How Musical Is Man?

This important study in ethnomusicology is an attempt by the author — a musician who has become a social anthropologist — to compare his experiences of music-making in different cultures. He is here presenting new information resulting from his research into African music, especially among the Venda. Venda music, he discovered is in its way no less complex in structure than European music. Literacy and the invention of nation may generate extended musical structures, but they express differ...