One major debate in ethnomusicology is regarding if there are "universals", or in other words universal standards that could be held common to all mankind existing regarding music. Although McAllester does not believe in universals on grounds of "human variability and complexity", he claims that there are near-universals that are near enough for purposes of studying ethnomusicology and the musics of different populations, as axioms. According to McAllester, one such near-universal is that music always seems to have a definite resemblance of a start and end, a technique or form across all cultures. However, one very important near-universal, he claims, is that music transforms one's experience: that it is out of the ordinary and carries one "into another state of being." McAllester calls music "an actualization of the mystical experience for everybody" and citing one of
Abraham Maslow's psychological research which McAllester heard via way of ear, McAllester explains that music and sex had come across as the most frequent peak experiences. Another major debate in ethnomusicology is regarding if ethnomusicologists should be equally as disciplined in
anthropology and
musicology, whether they should give weight to one or the other, or be specialized in certain subfields of these sciences. McAllester, while talking about Navajo music, says:"Melodic line and phrasing, meter, pitch, and scale have been reserved for highly trained musicologists, few of whom have been interested in cultural applications. The unfortunate result of this specialization and the feeling that one must have "talent" to study music has been a general abdication from this field by social scientists, even to the extent that the most elementary questions about attitudes toward music have often remained unasked."Evidently, McAllester claims that too much specialization in ethnomusicology only hinders the scope of ethnomusicology as a field and reduces the diversity of research questions asked. Ideally, ethnomusicologists should have a broad and diverse set of skills while performing research, in order to account for different aspects and categories of a culture, as the culture and music of a peoples is very often intertwined. This belief was evident in his studies, such as with the Navajo people, where he often incorporated cultural aspects in explaining his observations. These aspects ranged from examining shifting
traditional roles in different-aged Navajo people, to
sex roles, and the
values of the Navajo as a whole. == External links ==