In the context of this discussion, just what is “everywhere”? I wish to ask whether there are musical traits present in every instant of musical sound, or some found in every musical utterance, or in the musical experience of every human, in the musical life of every human
community or culture, or in every musical repertory. Let’s examine three types, which might give us a hierarchy of universals.
Anything present in every instant of music: That would be tantamount to a definition of music. If we know what music is, we would expect to identify it instantly when we encounter it, distinguishing it immediately from all other kinds of sound—speech, weeping, animal sounds, random noise, wind, machinery. But there does not appear to be an interculturally valid definition of music, so this approach to a discussion of universals may be at most theoretically fruitful. One surely cannot distinguish certain kinds of speech from singing even after hearing a total performance—or certain electronic music from factory sounds—except on the basis of social context.
The typical view of ethnomusicologists provides for a cultural explanation for the musical choices made by humans; they decide what to do musically as a result of responses to environmental and cultural events, and on the basis of what they have learned from other humans. But near the end of the twentieth century, some ethnomusicologists, notably Blacking (1992, discussing the work of others as well) began to move closer to scholarship in psychology and biology of music-making (as presented, e.g., by Sloboda 1985), taking into account the possibility of biological determinants (see especially Wallin, Merker, and Brown 2000). This was not a return to any notions to the effect that the music of a particular society is genetically determined or has biological bases, but perhaps the growth of a willingness to entertain the idea that music as a whole—the universals of music, if you will—has biological bases.
In a second approach, the requirements are less stringent, as we ask whether there is anything that is present in every musical utterance, hypothesizing that this concept of “musical utterance” is itself a universal phenomenon. It would be a song (long or minuscule), a piece, an opera, a symphony, a march, a raga performance, a bugle call—some kind of culturally accepted unit of musical thought, long and complex or short and simple. One begins to make music, continues or repeats, and, at some point, comes to an end, by design or because the context has ceased to exist. Now, are there characteristics that all (or maybe almost all) such musical utterances have in common? Here are some suggestions. There is a more or less clearly marked beginning and ending. There is some redundancy, some repetition, balanced by some variety, articulated through
rhythmic, melodic, textural means. There is a level of simplicity and there are levels of complexity beyond which the overwhelming majority do not extend. Music must evidently fall within some kind of perceptual band, even if one could imagine that it could go further.
The musical utterance consists of smaller units—building blocks—
which are fairly well marked, and for which one may substitute others from a given cultural repertory in order to produce new utterances—
for example, tones, motifs, chords, phrases, sequences. In a sense they are comparable to phonemes and morphemes in language, a lexicon from which, given certain rules, a music-maker may draw to create old and new musical utterances. A musical utterance always consists of more than one minimal unit. These are examples; others would no doubt be equally general. But this second category of universals still does not tell us how humanity has chosen to structure its music; like the first type, it mainly tells us simply that humans have music.
For a third and somewhat more realistic approach, we ask whether there is anything that is found in each musical system, in the music of each society; whether, thus, there is a way in which all musics are (rather than saying that all music is) in some way alike, whether there are any characteristics or traits present somewhere in all of them.
First the sound of music, with the caveat of incomplete data. All cultures have singing, and some (if sometimes very rudimentary) instrumental music. In the vast majority of vocal musics, the chief melodic interval appears to be something in the very general range of a major second. Intervals of that general scope, including anything from three to five quarter tones, surely make up the bulk of the world’s melodic progressions. Progressing consistently by half or quarter tones is exceedingly rare, as is progression mainly by thirds and fourths (found, though, here and there, as in some Andean musics).
In the vast majority of cultures most musical utterances tend to descend at the end, but they are not similarly uniform at their beginnings. All cultures make some use of internal repetition and variation in their musical utterances, and all have a rhythmic structure based on distinction among note lengths and among dynamic stresses.
All of the mentioned features are universals in the sense that they exist practically everywhere, but significant universals also in another sense: They would not have to be present in order for music to exist, and thus are not simply a part of the definition of music. It would, for example, be conceivable for a musical system to use only perfect
fourths, or only notes of equal length, but actually such a music doesn’t exist. Evidently humanity has decided not only to make music but, despite the vast amount of variation among the musics of the world, to make music in a particular set of ways. There is, in other words, some kind of a universal grammar or syntax of music, perhaps somewhat like that of language.
Universals in the conceptualization of music and in musical behavior are harder to isolate, but let me try a short list. Surely significant among them must be the association of music with the supernatural. All known cultures accompany religious activity with music. McAllester (1971: 380) sounded a similar note when he said that everywhere “music transforms experience.” Further, there is the conception of music as an art that consists of distinct units of creativity, which can be identified, by place in ritual, by creator or performer, by opus number. One does not simply “sing” but one sings something that has an identity. Thus, music is composed of artifacts, although cultures differ greatly in their view of what constitutes such an artifact. Also in this category of universals is the musical association with dance and speech. I can think of no culture that does not have some dance with musical accompaniment, nor one whose singing is completely without words, without poetry.
Viewed as self-contained systems, the musics of the world have common properties. They include the conception of musicality, the existence of tradition-carrying networks, the ubiquity of distinct repertories of children’s music. It seems likely also that musics—the musical systems of cultures—have things in common, that is, share overall structural characteristics. For example, it goes without saying that in each society, limits are placed on musical creativity. Certain sounds are accepted as being proper music and others excluded. But possibly each music has its gray area, a group of pieces or musical utterances, if you will, that reside at or beyond the boundaries of music. Do people everywhere tolerate a limited amount of intolerable music-making? All musics seem to have a wide band of relatively exceptional materials at their borders, and, as indicated in chapter 2, some of it is only arguably accepted as music. In contemporary Western culture there is a good deal of electronic and synthesized music that is highly significant to its cognoscenti but not used or tolerated by the majority. Older Native American music was generally monophonic, but a few polyphonic utterances, for specific social purposes, were evidently permitted here and there (Keeling 1992;Nettl
1961). Even Bach seems to have written the occasional tabooed set of parallel fifths. The exceptional material often has certain special and significant social uses and functions. But each repertory also has a mainstream, a unified style clustering in the center, composed of a large number of songs or pieces that are very much alike. There may be a universal or at least a typical repertory structure in world music.
What is best or greatest—either as music or because it has special social or religious significance—is also often somehow exceptional.
In each culture, there may be a different immediate reason for the value of the exceptional. In Western art and popular music, there is the value of innovation and originality (but see the discussion of originality in Shona culture by Turino 2000:181–83). In Iran, the value of individualism and surprise is significant, and among the traditional Blackfoot, the association of songs with a few men’s personal power over the supernatural. The similarity of these repertory structures again suggests that there is no difference in essence between Western and non-Western, urban and indigenous, musical repertory structure.