Is the Search for Universals Incompatible with the Study of Cultural Specificity?
Is the Search for Universals Incompatible with the Study of Cultural Specificity?

Summary/Abstract: What it was called “the anthropology of music” finds its roots in two founding papers: The Anthropology of Music by Alan Merriam (1964) and How Musical is Man? by John Blacking (1973). In these two books, the musical structures are designed as a product of the culture. The methodological consequence is: the ethnomusicological investigation should begin from the study of the cultural context. The consequence of this position, quite widely used in the field, was to emphasize the music environment, rather than analyse its structure, with a few notable exceptions (the work of Simha Arom and his team). A fortiori, the research of universals, considered ethnocentric, was regarded in the field as inadmissible. After having proposed a setting up of this situation, the author examines the manner in which the issue of Blacking approaches the link between culture and musical structures, then reconsiders his positions with regard to universals, and possible biological foundations of music. The article ends with a plea for reconciliation, with a view to the ethnomusicology of tomorrow, from the point of view of the anthropology, taking into account the cultural determinations, the comparative study of the musical structures, and the search for universal.

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