Some Thoughts on "Universals" in World Music
Some Thoughts on "Universals" in World Music
复制标题
关于世界音乐“普遍性”的一些思考
DOI：
10.2307/850637
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发表时间：
1971
期刊：
影响因子：
0.7
通讯作者：
D. McAllester
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
D. McAllester
我们自己的作品首先引起了我们的兴趣，我们和下一个男人一样，对独特的、迷人的、异国情调的作品做出反应。自然，我们的大部分话语都致力于音乐之间的差异，但我们花了太多时间在这些差异上，这些差异来自世界各地，有时甚至来自我们自己的后院，我们不禁想知道，是否也存在着巨大的共性。在1970年11月的学会年会上，关于普遍性的全体会议试图从最广泛的角度考虑这些相似性。我们在各种各样的会议上聚在一起，因为我们有共同的兴趣，我们一刻也不怀疑这种兴趣就是“音乐”，不管它是如何定义的，也不管它源于什么文化。关于我们的一件奇怪的事情是，作为一个社会，我们是多么的多样化：我们是由人类学家、民族学家、民俗学家、舞蹈家、舞蹈民族志学家、语言学家、社会学家组成的，我甚至还没有开始列举我们中间的音乐家和音乐学者，他们占了我们人数的大部分。当我们聚在一起时，有时我们会想到我们真正的共同点是什么。如果有些音乐元素无处不在，那么这些就是我们所分享的。对这些因素的敏锐认识对于帮助我们作为一个群体了解我们自己是有价值的。首先，让我大胆地提出这样的观点：音乐中可能没有绝对的“共性”。我这么说只是基于人类的可变性和复杂性。任何研究人类的人都知道，在某个地方，有人正在做一种他称之为音乐的东西，但没有人会给它起这个名字。这一个例外足以消除一个真正普遍存在的可能性。但我认为有很多近共相，尽管这个词自相矛盾，但对于我们的目的来说，近共相已经足够了。如果几乎每个人都这样做，我就很满意了。我只会提到其中的一些，然后再讲我最感兴趣的一个。几乎所有地方都有某种主音的感觉，某种音乐的调性中心。音乐几乎在任何地方都形成了一种趋势。不管它的条件是什么，它似乎要去某个地方，还有快乐
and our own that captured our interest in the first place and we, as well as the next man, respond to the unique, the fascinating, the exotic. It follows naturally that much of our discourse is devoted to the differences between musics, but we spend so much of our time on these differences, brought to us from every corner of the world, and sometimes from our own backyards, that we can't help wondering if there are not also great overruling similarities. The plenary session on universals at the November, 1970, annual meeting of the Society was an attempt to consider these similarities in the broadest perspective. We are drawn together at our various kinds of meetings because we share an interest and we do not doubt for a moment that this interest is "music," however it is defined and whatever the culture from which it derives. One of the odd things about us is how heterogeneous we are as a Society: we are made up of anthropologists, ethnologists, folklorists, dancers, dance ethnographers, linguists, sociologists, and I haven't even begun to enumerate the musicians and the scholars of music among us, who constitute the greater part of our numbers. When we are assembled, it sometimes occurs to us to ask what we really have in common. If there are elements of music that are found everywhere, then these are what we share. A sharpened awareness of such elements could be valuable in helping us understand ourselves as a group. Let me venture the opinion, first, that there are probably no absolute "universals" in music. I say this simply on the grounds of human variability and complexity. Any student of man must know that somewhere, someone is doing something that he calls music but nobody else would give it that name. That one exception would be enough to eliminate the possibility of a real universal. But I think there are plenty of near-universals and, even though such a term contradicts itself, a near-universal is near enough for our purposes. I will be satisfied if nearly everybody does it. I will just mention some of these and then go on to the one that interests me the most. Almost everywhere there is some sense of the tonic, some kind of a tonal center in music. Almost everywhere music establishes a tendency. It seems to be going somewhere, whatever its terms are, and the joy