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This paper aims to draw attention to the need for a theory of musk and music-making. The chief problem is to find out if it is possible to identify an area of musical' behaviour that differs qualitatively from other kinds of social behaviour. The common-sense view in many different societies is that music-making is a special kind of behaviour.
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[artigo] John Blacking - Some problems of theory and method in the study of musical change (1977)
This paper aims to draw attention to the need for a theory of musk and music-making. The chief problem is to find out if it is possible to identify an area of musical' behaviour that differs qualitatively from other kinds of social behaviour. The common-sense view in many different societies is that music-making is a special kind of behaviour.
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This paper aims to draw attention to the need for a theory of musk and music-making. The chief problem is to find out if it is possible to identify an area of musical' behaviour that differs qualitatively from other kinds of social behaviour. The common-sense view in many different societies is that music-making is a special kind of behaviour.
Drepturi de autor:
Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
Formate disponibile
Descărcați ca PDF, TXT sau citiți online pe Scribd
SOME PROBLEMS OF THEORY AND METHOD IN THE
STUDY OF MUSICAL CHANGE
by John Blacking
Music, music-making, and nusical change
The main purpose of this paper is to draw attention to the need for a
comprehensive theory of music and music-making, and for studies that
seek to distinguish sical change analytically from other kinds of
change, and radical change from variation and innovation within a
flexible system.
‘The chief probiem in developing a theory of music is to find outifit is
possible to identify an area of “musical” behaviour that differs qualita-
tively from other kinds of social behaviour. The common-sense view in
many different societies is that music-making fs a special kind of be-
havious, and that itis more fikely to be emotionally rewarding, and even
transcendental (cf. McAllester 1971), than many other social activities.
Ethnomusicological method requires that all ‘ethnic’ perceptions be
taken seriously in defining the parameters of music in any theory of
music making. and so the special qualities assigned to music-making and
musical experience make its symbol systems sociologically and an-
thropologically problematic. It is therefore inappropriate either to
analyse musical structures independently of the fact that some sets of
musical symbols are more emotionally effective than others, or to
analyse their use in society without attention to the patterns of the
symbols chosen in the course of social interaction, Analysis of the social
situations in which music is effective or notis crucial for understanding
the properties of musical symbols, because it isin these contexts that the
non-musical elements of creation and appreciation can be separated
from the essentially musical; and an adequate theory of music and
music-making must be based on data that cannot be reduced beyond the
‘musical’.
Although there is not yet conclusive proof that there are special kinds
of behaviour that are ‘‘musical’’, it is a useful assumption to adopt in
examining musical change. Music-making should be treated as prob-
lematic, and we should resist attempts either to reduce it to a purely
sociological phenomenon or to regard it as an autonomous cultural
sub-system. Music is a social fact; but itis not necessarily like any other
set of social facts. On the other hand, the operation of purely “‘musical’*
socio-cultural processes could not be expected to explain completely
the various activities and products that musicologists and people in
many different societies describe as ‘‘musical"’ or ‘*music’’ because of
their association with special uses of rhythm, tonality, melody, and
timbre of sound as symbols in communication. Political, religious, or
social meanings may be assigned to musical! codes. in such a way that
they cease to have musical significance and can be analysed in much the211977 YEARBOOK OF THE INTERNATIONAL FOLK MUSIC COUNCIL
What is strictly musical about musical change cannot be treated in
exactly the same way as other kinds of socio-cultural change. and
current sociological and anthropological theories of change cannot be
freely adopted and adapted. Inevitably, ‘musical’ activities overtap
non-‘musical"’ activities, but they are not wholly interchangeable. If
they were, and if all ‘‘musical" activities could be reduced to sociologi-
cal principles. there would be little point in musicology and eth-
nomusicology, let alone the study of musical change. We must start with
the assumption that music involves certain enique characteristics at the
level of intentional sucial action, if not at the level of motor behaviour.
That even if it is not accepted that there are specific musical
capabilities common to all normal members of the species, at least we
should louk for special kinds of action that are distinguished by members,
of different societies as “musical
Many analyses of so-called musical change are really about social
change and minor variations in musical style, if viewed in terms of the
system affected. If, for example, features ofa society’s musical system
are that every sect or corporate group has its own associated music and
that novelty of any kind is welcomed, then the addition of new styles and
items through social contacts cannot be regarded as cases of musical
acculturation. They may have no more significance than the introduc-
tion of foreign words into a language. Admittedly. the social change may
eventually be followed by changes in the musical system, but they would
have to be demonstrated by more than an accumulation of new sounds.
In my analyses of Verda music, I did not treat the incorporation of
some new styles of music as examples of acculturation or musical
change, because they are regarded by the Vendaas parts of their musical
system. There were changes in the Venda social system, but no radical
changes in their musical system. when they adopted girls’ and boys’
initiation schools and possession dance cults from their neighbours
(Blacking 1971}. On the other hand, there were musical changes when
some Venda adopted Christianity: drums and sounds associated with
traditional religion became taboo to a section of the population, who
adopted anew musical system. Imported European music was regarded
as different and was not fully incorporated in the same way as earlier
styles. As result of this, there has been a significant musical change in
Venda society resulting in the production of at least three concurrent
musical traditions, which might be called “traditional”, *‘syncretic’’,
and “*modern”’. Any analysis of musical change in Venda society must
consider all three traditions together, because the lives of their prac-
titioners overlap in many respects, both within and outside the context
of music-making.
The study of musical change must be concerned ultimately with
significant innovations in music sound, but ianevations in music sound
are not necessarily evidence of musical change. If the concept of musical
change is to have any heuristic value, it must denote significant changes
that are peculiar to smuesicad systems, and not simply the musical conse-
quences of social, political, economic, or other changes:
Major political changes, such as the revolutions in Russia and CubaBLACKING THEORY AND METHOD IN MUSICAL CHANGE /3
and the independence of African states, seem not to have been accom-
panicd by significant musical change. On the other hand, a new idea
about music, or a new social formation, may have profound consequ-
ences on musical siructures, if attitudes to music and social formations
involved in its performance are an integral part of the musical process in
asociety. Thus Wachsmann (1958) showed that the intraduction of the
bugle in the 1860s and of a band of European instruments about 1884 did
not ‘start a musical revolution’ in Buganda as might have been expected:
and the lyre, which was introduced from Busoga at about the same time
as the band, and the tube-fiddle. which appeared in 1907. were incorpo-
rated into the musical system. The influence of Western music became
felt. not directly through its sounds, but through the Churches’ view
“that music itself must be spiritual in order to be suitable for things
eternal’, and Wachsmann suggested that this azfitude to music influ-
enced African musicians and “thas continued to affeet the development
of their music ever since (Wachsmann 1958: 35).""
A crucial problem in the study of musical change, therefore. and one
that reinforces its claim to be a special category of action, is that changes
in music do not necessarily accompany the changes of mind that affect
institutions related to music-making. Truly musical change should sig-
nify a change of heart as well as mind, since music is a ‘‘metaphoricat
expression of feeling (Ferguson 1960: 88)", which can explore the
structures of emotion and express values that transcend and inform the
passing scene of social events. Since “affects are the primary motives of
man” (Tomkins and lzard 1966: vii)", musical composition and perfor-
mance are intricately linked to motivation and patterns of decision-
making. Musical change may epitomize the changing conditions and
concerns of social groups. perhaps even before they are crystallized and
articulated in words and corporate action: but it may also reflect an
affection for novelty and changing intellectual fashion. Conversely, an
absence of musical change may reflect a retreat from challenging social
issues, or a determination to face them and adapt to them, while main-
taining essential social and cultural values.
The retention of traditional music can be enlightening and positively
adaptive as it can be maladaptive and stultifying: the meaning of musical
change or non-change depends on their structural and functional charac-
teristics in the particular context under review. There is some justifica-
tion in the traditionalists’ argument that musical non-change can signify
a successful adaptation to the threat of anarchy by the retention of
essential cultural values, as there is to the opposing view that musical
change expresses a vigorous adaptation of musical styles to the chal-
lenge ef changing social conditions. But the traditionalists (or ** purists”’,
as I calf them in the next section) have neglected the dead weight of
traditional routines, as the modernists (or ‘‘syncretists") have seemed
unaware of the superficiality of merely fashionable changes. and both
have failed to distinguish the varieties of musical change and the levels at
which they operate, or to relate them to other changes that are taking
place in the society, especially changing relationships between classes
and changing patterns in the allocation of power. It can, in fact. be41977 YEARHOOK OF THE INTERNATIONAL FOLK MUSIC COUNCIL,
argued that all evaluations of musical change tell us more about the class
and interests of the evaluators than about the real nature of musical
change. This objection can certainly be made to my own arguments, as
well as the work of the “purists” and the “‘syncretists”, and to the
efforts of Ministries of Culture and other agencies to promote the per-
formance of traditional music. In so far as music is in itself non-
referential, almost any meaning or value can be assigned to it, and
because it can easily be internalized through participatory movements
of the body, these meanings and values can become invested with
special value through pleasurable association. Music can be. and
used in society for all kinds of purposes, good and bad: and so the
ultimate decisions about what to do with it rest with performers and
audiences, and not even with indigenous music researchers, who are
scarcely less biased than foreigners.
The processes of music-making and their musical products are conse-
quences of individual decision-making about how, when, and where to
act, and what cultural knowledge to incorporate in the sequences of
action. But i music-making there are behavioural consequences of
action that cannot be dismissed analytically as “happenings”, because
they have an effect on subsequent action. Performers and audiences do
not, in fact, have complete controt over musical situations and their
interpretation. Although in theory, any pattern of movement could have
any meaning, and there could be an infinite number of permutations and
combinations of signifier and signified, as in language, in the movements
of music-making there are important differences. Once people have
agreed to participate in a musical event. they must suspend a range of
personal choice until they have reached the end of the sequence of
action that was determined by their original decision. Whatever the
meaning of that decision was to the participants when they made it,
whatever meaning theyattributed generally to the music they decided to
perform, and whatever meanings attach to isolated movements to parts
of the music in other contexts, once the performance is under way the
intrinsic meaning of the music as form in tonal motion may affect the
participants. Many sequences of body movement are not entirely
neutral, in that they have physiological consequenc:
specific range of somatic states, feelings, and correspon
is for this reason that a number of composers have emphasized that the
nonverbal communication of music can be more precise than language,
and Susanne Langer (1948:191) has written that ‘‘music can reveal the
nature of feclings with a detail and truth that language cannot ap-
proach.”’ Moreover, because of the basic biological and psychic unity of
the species, a decision to perform music can lead people to share
emotion through the link of their common participation in sequences of
movement and its relation to what Manfred Clynes calls “‘essentic
forms."’ “The emotional gestures . . . have precise representations in
the brain (Clynes 1974:52)."* In this way the collective movements of
musical pertormance can generate collective feelings and collective
thought, which is the basis of cultural communication. But music is not
only adaptive through its power to tink the biological and culturalBLACKING THEORY AND METHOD IN MUSICAL CHANGE / 5
aspects of human experience and reinforce the affective bases of social
life: by releasing the brain from the task of immediate attention to
environmental stimuli, it stimulates creative thinking by allowing the
“‘memory-surface” of the brain to deal with information for its own sake
(De Bono 1969: 130, Blacking 1976b:7).
These two complementary and adaptive functions of music, conser-
vative of basic human values but creative in their cultural apptication,
are epitomized in the approaches of the “purists” and the ‘‘syn-
cretists””, and appear to be represented to a greater or lesser extent in
most societies. That is, there is music that must be performed in the
same way on every occasion, and there is music whose performance is
expected to vary from one occasion to another. The former is particu-
larly true of ritual music, but even within a corpus of ritual music. the
same distinction may be made. For instance, in the music of the domba
rites, the Venda distinguish between Nyomia songs. which ought to be
performed in exactly the same way at every initiation, and Mitambo
songs, which vary from one initiation to another according to the tastes
of the master of initiation and the performers. At all events, the most
important decision made in musical situations are the decisions to make
music. because the music itself may generate experiences and thoughts
that transcend the extra-musical features of the situation.
Musical change must be given a special status in studies of social and
cultural change, because music's role as mediator between the nature
and the culture in man combines cognitive and affective elements in a
unique way. The only other comparable human activities are dance and
ritual. Music is the best-equipped of the performing arts to express both
the ever-changing reatities of biological and social life and the continuity
of the concepts on which human societies depend for their existence. (It
can be more specifically ‘‘real’” than dance, because it can incorporate
verbal language, which is the most widely used and readily understood
form of cultural communication. It is more ‘‘super-real’’ than drama,
because it can transcend the restrictions of dialogue in time and space:
for example, musical communication is declamatory and does not ex-
pect direct answers from participants, but drama generally requires
some nexus of communication; call-response and antiphonal structures
in music are not tike conversations.)
The laws of nature require that an organism, to survive, should
constantly adapt to its changing environment, and determine that almost
every human being is geneticaily unique; and music obeys these laws, in
that it has to be re-made at every performance and it is felt anew inside
each individual body. The laws of Avan nature lay down that man can
omy become human through association with fellowman (Blacking
1974) and that the human organism's basic adaptive tool is culture,
which is possible only in so far as genetically unique organisms can
transcend individual sensations and share sentiments and concepts.
Essential features of culture are the repetition, replication, and trans-
mission of ideas and sequences of action, as seen in the widespread
uniformity of the Acheulean material culture of the Stone Age. The
extension of the capacity for culture and the development of technologi-6/1977 YEARBOOK F THE INTERNATIONAL FOLK MUSIC COUNCIL
cul mastery have depended on man’s ability to halt or control natural
change. Music therefore obeys the laws of culture, and so through
bodily experiences enables man to come to tecms with the natural and
cultural grounds of his being: itis a kind of adaplive ritual behaviour that
by the special nature of its means of production combines the creative
conditions of objective technological mastery and subjective human
experience.
In so far as music-making is a technique of the body (cf. M. Mauss
1936) that by repetition can halt change in a predictable way and trans-
cend time and place, but only for as long as its makers are involved and
experiencing it, it has special expressive power thal routine technologi-
cal processes lack. This is why musical changes cannot be properly
related to technological developments, even though they may give a
superficial impression of being progressive. Each apparently new idea in
music ‘‘does not really grow out of previously expressed ideas, though it
may well be limited by them. It is a new emphasis that grows out of a
composer's experience of his environment, a realization of certain as-
pects of the experience common (o al! human beings which seem to him
to be particularly relevant in the light of contemporary events and
personal experiences (Blacking 1973: 72-73). A bridge or a Jumbo Jet
cannot be built with the emotional freedom of a performance of a Mahler
symphony. and yet the symphonic performance requires similar preci-
sion and expertise. In this respect music is more true to life than
technology: it expresses the fact that although cultural artifacts can
provide permanent adaptations to the external world, the organism
cannot halt its own propensity to change and decay. Music halts change
temporarily by harnessing time through the non-utilitarian repetition of
events
We should not be surprised by innovation, acculturation. and superfi-
cial changes in musical performance. They are to be expected, given the
adaptive nature of the organism. The most interesting and characteristi-
cally human features of music are not stylistic change and individual
variation in performance, but noa-change and the repetition of carefully
rehearsed passages of music. (It should not be necessary to emphasize
that rehearsal and accuracy of performance are features of orally trans-
mitted ‘“folk’” music as well as of written ‘art’ music.) This is why truly
musical changes are not common and why they reveal the essence of
music in a society. What is constantly changing in music is that which is
least musical about it: and yet these micro-changes are the raw material
out of which the changes are made, and in the context of performance
they are evidence of the meanings that participants attach to the music.
For example, the meanings that the sounds of different drum-rew com-
positions have for Igbo audiences vary according to the social context
that generates them (Nzewi 1977).
Studies of musical change should focus on change that is specifically
musical, and change that really is change. The kinds of music that are
made are an obvious focus of musicological interest, but they are the
products of processes in the behaviour of the species and the action of
groups and individuals. In my view, musical changes can only be use-BLACKING THEORY AND METHOD IN MUSICAL CHANGE / 7
fully defined as radical changes in the orga ion of these primary
elements. That is why the reasons for some of the heated exchanges in
“foik”’ music circles have been sound, but the categories over which the
battles have been fought are essentially social, rather than musical.
“Purists” and “Syncretists’’ in “folk” music stadies
Studies of ‘'folk"’ music have invariably been concerned with musical
change, but have attended to musical products more than musical pro-
cesses. Even if they have not been motivated by the explicit aim to
record music that is disappearing or being “‘contaminated’’, they im-
plicitly invoke the notion of historically ancient, pre-industrial or pre-
urban musical traditions, Clas ations such as “‘folk’’, ‘tart’ and
“popular” reflect the concern with identifiable musical products, rather
than similar or contrasting musical processes. Changes of musical pro-
cess have been generally taken for granted as a concomitant of changcs
in the product. and discussion has focussed on non-musical processe
Thus, both “‘purists’ and “syncretists” among folk music resear-
chers have attributed non-musical significance to musical sounds. The
“purists‘ assume that radical changes in the sounds of orally transmit-
ted music reflect some sort of morat decay, and that restoration and
promotion of the ‘‘authentic’’ music of the people will help to re-animate
the life of the community, but they do not explain how this could be so,
or whether music has any more significance in the process than gymnas-
tics or the Boy Scouts. Nor do they explain why “folk” music is
supposed tv be preserved without change, but atwentieth-century com-
poser, whose music sounds like Tchaikovsky, is dismissed as unoriginal
and irrelevant.
The “synerctists” do not seem to have questioned the moral state of
the community, except in cases where the immorality of their exploiters
or oppressors may be a stimulus to musical production: they assume that
the vigorous production of new sounds indicates that the community is
adapting successfully to changing circumstances. Like the “purists”,
they may be correct in their deductions, but they do not explain the
connection between musical creativity and social welfare, or consider
the possibitity that an increase in musical creativity may accompany a
decrease in political status. How, for instance, dv we compare the moral
value of the syncretic South African Freedom Songs and Jurry Mfusi’s
Shaka with the equally syncretic ‘‘all-Black”’ musical Jpitombi, which
White South African promoters brought to London in 1976? JE judged by
its music, it was not unreasonable of a London critic to write, *Happi-
ness is. a musical called fpitombi.'’ The music alone, or even the story as
presented in the theatre performance, does not disclose that fpitombi is
a monstrous piece of propaganda for South African racist policies and a
source of great profit for its white promoters.
The ‘‘purists’” have been curiously ambivaient in their attitudes 10
continuity and change in music. They have lamented departure from
what they conceive to be traditional practices and have invoked con-
cepts such as authenticity to distinguish between what is and what is not81 IS77 YEARBOOK OF THE INTERNATIONAL FOLK MUSIC COUNCIL
good and worthy of study: but they have also applauded the creative
musicianship of outstanding individual performers. whose originality
must, by definition, threaten the stability of any ‘authentic’ tradition.
These contradictions are partly the result of a legitimately sentimental
attachment to the good things of the past and a sense of outrage at the
widespread social and cultural destruction that follows political, religi-
ous and commercial exploitation; and partly a consequence of some
muddied thinking about the nature of culture (in the anthropological
sense of the word) in general, and of music and music-making in particu-
lar: for unchanging cultural tradition is dead and of no use to man except
perhaps as an inspiration to do something else, and music without social
situations, which by definition can never be identical, ceases to be music
as a performing art. The evidence of anthropological field research
shows clearly that even in those societies that were once thought to be
survivals of our prehistoric past, customs were changing before the
arrival of missionaries, traders, colonial administrators and settlers, and
people were flexible in their use of social and cultural systems. Inflexi-
bility is more noticeably a characteristic of technologically advanced
societies, in which a highly developed division of labour enables elites
and closed groups to wield authoritarian power and reinforce it with
religious and ideological dogma (Blacking 1970:238).
The “syncretists’’ have emphasized that in many *‘folk'’ music tradi-
tions innovation and change are valued and applauded, but they have
not followed up the logic of their approach and considered in their
analyses ail that is heard by the groups whose music they study, on
tetevision, radio, and in films, as well as in live performance. Modern
listening habits have been the concern only of radio stations and a very
few sociologists , but they are an essential feature of any orally transmit-
ted music tradition, particularly if music is consciously and systemati-
cally excluded from consideration for musical and/or political reasons.
If Mozart, Gershwin, the Beattes, Ellington, Inlian classical music,
Country and Western, and [itheran hymns, are all available for listen-
ing, we cannot ignore the positive or negative influence on “folk” music
of Mozart because his is ‘art’ music, or of Gershwin because his is not
“ethnic’’ music.
A sociotogy of music may legitimately confine itself to studying the
groups that use music and the different meanings that they assign to it,
without analysing music structures. But musicology cannot account for
the logic of musical systems without considering the patterns of culture
and of social interaction of the music-makers. Even if music is treated as
an autonomous activity with its own rules, systems of tonal and rhyth-
mic organization are cultural products, and sound structures are per-
ceived and selected by individuals interacting in social contexts. The
forms and functions of music cannot be entirely reduced and explained
as extensions of social phenomena; but a musicologist’s legitimate con-
cern for the music in musical activity cannot ignore the fact that, if it is to
belong to a tradition at ali, even the most original musical invention will
to a greater or lesser extent draw on remembered sounds. It is thereforeBLACKING THEORY AND METHOD IN MUSICAL CHANGE [9
essential to take into consideration the range of sounds available to any
musician, whether or not the sucial context of hearing them is consi-
dered significant (i-e., whether or not one regards music as an autonom-
ous activity).
What both the ‘purists’ and *‘syncretists” in folk music research
have in common is a central concern for certain types of music. and for
certain moral values that are associated with the music and its uses and
functions. Paradoxically, the ‘‘purists’’ are more concerned with the
morality and the ‘‘syncretists’” with the music, while both make as-
sumptions about relationships between musical and non-musical struc-
tures which they seldom state or explain. There may indeed be relation-
ships between the state of music and the state of society; but how shall
foreign or indigenous folk music researchers be able to judge this with-
oul cither more precise evidence of the connections between musical
and non-musical structures, or a coherent theory of man as music-
maker? Unless music in itself has more than the often arbitrary signiti-
cance assigned to it by the social groups that perform it and listen to it.it
must be treated as morally neutral, and musical change can be neither
deplored nor welcomed: it can only be described and related to other
changes in the society of the music-makers and consumers. As Nattiez
(1975) has argued, the music is the “niveau neutre’’, and its morality is
essentially the morality of who and what goes with it, of its performers
and of its listeners. Evaluations of musical change cannot be made
independently of a point of view or a theory that takes into account more
than the musical structures, and so they must always be accompanied by
a clear statement of their epistemology.
Culture-based approaches to the study of musical change
Early writers on musical change, and especially Hornbostel and
Sachs, worked with a theory of music that flowed logically from the
origins of their discipline, comparative musicology. Broadly speaking,
they saw musical changes as the results of discoveries and inventions in
the realm of sound, and of the diffusion of styles brought about by the
contact of different cultures. They paid some attention to the cultural
context of music, and they thought of the world history of music in much
the same way as the evolution of culture and technology, but they rarely
pursted the implications of Alexander J. Ellis’s original dictum (1885)
and sought explanations of musical change in terms of changes in the
organization of societies and in ideas not primarily concerned with
music.
A global, culture-based theory of musical change has been pursued in
detail by Alan Lomax (1968, 1972), but although the basic idea underly-
ing his correlations between folksong style and culture ts acceptable. his
method of analysis and some of his conclusions are open to question (see
Maranda 1970). Lomax's theory of musical change is based on the
assumption that musical variations are related to variations in culture,
and that there are correlations between musical and cultural change.10/1977 YEARBOOK OF THE INTERNATIONAL FOLK MUSIC COUNCIL.
The chief difficulties in applying the theory arise from (a) the notion that
musical changes reflect changes in culture, and (b) a somewhat re-
stricted concept of cultural evolution. Lomax compares the surface
structures of music without questioning whether the same musical
sounds always have the same “deep structure” and the same meaning.
thus an apparent correlation between a particular folksong style and a
particular pattern of culture in a number of societies may not be valid.
Moreover, a correlation does not necessarily mean that the music re-
flects the ethos or eidos of the culture; it may well be couternc ting
social ends, and this could be especially important in calculating the
significance of musical changes.
‘This leads into the second main difficulty about Lomax’s scheme: it
does not allow for flexibility in estimating what kinds of social and
cultural change are the most significant as catalysts for musical change.
There seems to be too much emphasis on the means of production and
largely technological changes. and to little on the modes of production,
which are concerned ultimately with the structures and quality of human
relationships. Moreover, even the mode of production is not always in
itself the decisive factor in shaping the pattern of change: institutional
interadjustments and social change can rarely, if ever, be attributed toa
single source, as Marx and Weber are said to have claimed, and ‘no
single form of social behaviour can be conceived to be ultimate or basic.
(Martindale 1962:38)."" Although “only the individual can initiate or
stop change and . . . any individual is a potential source of change,
social conditions often place the primary burden on a special stratum of
individuals, turning them into the innovators or conservers of their times
fop. cit.:2).”" Inventiveness therefore flowers in certain sections of
societies according to the “requirements” of the time, and whether or
not music is affected at a particular period may depend upon its place in
the sociology of the knowledge of the society.
Lomax's scheme (1968:/ passim) does not allow for variations in
patterns of social and cultural change such as occurred in ancient China,
India, Palestine, and Greece. It also raises, but does not address, a
crucial issue in the study of music and musical change: the status of
music in biological and cultural evolution. Is music a conscious human
invention, with a determined (though inevitably unknown) time span,
arising out of certain social and economic conditions and utilizing
biologically given capabitities that had originally evolved for other pur-
poses? Or is it a species-specific behaviour, partly like language, based
on certain irreducible biological capabilities that have evolved specially
for music (whatever thal may be) and present in every normal human
organism? In either case, music-making can be seen as adaptive be-
haviour in an evolutionary context, though clearly in the latter, no
society would really have the option of including music in its culture: to
exclude the development of musical capabilities would be the same as
not using language, and would restrict the full development of human
Potential,
If music is a human invention rather than a discovery, a product ofBLACKING THEORY AND METHOD IN MUSICAL CHANGE / 11
cultural evolution as Lomax implies, it could be an action autonomous
with its own independent rules (cf. Nadel 1951:87-90}, like the rules of a
game or an action system whose rules are consciously and uncon-
sciotsly influenced by other action systems within the socicty of the
music-maker(s). This distinction could be crucial for estimating the
motivation for and significance of musical changes at any given time and
place, but it is not an absolute distinction that has to be made for all
music. In some societies music, or at least the music of certain groups,
may be assigned the status of a game, with arbitrary rules. while in
others it may be inextricably bound up with extra-musical factors.
Again, there may be periods ina society's history when music is treated
like a game, alternating with periods when its structure is supposed to
express and evoke extra-musical rules and meanings. This raises the
problem of interpreting one musical style in a period when different
canons apply, as well as problems for the student of musical change: if
performers and critics reinterpret the music of a former era. is it legiti-
mate to talk of musical change, even though there may be little apparent
change in the sounds produced? Furthermore. could there really be no
change in the sounds produced, if there were a radical change of ap-
proach to the music?
Whatever view is taken of the status of music in biological and cultural
evolution, neither Lomax’s scheme nor the earlier theories of compara-
tive musicologists consider the full range of behaviour that can be
described as ‘‘musical change’. Furthermore, they do not always dis-
tinguish between behaviour, or motor events that happen to individuals,
and action, events that are intended to have consequences: it is particu-
larly important to distinguish changes in musical composition or per-
formance that are not Jabelled or intended as such by musicians, from
changes that are intentional and recognized. Finally. they do not provide
a satisfactory explanation, except in terms of cultural diffusion, com-
mercial simplification, or the emulation of technical proficiency, of the
concurrent phenomena of so-called ‘‘folk'’, ‘‘popular’’ and ‘art’
musics, and the crucial role of oral transmission of performance practi. ¢
even in traditions of written music.
In contrast to Lomax’s global approach, other writers have described
processes of musical change that are less clear-cut. In a paper on the
variety of music in a North Indian village, Edward Q. Henry (1976)
questions some of Lomax’s general conclusions and shows, for exam-
ple: “that the groupy, antiphonal style is as important as the elaborate
solo style in India, and that the non-participatory music, although en-
compassing the elaborate solo style. is much more diverse than that
characterization suggests (op. cif.:62)"": "the stylistic diversity of the
region's music has resulted from a cultural or subcultural admixture.
and. . . understanding the diversity in song style of the region requires
reference to the temporal processes of immigration. diffasion and reten-
tion (op. cit.:64)."” He concludes that the coexistence of integrated and
individualized styles in India and in many other parts of the world
emphasizes “that song sessions may be organized along quite different121977 YEARBOOK OF THE INTERNATIONAL FOLK MUSIC COUNCIL
lines than economic or political relations {ihid.)"*; but in spite of such
inconsistencies, the relationship between music structure and non
musical aspects of culture romains a basic problem in ethnomusicology.
Decision-making in musical change
Music structures cannot be explained with reference to other cultural
phenomena, however, unless it is understood that the relations between
them are not causal. Musical change, for example, is not “‘cansed’’ by
“contact among people and cultures” or the “movement of popula-
tions’ (Nett! 1964:232): it is brought about by decisions made by indi-
viduals about music-making and music on the basis of their experiences.
of music and attitudes to it in different social contexts. The importance
of intentionality in group expression is well illustrated by Ruth Katz's
(1970) careful analysis of the singing of Aleppo Jews in Israel, where the
younger generation developed “mannerisms” in their performance of
traditional music; “dedicated to the preservation of a minority tradi-
tion” and “resistance to acceptance of majority group culture’’, they
exaggerated and embellished “those elements of traditional culture by
means of which the majority [identified] the minority and the minority
[came] to identify itself (Katz, 1970:469}.""
Similarly, because of the variety and complexity of situations in which
people make decisions about what and how they will sing, several
assumptions abyut innovation and acculturation must be questioned.
For example, it cannot be assumed that the more complex styles gener-
ally influence the simpler ones. Not only may factors of political domi-
nation and social resistance be critical, but the notion of “complex’’ and
“‘simple”’ in the assessment of musical styles is meaningless unless we
know what and who exactly has been involved in their production
(Blacking 1973:33 ff. and 116). Again, if Helen Roberts found the
greatest internal variation in melody in one culture, whilst Kolinski
found that melodic changes are most striking in a situation of culture
contact (Merriam £964;309-310), we have no grounds to assume that
melody is less resistant to change than, say, tempo and pitch, unless we
know the social contexts in which those decisions were made. Melody is
a product of human decisions about the selection and tse of acoustic and
physiological elements, and the significance of the musical variations
cannot be assessed without knowledge of their conceptual base: **dif-
ferent” melodies may be regarded by singers as the same, or their
differences may arise from non-musical factors, such as changes in
words or social function, and their intervals be selected according to
their relationship with other music in the society (Blacking 1967}. But
knowledge of the conceptual base alone is not enough to explain the
choice of melodies ina given number of performances: the knowledge is
relevant only in so far as it is used in the course of social interaction, in
which different goals and values are brought into play.
Because every case of musical change presupposes a critical moment
of cognitive change, it becomes necessary to locate when the change
takes place. This poses a special problem for the analyst, because theBLACKING THEORY AND METHOD IN MUSICAL CHANGE / 13
moment of conscious change, in which individuals make a decision to
move in a different direction, may have been preceded by a period of
latency, in which there is a gradual feeling towards change, and soit may
be necessary to study musical events over a considerable period of time,
in order to get the right perspective. From a purely practical point of
view, there are conflicting needs to study a musical system both inten-
sively in its social context and at various stages of its evolution.
This is well illustrated by Irvine and Sapir's exceltent article (1976) on.
“Musical Style and Social Change among the Kujamaat Diola,” Lam not
sure whether or not this is an example of musical change or 9 description
of part ofa period of latency, especially as the authors state that changes
in scales and voice range ‘‘are only quantitative changes in statistical
frequencies, rather than qualitative changes (op. cit.:77),"’ and that one
musical form discussed is so ‘‘susceptible to fashion and innovation”
that *‘a new rhythmic line” may become “popular for a month or two,
but never for more than a year {op. cit.:69)."” But for the sake of
argument shalt take its a case of musical change and ignore a number
of other problems that arise from their analysis, in order to focus on the
problem of locating the change in musical decision-making. The authors
describe how “informants” notions of “old-fashioned” and ‘‘new™
song styles correspond to actual musical changes perceptible to the
analyst (op. cit.:81)" ina series of recordings made in [960 and 1964-65:
“these musical changes are similar in kind, indicating a consistent trend
toward differentiation and individual display,” and “this trend can be
related to ongoing changes in Kujamaat social structure (hid.),"’ and in
particular to changes in the relationships between participants in a
musical event, If there was musical change, how can the analyst find out
precisely when and how the crucial decisions were made? Might it only
have been possible by continuous fieldwork between 1960 and 1965?
Were they, in fact, made before 1960 and only beginning to take effect in
that year? Or had they not even been made by 1965, so that any changes
were at the level of behaviour, rather than action? This last possibility is
not ruted out by the informants’ statements. because their concepts of
“new” and ‘‘old-fashioned’” may have been a function of a particular
time-perspective in relation to ideas about fashion in music: what might
their judgements of the same or simitar music have been in, say, 1956
and 1969?
The problems inherent in the study by Irvine and Sapir recall that any
analysis of musical change depends on hindsight and historical perspec-
tive. (As soon as the ‘purists’ were able to perceive a lamentable
change ina music tradition, there was realty nothing they could do about
it!) Wachsmann’s understanding (1958) of the processes of musical
change over a hundred years in Uganda, depended on a careful analy:
of past events as much as Rhodes’s study (1958) on the diffusion of the
opening peyote song and Béhague’s account (1973) of twenty-five years
of “‘change’’ in Brazilian urban popular music, though Béhague's study
is primarily concerned with variations of text and timbre within a broad
musical style. The initiation of the process, however, can be described
as a musical change and given a date: bossa nova emerged in 1958-59, it14/1977 YEARBOOK OF THE INTERNATIONAL FOLK MUSIC COUNCIL,
“revolutionized” the Brazilian popular music scene (Béhague 1973:211)
by transforming the samba, and the release of the first major bossa nove
album, Joao Gilberto’s “Chega de Saudade™*, in March 1959, set in
motion a chain of musicul. social and literary events. The significance of
some of these events was not always clear at the time even to the
participants, but a distance of nearly a decade allows Béhague to put
them in perspective (op. cit.:214).
The year or two that is normally allowed for fieldwork in eth-
nomusicology rarely provides opportunities for observing musical
change and the sequences of decision-making that lead to it, and yet
studies of music history can be misleading without the microscopic data
that can only be obtained by intensive study of the cuttural and social
context of music-making. Frank Harrison (1972), explores the implica-
tions of this dilemma in his wide-ranging essay on **Music and Cult: The
Functions of Music in Sociat and Religious Systems.”’ He shows how a
long view of musical history can give different estimates of musical
significance and change: for example, Palestrina became the victim ‘tof
an historical dead end”. if we think "of what actually happened in the
sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, not of the retrospective
evaluations of musicologists and pedagogues (up. cit.:323-4),”” who later
used his music to teach counterpoint. At the same time, the long view
can distort analysis of the processes of musical change: thus Harrison
argues:
AU no time in the course of the Tiurgical contruversies of the Reformation anu
Counter Reformation were yuestions of musical usage discussed on the basis of strch
criteria as suitability, adaptabifity or availability. ‘They wese treated only in the light
of nonmusical sanctions of a religious or social Character. This raises the question of
the meaning and usefiriness of common historical stylistic terms like Renaissance,
mannerist, and Baroque. Are these true entities, or are they merely concepts im-
posed much later. as the result of incomplete study of behavior whose criteria were
Primarily social and religious (op. cit. :320)7"
Non-Musical Factors and Folk Views in Musical Change
We return full circle to the perennial problems, in studies of musical
change. of the analyst’s perception of events and the importance of the
non-musical in the search for the essentially musical. There will always
be sume distortion of past events—and every case of musical change is
by definition a past event—because they are perceived in the light of the
exigencies of the present. The distortion is legitimate in so far as re-
search into the past is relevant only for the making of the future, and
provided that its ultimate concern is for humanity and not only a limited
section of mankind. Even if the analyst cannot exactly share the experi-
ence (hat he studies, at least he can remember that it is experienced with
the same kind of body that he possesses. Intuitive scientific thinking is
particularly appropriate in matters musical, because music reflects what
Gregory Bateson calls the “algorithms of the heart (Bateson 1973: 112;
see also Clynes 1974 and 1977).” It may be possible to tune into an alien
musical expression without having to acquire all the cultural clutter of
which it is a part, and perhaps through the music to gain a deeper
understanding of some of the principles on which the social and cultural
exnericnee of its mitkers is forded,BLACKING THEORY AND MFTHOD (N MUSICAL CHANGE / 15
Intensive studies of decision-making and of non-musical factors re-
lated to musical performance may reveal more of the processes of
musical continuity and change than historical studies that can only
pinpoint trends and significant dates rather than the antecedent social
processes. Many studies of musical change are not really about music or
change. though they are about aspects of social and musical life that may
ultimately bring about, or have already brought about, musical change.
Ina recent number of Hilmomusicoiogy, Douglas Midget writes on
“Performance Roles and Musical Change in a Caribbean Society."” I
agree with his conclusions, but consider that he is not describing musical
change. Nevertheless, this kind of study may lead to # better under-
standing of musical change. Midget concludes from his eaamination of
the La Rose performance
“that the issues of continuity and change in this tradition are not opposed. nat
contradictory phenomena requiring some tortured explanation. For when one ex-
amines the structarc of performance and the role of the side 7, it becomes clear that
regular and consistent change, through the mventive integration of varius musical
influences, is indicative of the continuation of the tradition |1977: 71)"
The innovations reported as changes strike me as being completely
within the traditional structure of the musical system. and therefore not
examples of change but of innovative variation. A “dialectical relation-
ship between continuity and change” (éid.) is not the characteristic of
musical change, but of music itself. Music is the art of flexible non-
change: when Robert F. Thompson observes that *‘call-and-response is
a means of putting innovation and (radition, invention and initiation,
into amicable relationships with one another (Thompson 1966:98,
quoted by Midgett, ihid.),” he is not writing about musical change, but
about a feature of African music that epitomizes the essential charac-
teristics of the art as a dynamic link between the biological and cultural
attributes of the species, and apprehends the role of music and dance in
its evolutionary adaption. Judith Hanna is surely making the same point
when she writes of “the continuity of change’ in African dance (1973),
as is also Lawrence McCullough, when he concludes that
“style in traditional trish music, though guided by certain conventions, is not per
ceived by traditional musicians asa rigid. static set of rules that must be dogmatically
or slavishly followed. It is, instead. a flexible. context-scnsitive medium throug’
which an individual's musical expression can be given a form and substance that will
invest his performance with communicative values (1977:97).”
What Midgett defines as musical change, McCullough describes as
changing features of a style. “Styles of traditional [rish music are
continually undergoing change’’, but a “new” styte. though distinct, is
“never entirely divorced from its predecessors or contemporaries (op.
cit.:96)."" Thus, it might be argued that the differences between the
innovations described by Midget and the changing styles of traditional
Trish music are matters only of degree and not of kind, and in a sense this
is correct. Nevertheless, untit we know more about the nature of music.
is
aline has to be drawn somewhere between continuous change within a
style and a change of style, provided that these distinctions are consi-
dered significant by those who participate in the music. [t seems that
Midpett’s informants consider that the 1a Rose singing tradition has not1611977 YEARBOOK QF THE INTERNATIONAL POLK MUSIC COUNCIL
changed signilicantly for 150-200 years (Midgett 1977:56), whereas [rish
musicians consider that their styles have changed. The difficulty of
reconciling folk views of change with what might be established as a
statisical norm was emphasized to me recently when a distinguished
trish fiddler insisted that the performance of any traditional music on
electronic instruments was a far more fundamental, and quite unaccept-
able, change than the introduction of the fiddle in lreland might have
been over three centuries ago. Such judgements are critically important,
because they reveal concepts of music and of change that make it
possible to distinguish what changes are specifically musical ina society
and how they may be related to other kinds of change.
Folk views can, and should. be compared with the kind of objective
measurements that can be made with melographs (cf. Katz 1970) and
aural transcriptions of tape recordings, particularly when different eth-
nic groups or classes make different judgements about what seems to be
the same music, or the same judgements about different music. If folk
views are to be taken as primary data in determining the houndaries of
music whose change is said to constitute musical change, then the social
boundaries of the folk who hold the views are as significant as the
musical categories that they are assessing. This dimension is missing
trom Mark Stobin's comprehensive study of Music in the Culture of
Northern Afghanistan (1976); although he takes Barth's work on ethnic
boundaries as a puint of departure and emphasizes the “ethnic perspec-
tive’. he does not always accept that folk views represent social or
musical reality. For example, he writes that ‘“a certain confusion about
the identity of Turkestan can be detected among native informants,
some of whom group Turkestan together with Katagan against Badax-
San, while others see Katagan and BadaxSan as a unit distinguished from
Turkestan (1976:18}). This is exactly what one would expect, and [
suggest that there may be ve “confusion” among the author's infor-
mants, that their different responses depend on who they are and in what
situations they are responding to the question, and that ‘‘this problem’?
is a problem for Slobin and ethnomusicologists, but not his informants
(Blacking 1976a).
Similarly, the boundaries of music traditions must be established if
change is to be assessed in the musics of Ireland and St. Lucia. If we
consider Irish traditional music and its practitioners in the context of
Irish suciety, they constitute one of a number of classes of music and
music-making, and can then be compared to the La Rose tradition in the
context of St. Lucia society. The different styles of Irish music could he
given the same status as the innovations in the La Rose trac a
Sociologically, find this more acceptable, and musicologically it is
supported by the fact that the styles of tradilional Irish music share very
much the same repertoire of melodies and may be regarded in the same
way as the dialects of a single language.
The analogy from language may help us to understand the compara-
tive autonomy of musical changes, though I do not suggest that they
operate in the same way as language. New dialects can develop with
remarkable speed, and the mass media have rapidly ironed out many ofBLACKING THEORY AND METHOD IN MUSICAL CHANGE / 17
the variations in speech that depended on class or area of origin, but
languages generally change much more slowly than other cultural
phenomena, and there are no necessarily one-to-one relationships bet-
ween languages and cultures, as is illustrated by the variety of cultures
of English- and German-speaking peoples and the common cuftures
shared by the speakers of different Chinese languages. Furthermore, the
analogy of dialect emphasizes the variety that is acceptable within the
boundaries of a single language without resort to the notion of change.
and raises the problem: when does a dialect become a different lan-
guage? The musics of Bartok, Sibelius, and Kodaly (who to my ears
often sounds very like Vaughan-Williams) are like local dialects, but
they did not change the musical language (o the same extent as Debussy
or Webern, Similarly, the development of the concerto and symphony
involved a number of musical changes, but each of Beethoven's sym-
phonies does not constitute a musical change—though perbaps a good
case can be made for the Ninth. In fact, one of the interesting features “f
the ‘‘new”’ works of most composers ts that they door change. so much
as explore and extend ideas with the original set of rules that bore the
stamp of the composer's personal style. Finally, one of the criteria of
language distinction is mutual comprehensibility, as recognized by the
speakers themselves rather than the grammarians, and a similar criter-
ion may be borne in mind for music. In 1959, | found it significant that
rural Zulu farm-workers should respond positively to Venda songs in the
modern idiom, though they did not know the language and had not been
toschool, while they were totally indifferent to Venda traditional music.
Similarly, South African Freedom Songs had an appeal to people who
did not understand the words, because the music “‘spoke’* of a new
South African Society. (Cf. the way in which Brazilian popular music
cuts across ethnic lines, as described in Béhague 1973:209,)
Towards a Comprehensive and Definitive Study of Musical Change
LT hope I have made it clear why musical change deserves serious
attention as a comparatively autonomous area of study. The concept of
change requires further clarification, and we may indeed ask why we
should study a normal and natural process, particularly when the most
remarkable feature of culture is non-change—in fact, a subject for
urgent rescarch in modern industrial societies is the almost lethal con-
servatism of institutions and retention of discredited ideas. Since there
is no such thing as a truly static society, any model of socicty, let alone of
change, must of needs be a processual model. Thus if we are going to
distinguish an analytic category of “‘change’’, it really must be some-
thing more than exible variation, though a radical change does not
necessarily have to be synonymous with a revolution. To qualify as
musical change, the phenomena described must constitute a change in
the structure of the musical system, and not simply a change within the
system. This does not mean that musical change may be studied only at
the grosser, macro-ievel. On the contrary, careful attention to the con-
stant micro-variations within the system is essential, because these mayIR | 1977 YEARBOOK OF THE INTERNATIONAL FORK MUSIC COUNCIL
reveal the germs of change. But although the preparations for change
may be gradual and spread over a whole community, the observable
change itself will probably be sudden and must be precipitated by
individual decisions. For example, the first locomotive was considera-
bly slower than a horse-drawn carriage, but its appearance marked a
radical change in transport that had far-reaching implications and could
not be regarded simply as an extension of the carriage.
I hope that it is now clear why I consider that most changes of
repertory, many examples of changes of style, and even cases of accur
turation. may not be significant as musical change. [t should be apparent
that [ wanta more restricted concept of musical change than Brung Nettl
(1964:230-238), but [also want to apply it more widely, 1 do not wish to
regard change “‘in traditional music" as ‘ta phenomenon substantially
different from change in a high culture (Nett! 1964:230).”” but seek a
theory of musical change that may be universally applied.
Although studies of musical change must inevitably focus on observ-
able phenomena that are regarded as musical by different groups of
people, the aim of such studies must be to understand the musical
processes that gencrate these music products. Thus we should perhaps
select as areas of study not particular musical styles but the musical and
social experience of commu 's who make and hear music. Even if
musical styles are selected for study, the social context in which musical
change is being analysed must first be specified. The categories and
intentions of music-makers and audience, and their social groupings,
provide the first clues to discovering whether what the observer hears is
considered musical. and whether it is really changing. The first consid-
erations must be: Who makes the music? With whom and for whom is it
made? What other music do people make and regard as their own? What
do people dvar, and what meanings do different individuals and groups
assign to it?
‘The first stage in any study of musical change, therefore, requires a
synchronic perspective, in which the activities and boundaries of the
musical community are investigated, in order to ascertain the norms of
the practitioners and to determine what aspects of action are regarded 2s
“‘musical’’. The accounts of changes in music in St. Lucia and Ireland
(Midgett 1977 and McCullough 1977. resp.) illustrate the need to con-
sider folk views of the social context of music-making before comparing
diferent processes of music change, and show how it is possible, by
relating musical variations, innovations and changes to the scale of the
societies in which they occur, to include **folk”’ and “tart” music in a
single theory of musical change. The different styles of trish music can
be given the same analytical status as the innovations in the La Rose
tradition
No study of musical change is possible without a diachronic perspec
tive. Every case of musical change presupposes a historical process and
a critical moment of cognitive change, but because the moment of
conscious change, in which individuals decide to move in a different
direction, may have been preceded by a period of latency, in which there
is a gradual feeling towards change. it may be necessary to study eventsBLACKING THEORY AND METHOD IN MUSICAL CHANGE } 19
related to music over a considerable period of time. From a purely
practical point of view, there are the conflicting needs to study a musical
system both intensively in its social context and at various stages of its
evolution. This problem was illustrated by the work of Irvine and Sapir
(1976) on the influences of social changes on musical style among the
Kujamaat Diola of Senegal.
All cases of musical change must be considered from both synchronic
and diachronic perspectives, and always in their social context. Partly
as a summary of the argument in this paper, and partly as a basis for
further discussion, I propose a list of some situations in which musical
change may be found. This is designed as a focus for investigation, and is
not intended as a series of definitions.
To ascertain whether they are changes of the musical system, or
innovations and acculturations within the system. folk views on the
music must be related to people's definitions of the musical community.
For example, if a young Venda is confronted with two items of “new™
music, one of which is a beer song in Venda and the other an urban song
with Zulu or Sotho words, her categorization of “new” must be corre-
lated with her identification of social context and her own relationship to
it. (It is assumed that by **new"’ is meant “new ina known context.) IF
she regards both items as part of her social world, then the former is an
innovation and the latter a case of musical change. If she regards only
the fatter as part of her social world, then it is an innovation.
in order to identify musical change, it is necessary to distinguish
between innovations within a musical system and changes of the sys~
tem. Such distinctions can only be properly made by relating variations
in musical processes and products tv the perceptions and patterns of
interaction of those who use the music, Musical change cannot take
place in a social vacuum.
These provisions apply to all instances listed below?
1. Anaudible change in the norms of performance tat is recognized
as such by performers and audience, and is not merely a variation or a
new item in an established style, or a new style in a tradition that
incorporates stylistic variation. Such changes are precipitated by a
variety of factors, most of which are extra-musical. For example:
a, New music is developed by a member or an associate of a
performing group. (A composer can be described as ‘‘an associate" in
that he usually has types of performing groups in mind, if not known
performers.)
b. Anew social institution is adopted by members of a group, and
with that institution comes a special style of music associated with and
necessary for the continuation of the institution.
c. New music is borrowed from outside and incorporated in or
adapted for members of a performing group.
d_ Social change brings contact with other groups, who have dif-
ferent music. Depending on the nature of the contact situation and/or
responses to the new sounds, music will be borrowed, reproduced, or
syncretized with existing forms, or musicians will be hired to play it20 | 1977 YEARBOOK OF THE INTERNATIONAL FOLK MUSIC COUNCIL.
2. A combination of social factors, such as a tradition of profes-
sional musicians, the expansion of radio programmes, and a growth of
national feeling, can precipitate a burst of individual creativity. See, for
example, Baily’s account (1977) of the rapid development of the
fourteen-stringed detar and the increase of musical activity in Herat,
Afghanistan, and Merriam’s account of the Flathead ceremonial dan-
cers (Merriam 1967:140-46),
2. An audible change in the norms of performance that is not
categorized as such by performers and audience, and is not classed as an
exceptional variation, but is considered significant by an external ob-
server, chiefly as a result of objective measurement. This may be due (o
the performers* wish to classify new sounds ina traditional way, or to
listening habits which make people deaf to changes (as with eth-
nomusicologists’ first transcriptions of an unfamitiar musical idiom).
For example, Venda Christians said they were singing European hymns
in the European way, and the German Lutheran missionaries were
convinced that they were being sung exactly as (aught, but in fact the
Venda frequently applied transformations of traditional Venda techni-
ques of harmonization to the German melodies.
3. A technical development in a musical instrument or music-
producing device. which may be made for purely technical or commer-
cial reasons and even without concern for any musical consequences.
‘4, A change in the technique of producing music that is not heard in
the musical praduct. As with (5) and (6) below, this may be the first step
towards audible changes in the musical product. For instance, a musi-
cian may finger a passage in an unconventional way, and this may
suggest extensions of the samc idea to the point of producing new music
and a new performance style. (Wachsmann’s case of changed technique
in playing the Sebei lyre [ 1958: 54-44] belongs tol] because itis audible.)
5. A change in the conceptualization of existing music which may or
may not be accompanied by a change of technique, butis not necessarily
accompanied by any noticeably audible change. This is most frequently
encountered in the reinterpretation of written scores. I suspect that, on
closer analysis, any change in the conceptualization of music will prove
to be reflected in performance. For example, Horowitz's interpretation
of Liszt's B minor Piano Sonata in 1977 took three minutes longer than
the 1932 version.
6. Achange in the social use, but not in techniques of performance, of
a particular musical style or genre, which may or may not be accom-
panied by changes in altitude to the music and in recruitment of perfor-
mers and audiences (e.g., Merriam 1967: 156-57).
7. A transformation of the music-making process. This is similar to
(5) but goes beyond the realm of action to behaviour, and thus incorpo-
rates biological and psychological factors that are not yet fully under-
stood, Thus I can give no concrete examples, but only conjectures.
Supposing certain musical activities involve the right hemisphere of the
brain more than the left (Critchley and Henson 1977, especially Ch. 9),a
change to predominantly left-hemisphere musical activities could either
- Vet he ohamens in nthor non-misical activitiesBLACKING THEORY AND METHOD IN MUSICAL CHANGE / 23
or by a surfeit of predominantly right-hemisphere musical activities.
Three basic behavioural concepts are assumed: (a) that adaptive be-
haviour of organisms promotes homeostasis and a balance of parts: (b)
that the innate capabilities available for music-making, which may or
may not be specific to music, are rarely, if ever, fully used; and (c) that
transformations of emphasis and in application of musical abilities are
possible. These three concepts can be reformulated from the level of
action (cf. 5 above), andas such can be used either in conjunction with or
independently of their behavioural analogues. Thus (a) human com-
munities come into being, and survive as communities, by sharing
patterns of thought and interaction {that is, cultures} and striving for
homeostasis and balance between their interrelated institutions and
ideas; (b) the culturally given processes of thought and interaction
available for the production of music are rarely. if ever, fully used in a
single composition or style of music; and (c) the use of music-making
processes, as cognitive sub-systems in a culture, is not necessarily
restricted to making music, and in turn other cognitive sub-systems
more commonly associated with, say, kinship, economics or certain
pames, may be used to make music. [ prefer to consider the levels of
Both behaviour and action, but I appreciate that many researchers may
wish to exclude the behavioural, on the grounds that (vo many biological
unknowns are involved, and that although music uses the body and often
moves it deeply, it is at the cognitive/conceptual/ mental leve! that it is
given meaning in human society. Examples of transformations of the
Tusic-making process would be: application of the processes of
music-making (as systems of cognitive procedures) to producing poetry,
painting, religious ritual, architecture, or weaving. and vice versa,
This seventh situation invokes a third perspective, which hitherto has
not been considered, and which links analyses of synchronic and dia-
chronic action by seeking the behavioural constraints that may motivate
action, or in relation to which action is taken.
‘This third perspective is biological.
All musical behaviour and action must be seen in relation to their
adaptive function in an evolutionary context, whether this limited to
their functions within the adaptive mechanisms of different cultures, or
extended to their functions in biosocial evolution.
] maintain that music comes into being as a situational extension of the
maturational ritualization found in many social animals. It emerged as a
distinctive form of human behaviour when the biological processes
involved in its production were selected because of their superior eff
ciency as nonverbal communication to promote cooperative and ¢x-
ploratory behaviour. Song and dance preceded speech in the evolution of
homo sapiens by tens of thousands of years, so that musical processes
provided some of the earliest and most basic elements of human systems
‘of thought and action.
Music is nos, therefore, an optional relish that can be afforded only
when there is an economic surplus: it is one of the essential foundations
of human society. Though in many cultures music has been part of the
cumarctenietire af society. and in some sections of modern industrial22/1977 YEARBOOK OF THE INTERNATIONAL FOLK MUSIC COUNCIL,
societies, its production has become almost entirely mental labour, the
biological foundations of music are always there as part of the infra-
structure of society. Thus, the forces of the musical process inherent
in any human provide a basic motivation for both social and musical
change. Music can bridge the gulf between the true state of human being
and the predicament of particular human beings in a given society, and
especially the alienation that springs from the class struggle and human
exploitation. One might therefore expect that musical change would be
best understood in Marxist terms; and indeed, as an object for use and at
the level of action, a Marxist framework provides a useful approach. But
a strictly Marxist analysis cannot penetrate the subjective nature of
music as a special form of nonverbal communication, and of the musical
Process as a means of generating special forms of human cooperation
and conceptual thought that are presupposed by cooperation in
economic production (See Blacking 1976b and 1977.)
This is why even in industrialized societies, the changing forms of
music may express the true nature of the predicament of peaple before
they have begun to express it in words and political action. In South
Africa Black consciousness was expressed in music many years before
it emerged as a serious focus of political activity, Theusic of the South
African Freedom Songs of the carly 1950s, for example, was well ahead
of the political action of the time. The music was black music, and it
resonated with all rural and urban Africans, regardless of ethnic group
and language, but the politics of the time were liberal and multi-tacial. it
was not for many years that black South Africans appreciated the fact
that they could not hope for justice from whites, and that to be political
and effective in the South African situation it was necessary to be
anti-white.
Chanees in the cognitive and social organization of musical activities
and attitudes may signify or herald far-reaching changes in society that
outweigh the significance of the musical changes. Musical change is
important to watch because, owing to the deep-rooted nature of music, it
may precede and forecast other changes in society. It is like a stage of
feeling tawards a new order of things.
Wilfred Owen said that all a poet can do is to warn. Music is the
supreme poetry of the heart, and the algorithms of the heart may tell us
more than any words about the conscience and consciousness of a
nation or a community. People’s gropings towards real change happen
first in the arts, provided they are not controlled, and music in particular
(as distinct from and words that may accompany it) can be a most
powerful indication of where a society is going. As language changes
reflect changes in the conscious interaction of people and changing
thoughts about with whom to communicate and about relationships to
the environment, so musical change may both reflect and affect chang-
ing areas of collective feeling. Music is a primary adaptation to environ-
ment: with music, mankind may feel across boundaries; while with
language, decisions are made about boundaries
In an article on the diffusion of the opening peyote song, WillardBLACKING THEORY AND METHOD IN MUSICAL CHANGE / 23
Rhodes invoked a number of generalizations about music which, though
not yet substantiated, go to the heart of the matter. He claimed:
~'2. ‘The ready acceptance and popularity of the songs are in part « result aff the
nature of music and man’s psycho-physical receptivisy ta it
3. This psycho- physical receptivity és associated with what, for lack of more
knowledge, we call anaesthetic inprdse and man’s curiosity or interest in novelty.
4. The same psychological principles operative in the re-creation of secular music
are found also in the singing of peyote songs . . .
8. Music, chaied one of the most intangible, laid and snaticable artistic expres-
sions of man .is ane of the mast persistent elements in his culture and least subject (9
change in its basic structure and forms (1958:48; italics mined."
Most of my paper has been no more than a re-emphasis of these and
other points made by Rhodes over twenty years ago. And yet such
fundamental issues in the study of musical change have not been fol-
lowed up with detailed analyses of social and musical data. Moreover,
we need much more data on the cognitive processes involved at all levels
in both the social and musical aspects of music-making, before we can
locate the critical moments of cognitive change that constitute musical
change, We have studies of unique cultural processes, such as
Anderson’s (1968) analysis of modes in Ganda music. And we have
attempts to understand the universal nature of music asa unique product
of the human mind by Lindblom and Sundberg (1970), Nattiez (1975),
Harwood (1976), Laske (1975 and 1976), and others. Untit the particular
and the general can be satisfactorily reconciled in a theory of music and
music-making that identifies the specifically musical processes and their
patterns of interaction with other processes in the production of music,
it will not be possible to understand the nature of musical change. But at
the same time, changes in the patterns of music sounds and people's
perceptions and evaluation of these changes, are vital evidence in de-
veloping a theory of music and music-making.
The study of musical change is not only interesting because music
reflects the deeper sources and meanings of social and cultural con-
tinuity and change; it is of vital concern to the future of individuals and
societies because, it may reveal not only how people have changed their
music, but also how, through the medium of music. people can change
themselves in unexpected ways.
INote: Fam most grateful to Bruno Nettl and Alexander Ringer, and to colleagues in my
department, for constructive criticisms of an earlier draft of this paper. They are in no way
responsible for its failings, but have contrituted to any improvements that might be
perceived.]
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