Around the turn from the 19th to the 20th century European music started to experience two tendencies: One was the recollection towards own ethnic musical resources in the border lands. The other was the new interest in music from far away countries. 

Especially the second tendency led to many misunderstandings that, ironically, later were transferred to those countries of their origin. Indonesia is a good example for that. Furthermore, in the 1970s and later there was a tendency to holistic concepts (“New Age”) that favored a global unified music based on very dubious self-determined conditions. 

This paper demonstrates some of the most famous misunderstandings and the potential dangers behind.