Universals in Music: A Perspective from Cognitive Psychology

G eertz makes this whimsical point prior to a devastating critique of universalist theories and procedures of the last fifty years. Nonetheless, beings do notice similarities and differences between themselves and fellow humans. How to make sense, to describe and understand, this fact of man's world is one of the oldest and most profound of activities. Such description and explanation, in fact, are the core of modern anthropology, and so it is hardly surprising to find that ethnographers and ethnomusicologists have raised this issue of human universals with respect to our-the world's-musics. Perhaps somewhat less expected is the keen interest of contemporary cognitive psychologists in universal behavior, even in the musical domain.