'Are'are Classification of Musical Types and Instruments

T he 'Are'are people of Malaita (Solomon Islands) perceive twenty musical types with variants which they classify in four categories of unequal size: 'au, 'o'o, nuuha and kiroha.2 No general label unites these categories. This is by no means unique: probably more languages in the world have no terminological equivalent for what the westerner calls music. Music-in the modern western academic sense-is no more a universal concept than it is a universal language. The aim of this paper is to examine a folk classification which, besides its own interest, may give new insights into different aspects of musical thinking.3