They weren’t interested in defining music, but in their questions, my friends divulged some of the criteria they ordinarily use by telling me what characteristics the activity and sounds they call “music” should have in order to be accepted as true and proper music. “Indians have only chants, not
music,” suggests that a certain level of complexity, as it is perceived by these listeners, is a necessary feature. What my friends colloquially called “chants” have only a few pitches and no harmony, and that kind of sound is not fully acceptable to them as music. Western urban society can conceive of music without a background of chords, or without two or more simultaneous sounds, but considers this texture as clearly exceptional. “Normal” music must have harmony, or at least some kind of rhythmic accompaniment. Here is another component in our exercise: Music must have certain traits in order to be acceptable, but some of them need be present only in the mainstream of a repertory. Minority repertories (e.g., traditional folk singing, Gregorian chant) in which they are absent are nevertheless accepted. In some societies the components are reversed. Thus, in certain Native American musics there were evidently some few songs that had harmony (Keeling 1992;Nettl 1961). While these were accepted as
part of the musical material of the culture, the use of harmony was not extended to the mainstream of what these peoples themselves called “Indian music.”