Music at the Source in August

Austin's claim to the Live Music Capital of the World is backed by genuine density — hundreds of venues, a strong songwriter and session musician community, and a culture that treats music as a local utility. South by Southwest (March) makes Austin the most concentrated new-music event on earth for one week. But the Continental Club, Hole in the Wall, and the Sixth Street scene run every night.

Chicago's South Side gave the world the electric blues — Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Buddy Guy all recorded here. The Old Town School of Folk Music is one of America's great community music institutions, offering workshops in blues, roots, and jazz to anyone who walks in. The city's jazz scene runs in parallel, with Green Mill and Andy's Jazz Club hosting serious players nightly.

Fado is Lisbon's music — its sound of saudade, the Portuguese word for a longing that has no exact translation. The Alfama district is where it lives most authentically, in small tascas where a singer, a Portuguese guitar, and a viola baixo make something quietly devastating. The Museu do Fado runs workshops; the Escola de Fado teaches technique. Fado houses range from tourist-oriented to deeply local.

Nashville is where country and Americana songwriting is practised professionally — Music Row studios, the Bluebird Cafe's writers-in-the-round format, and a community of working songwriters who treat the craft as a discipline. It is possible to sit in a workshop, co-write with a stranger, and walk into a honky-tonk to hear the results performed the same evening.

Samba was born in Rio's hillside favelas, and bossa nova was invented in Ipanema apartments in the late 1950s — two musical forms so deeply embedded in the city that the rhythms feel inseparable from the landscape. The escolas de samba (samba schools) run community rehearsals open to visitors throughout the year, not just during Carnival. Bossa nova workshops and intimate roda de samba (samba circles) run in neighbourhood bars.

Flamenco was born in Andalusia and grew up in Seville's Triana and Santa Cruz neighbourhoods. This is where the serious schools are — institutions like the Fundación Cristina Heeren attract students who want to study the art form properly rather than watch a tablao show. The city's density of working flamenco artists means you're learning alongside people for whom this is a vocation.

Gamelan is Bali's communal music — every village has an ensemble, and in Ubud, the cultural capital, the tradition is most accessible to outsiders. ARMA (Agung Rai Museum of Art) runs gamelan workshops in a setting of rice terraces and temple architecture. Performances at Puri Saren (the Royal Palace) and various temples are frequent, and the distinction between performer and audience is deliberately thin.

New York is the global capital of jazz — the Village Vanguard has hosted every major player since 1935, Jazz at Lincoln Center runs the most serious educational programming in the world, and the New School's jazz programme has trained generations of professionals. The density of talent means that any night of the week, multiple world-class musicians are playing within a few miles of each other.