Is the Search for Universals Incompatible with the Study of Cultural Specificity ?
After surveying arguments put forward by some authors against the legitimacy of research on universals in music, the author focusses on the claim that since every culture has specific characteristics, they are not comparable. Relying on two foundational texts in the development of an anthropological approach to music studies, Alan Merriam’s The Anthropology of Music (1964) and John Blacking’s How Musical is Man ? (1973), he notes that for these writers, musical structures are conceived as a product of culture. The methodological consequence of this conception is that ethnomusicological investigation must begin with the study of the cultural context. The consequence of this position, which was highly prevalent in the discipline until recently, was, with only a few notable exceptions, to place the emphasis on the environment of music rather than on the analysis of its structures. Research into universals, long dismissed as ethnocentric, was a fortiori considered unacceptable within the profession. The author examines how Blacking approaches the question of the relationship between culture and musical structures, and then re-examines his position on universals and the possible biological foundations of music. On the basis of these texts, the author goes on to demonstrate that Blacking was much more favourable to ethnomusicological research focussed on universals than was previously believed, and several of his assertions are unexpectedly thrown into relief by recent work in the neuropsychology of music. The article concludes with a plea for reconciliation within ethnomusicology of both the anthropological point of view and the inclusion of cultural determinations, as well as the comparative study of musical structures and the search for universals.