Cultural Area

A music area is a cultural area defined according to musical activity, and may or may not conflict with the cultural areas assigned to a given region. Bruno Nettl (p. 142-143) divides the world into three large music areas, each containing a "cultivated" or Classical Musics "that are obviously its most complex musical forms," with, nearby, Folk styles which interact with the cultivated, and, on the perimiter, Primitive styles:

Europe and Sub-Saharan Africa

---based on shared Isometric materials, Diatonic Scale s, and Polyphony based on Parallel Third s, Fourths , and Fifths .

North Africa , Southwest Asia , South Asia , and Indonesia .

---based on shared small Intervals in Scales , Melodies , and polyphony.

American Indian , East Asia , Northern Siberian , and Finno-Ugric Music

---based on shared large Step s in Pentatonic and Tetratonic scales.

However, he then adds that "the world-wide development of music must have been a unified process in which all peoples participated," and that one finds similar tunes and traits in puzzlingly isolated or separated locations throughout the world.

SOURCE

Nettl, Bruno (1956). ''Music in Primitive Culture''. Harvard University Press.

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Cultural Area