, redressing vocal/instrumental imbalances.

This is where an understanding of the music comes in: you have to know enough to know that what you're changing doesn't alter some intrinsic aspect of the music necessary in its own frame of reference. Many African instruments, for example, incorporate a buzzing sound: the mbira has small bits of metal intended to vibrate when the keys are plucked. Xylophones and koras also often have a vibrating element to enhance or amplify the sound. It is, however, just the sort of sound an engineer would normally spend considerable time finding and eradicating, and which is caused by a drum fitting or a loose machine head.

When faced with a situation in which you are unsure if your judgement is clouded by expectations then record it like it is, bearing in mind that if something such as a vocal is too loud, compressing it later will help, but if it is too low, it is harder to correct.

This is the advice of Roger Armstrong, who, with Ben Mandelson of Globestyle Records, has released two compilations of music from Madagascar.

These include two tracks by Daniel Tombo and Marceline Vaviroa, a husband and wife team with Tembo playing a valiha (a stringed instrument which comprises a tube with plucked strings running its length and arranged around it) and Vaviroa a large shaker which was much louder than the valiha and the voices.

Limited to two-track, they put one mic in the valiha and had the other ambient, picking up everything. The shaker was so loud that it was still picked up by the mic in the valiha, but the fact that the music is always heard with that balance meant that what appeared at first to be a problem for people used to having things like shakers occupying subordinate roles, was not a problem.

'That's just the way it sounds, the shaker was very loud; always had been, always would be. To rebalance it would be just a Westernised notion.'

Just remember to ditch your preconceptions.

This sensibility or sense is not always apparent, though. Some records in a more 'academic' series of recording appear to be made with no thought to balance, where the tape machine, or mic or 'ethno-musician' was conspicuously near one piece of percussion or one instrument.

Recording more than two people is when facilities such as mixing desks start to come close to Gaffa tape in importance (often a local radio station).

Globestyle plan more recording ventures and intend to take a small desk next time rather than just the Sony F1 digital two track, LM100 and PZM mikes. Otherwise the faders are the physical position of the players, moving accordion players to the far corner of the room etc.

What Globestyle and Rogue have in common, which some of the more academic, historic document type recordings seem to lack, is a consideration for, or at least acknowledgment of, the musicians. The Globestylers found an initial suspicion from the musicians in Madagascar as a result of their previous experience of people travelling with tape machines.

Musicologists who tended to be interested in instruments/...ologies/culture and, while including in sleeve notes details such as mics used, omitted to do things such as credit or pay musicians. Such revolutionary tactics as paying advances (albeit of the modest type to be expected of compilation albums on independent labels) and carrying urgent supplies like guitar strings and sax reeds, served to demonstrate the honourable nature of Globestyle's intentions.

It was also apparent to the Globestylers that 'traditional' and 'popular' music are not distinguished as fiercely as they are in the UK. That this article is in this magazine shows two things about attitudes towards forms of music within cultures other than midi-cola; that there is assumed to be little common ground between 'ethnic' and 'non-ethnic' music and that the imaginary gap is being narrowed.

Lucy Duran maintains that what is called 'ethnic' music is moving closer to what is called 'mainstream' music. This is partly due to increased access to recording facilities for people within other musics.

When a Jali chooses to augment sequencing, sampling, etc, to his techniques, he will do so with a different perspective from someone who ventures from his console for little more than sustenance and trade shows.

Hassan Erraji is a Morrocan musician who has recorded two tapes which are available in the UK. He is a multi-instrumentalist. The first tape only shows this one instrument at a time, tracks comprising a solo instrument, with or without a voice. The second tape incorporates a rhythm machine and multitracking which allows Hassan better scope.

One assumption often made about 'ethnic' music is that it is fossilised, or at least static. This attitude is likely to have caused the Madagascan musicians' experience of academia. It is also wrong.

Kausu Kuyateh is an innovator within the kora playing tradition, he has added extra strings and developed his own tunings for the kora in just the same way that an innovative guitarist will seek to stretch the limits of his instrument.

Similarly Hassan Arraji has had an oud (an Arabic fretless lute) made with an extra pair of strings. Any musician wants to develop his art/trade and use anything that will improve it or make it sound better to him.

Modern production style is evident in Globestyle's 12-inch Galbi. Recorded by Ofra Haza at Triton studios in Tel Aviv, it features fairly standard 'dance' programming and mixing, with sampled pressure cooker and traditional Yemenite percussion and (more important) it works well.

But an anxiety to over produce is as much of a danger as it would be to a rock band from Nuneaton. Super Diamono de Dakar, one of Senegal's top bands, appear to have fallen victim to this. A hard live band driven by traditional as well as a conventional drums, and bass, guitar, keyboards, horns line-up, their recent album People is produced so nicely that it leaves them firmly on the coffee table. It is still a pleasant album with good playing, some interesting rhythms and fine singing, but the essence of the band seems to have been filtered off.

This is the result of production without enough reference to the musicians and it saps the strength of the music. By contrast, back in the US of m-c, production without the band is not necessarily a bad thing, in fact it can be essential. So is ethnic music then music that still requires musicians? If so maybe that makes Costello a good choice for the Bhundu Boys.