What is modal music? Why did the ancients consider music the key of sciences, related to metaphysics? Are there many 'musics', as there are many languages? Is there a relation between Indian music, jazz, cante jondo, Gregorian chant? How should we understand African music? What are the relations between music and religion? And between music and magic, or therapy? 

This collection of texts, covering a wide range of subjects, concerns the amateur music lover as well as the professional musician. The renowned musicologist Alain Danielous explains here clearly and simply the profound concepts relating music to its essential roots. 

"Tradition is inevitably the basis on which innovations can develop. Change, if it results in the loss of tradition, is more often than not a loss rather than a gain." (Alain Danielou)