What is microtonal music: Difference between revisions

We must take care (when defining microtonality) not to indulge in the vulgar delusion that the Western world represents the aesthetic center of the universe. By calling "microtonal" all that which is non-Western, we subtly marginalize all musical culture other than Euro-North American musical culture. Not only is this unjust and unreasonable, it's stupid and ignorant. As sales of world music continue to skyrocket, it becomes ever clearer to music lovers in Europe and North America that the Western music tradition represents only a tiny fraction of the world's musical panorama. Non-western music offers vast beauties and amazing musical treasures, but we ought not to try to pigeonhole it as something defined by its opposition to Euro-American culture...since, after all, Western music remains by far the minority usage throughout the world. After all, well over 80% of the world's indigenous musical cultures politely refuse to use western tertian triadic harmony, decline to adhere to the Western belief in the harmonic series as the alleged basis of music, and pointedly rebut any application of mathematics or theory to their music. Indeed, as Jon Appleton has pointed out, most musical cultures throughout the world feel no need to explain or theorize about their music. Thus, many of the practices we Westerners consider essential to our music are not even found in the musical cultures of most other societies throughout the earth.

== Other terms used instead of "microtonal", or in addition to it ==