John Blacking in the twenty-first century : an introduction / Suzel Ana Reily -- Memories of fieldwork : understanding 'humanly organized sound' through the Venda / Keith Howard -- Tracks of the mouse : tonal reinterpretation in Venda guitar songs / Jaco Kruger -- Black background : life history and migrant women's music in South Africa / Deborah James -- Musicality in early childhood : a case from Japan / Fumiko Fujita -- John Blacking and the 'human/musical instrument interface' : two plucked lutes from Afghanistan / John Baily -- Experiencing the ballet body : pleasure, pain, power / Helena Wulff -- Creating a musical space for experiencing the other-self within / Rebecca Sager -- Bach in a Venda mirror : John Blacking and historical musicology / Britta Sweers

Providing assessments of Blacking's work, this book addresses the manipulation of traditional performance settings in pursuit of political or social strategies; children's music acquisition as an indicator of the innate musical capacity of humans; the biology of music making; the creation of pleasure, pain and power during dance; etc.