What are some primary characteristics of Nonwestern music?

There are, of course, many kinds of music from nonwestern
cultures.  They do not all share any particular characteristics -- they can differ from
Western music in many ways.

Perhaps the most important
difference between Western music and many other kinds of music is the scale that is
used.  Western music tends to use a scale with 8 tones per octave.  This is not dictated
by nature -- it is just a convention.  There are other ways of creating scales.  One
well known scale is the pentatonic scale.  As its name suggests, it divides the octave
up into 5 tones instead of 8.  This scale is used, for example, in Japanese
music.

This is a major difference between Western and
some other traditions of music, but it is not the only
one.