Virtual Universals and Creativity: A New Approach to Music Cognition

If music is so varied, how do we understand it? Is there anything universal about it? And if not, can there be a cognitive science of it? Radically limiting examples so they fit certain frameworks but then calling everything else an exception is not helpful. We propose a redefinition of music that is based not on specific features but rather as creative experimentation with what we term “virtual universals.” These are universals that exert force even when they are not actualized or sounded. Our argument has applicability beyond the domain of music; in principle, the ideas in this paper could be applied to any domain of human behavior.