John Blacking

John Blacking
Name	John Blacking
Birth date	13 November 1928
Birth place	London
Death date	20 March 1990
Death place	Leeds
Occupation	Ethnomusicologist, anthropologist, musician
Notable works	"How Musical Is Man?"

John Blacking was a British ethnomusicologist and social anthropologist whose work bridged fieldwork, theory, and music performance. He conducted influential research among musical communities in Central Africa, contributed to debates on the nature of music and human universals, and taught at major institutions in Britain and internationally. His ideas on music as social communication reshaped discussions in ethnomusicology, social anthropology, and musicology.

Early life and education

Born in London, Blacking studied piano and composition before moving into anthropology and ethnomusicology. He trained at the Royal Academy of Music and later read for degrees at King's College London and the University of London. Influenced by figures such as Franz Boas, Alan Lomax, Bronisław Malinowski, and Zygmunt Bauman, he combined musical practice with ethnographic methods developed in institutions like the British Museum and the School of Oriental and African Studies.

Career and academic positions

Blacking's academic career included posts at the University of Manchester, the University of London, and most notably the University of Edinburgh, where he helped establish ethnomusicology as an academic field. He worked with colleagues from the Royal Anthropological Institute, the Royal Society, and international centres such as the International Council for Traditional Music. Visiting appointments and collaborations took him to the University of Cape Town, the University of California, Los Angeles, and the Australian National University, where he engaged with scholars like Alan P. Merriam, Clifford Geertz, Anthony Seeger, and Bruno Nettl.

Ethnomusicological research and theories

Blacking's fieldwork focused on the Venda people of South Africa, where he examined music's role in identity, ritual, and social structure. He proposed that musical ability is a social phenomenon rather than a fixed physiological trait, engaging debates with theorists such as Noam Chomsky and Steven Pinker over biological universals. Drawing on methods used by Edward Said in cultural critique and comparative frameworks espoused by Claude Lévi-Strauss, Blacking argued for music as embodied communication shaped by kinship and community practices. His theoretical positions intersected with research from Niklas Luhmann on systems theory and discussions in philosophy of mind by Gilbert Ryle and Ludwig Wittgenstein.

Major works and publications

Blacking's best-known book, "How Musical Is Man?", became a seminal text cited alongside works by Alan Lomax, Curt Sachs, Ernst Kurth, and Meyer Kupferman. Other publications include ethnographies and monographs that dialogue with scholarship by Percy Grainger, Alexander J. Ellis, Henk Aertsen, and Charles Seeger. He contributed articles to journals affiliated with the Royal Anthropological Institute, the Journal of the International Folk Music Council, and the Ethnomusicology Review, and edited volumes reflecting exchanges with authors such as Mantle Hood, Yoshitaka Nakajima, John Blacking (editor disallowed). His work engaged with comparative studies referencing Igor Stravinsky, Arnold Schoenberg, Béla Bartók, Johann Sebastian Bach, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to illustrate cross-cultural musical principles.

Awards and honours

Throughout his career Blacking received recognition from bodies including the British Academy, the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and the International Council for Traditional Music. He was awarded fellowships and honorary degrees from universities such as the University of Cape Town, the University of Leeds, and the University of Natal. His influence was acknowledged in obituaries and retrospectives in publications by the Royal Anthropological Institute, the International Musicological Society, and the Society for Ethnomusicology.

Personal life and legacy

Blacking's interdisciplinary approach influenced generations of scholars in South Africa, Britain, North America, and Australia. His students and collaborators include researchers associated with institutions like the School of Oriental and African Studies, the University of Witwatersrand, the University of Cambridge, and the University of Oxford. The archive of his field recordings and papers is held in collections linked to the British Library, the National Sound Archive, and university repositories that host materials from figures such as Alan Lomax and Percy Grainger. His legacy appears in continuing debates within ethnomusicology, anthropology, and music education on cultural rights, musical cognition, and community practice.

Category:British ethnomusicologists Category:1928 births Category:1990 deaths