Understanding Music

The term music specifies, not merely performances or pieces, but an aesthetic framework, the result of creative activities that formalize sounds. The analysis of Oceanic music reaches out to many contexts, including rituals, ceremonies, sports, games, courtship, and entertainment. Analysis that would separate music from nonmusic according to indigenous theories has seldom occurred. Researchers simply use the term music for certain kinds of structured sounds, but the term is Western. The sounds for...