<P>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?"</P>

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

Preface to the 1998 EditionI. Introduction Africans1. Europeans and the Making of Music2. On the Ritual Performance3. Rituals for Survival I4. On Cultures and Their Fusion5. Styles of Encounter I6. On Values and Values7. Rituals for Survival II8 On Literacy and Nonliteracy9. Styles of Encounter II10. On Improvisation11. Styles of Encounter III12. On the Decline of a Music13. Styles and Rituals14. On Records and Rewards15. Styles of Encounter IV16. Confronting the Rational God17 Index