'A Commonsense View of All Music': Reflections on Percy Grainger's Contribution to Ethnomusicology and Music Education

John Blacking

CUP Archive, Nov 24, 1989 - Music - 216 pages

Taking Grainger's views as his starting point and heading each chapter with a quotation from Grainger's writings, John Blacking restates and reflects upon observations and attitudes relevant to contemporary problems of ethnomusicology and music education. Professor Blacking discusses these issues in the light of his own research, musical experience and convictions.

Contents

• evolution: 1
• movement dance music: 51
• form: 71
• political and musical: 90
• music as work: 100
• Appendix A A Commonsense View of all Music: 151
• Appendix B Musical transcription by Percy: 181
• Bibliography: 187
• Notes on recordings: 194

About the author

John Blacking was born October 28, 1928, in Guilford, Surrey, England. With his family he moved to Salisbury, Wiltshire, at age three, where he received his early education and exposure to music at the Salisbury Cathedral Choir School. Blacking obtained a degree in archaeology and anthropology from Kings College Cambridge in 1953. He spent a large part of his life doing fieldwork in countries around the globe. In addition to being a well-known and well-respected professor of social anthropology and gaining professorships in England and Africa before eventually settling in the United States, Blacking was also an ethnomusicologist: He was interested in the relationship between music and biology, psychology, dance, and politics. He believed that making music is fundamental and universal to humans. Blanking stated that through music people express the human condition, transcend class boundaries, and improve the quality of life. He spent 22 months with the Venda people in South Africa. He wrote Venda Children's Songs (1967) based on this experience. Blacking's best known work is How Musical Is Man? (1973) Blacking died in 1990.

Bibliographic information

• Title: 'A Commonsense View of All Music': Reflections on Percy Grainger's Contribution to Ethnomusicology and Music Education
• Author: John Blacking
• Edition: illustrated, reprint, revised
• Publisher: CUP Archive, 1989
• ISBN: 0521319242, 9780521319249
• Length: 216 pages
• Subjects: Music / Ethnomusicology; Music / General; Music / Genres & Styles / Folk & Traditional; Music / Individual Composer & Musician; Music / Instruction & Study / Theory; Music / Religious / General