Book description
In clear and elegant prose, Music of the Common Tongue, first published
in 1987, argues that by any reasonable reckoning of the function of
music in human life the African American tradition, that which stems
from the collision between African and European ways of doing music
which occurred in the Americas and the Caribbean during and after
slavery, is the major western music of the twentieth century. In showing
why this is so, the author presents not only an account of African
American music from its origins but also a more general consideration of
the nature of the music act and of its function in human life. The two
streams of discussion occupy alternate chapters so that each casts light
on the other. The author offers also an answer to what the Musical Times
called the "seldom posed though glaringly obtrusive" question:
"why is it that the music of an alienated, oppressed, often
persecuted black minority should have made so powerful an impact on the
entire industrialized world, whatever the color of its skin or economic
status?" "A magnificent book about Afro-American music and
its impact on western culture." --Race and Class CHRISTOPHER
SMALL is also author of Musicking (1998), Music, Society Education
(1996), and Schoenberg (1978). Senior Lecturer at Ealing College of
Higher Education in London until 1986, he lives in Sitges, Spain
