This book explores in detail a body of music called ethnic, folk, or traditional as it is found in Europe, most of Africa, and the Americas. This music consists essentially of two groups: (1) folk music, which is found in those areas in which there is also a develop­ment of urban, professionalized, cultivated classical music, and (2) primitive music, which is the music of the non literate cultures, those that do not have a tradition of sophisticated musical culture living alongside the musical folk culture.