Music Books

Book SynopsisA music therapist presents an informative resource, filled with scientifically based practices for accessing and attuning to the natural healing properties of music. Original.

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Book Synopsis“In this one-of-a-kind celebration of singing with others, I’d call her pitch nearly perfect.”—The Atlantic For Stacy Horn, regardless of what is going on in the world or her life, singing in an amateur choir—the Choral Society of Grace Church in New York—never fails to take her to a place where hope reigns and everything good is possible. She’s not particularly religious, and her voice is not exceptional (so she says), but like the 32.5 million other chorus members throughout this country, singing makes her happy. Horn brings us along as she sings some of the greatest music humanity has ever produced, delves into the dramatic stories of conductors and composers, unearths the fascinating history of group singing, and explores remarkable discoveries from the new science of singing, including all the unexpected health benefits. Imperfect Harmony is the story of one woman who has found joy and strength in the weekly ritual of singing and in the irresistible power of song.

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Book SynopsisWhile it is widely recognized that music contributes to the health and well-being of societies, the reverse is not necessarily true. Being a professional musician is a rewarding yet challenging occupation, and the results of newer survey studies show musicians experience psychological challenges, like depression and anxiety, at much higher rates than adults in the general public. This book introduces Acceptance and Commitment Training (ACT) as an intervention for addressing some of the most common problems facing student and professional musicians across the world. A broadly applicable model for behavior change, ACT can be used by professionals in both clinical and non-clinical settings with adequate training. Thus, this book is intended for musicians and practitioners from various backgrounds, including psychologists, music teachers, performance coaches, and others, who are looking for an evidence-based approach for enhancing music performance, treating performance anxiety, managing pain and recovery from injury, and coping with other issues like perfectionism, procrastination, shame, burnout and career uncertainty. Written by a clinical psychologist/performance coach and a singing teacher/vocalist in a conversational yet highly informative style, this book provides a detailed discussion of ACT and the research supporting it, and it gives step-by-step instructions for using it to treat those common problems. INSIDE THIS BOOK YOU''LL FIND * Practical guides on how to apply the six processes of ACT--Mindfulness, Acceptance, Defusion, Self-as-Context, Values & Committed Action--to enhance performance, overcome performance anxiety, and improve well-being * Exercises, techniques, metaphors and worksheets you can use as a musician or a practitioner * Exclusive interviews with leading experts in psychology and music performance about how they use ACT and similar strategies within their practice * Foreword by renowned performance enhancement coach, Phil Towle

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Book SynopsisA longstanding, successful and frequently controversial career spanning more than four decades establishes David Bowie as charged with contemporary cultural relevance. That David Bowie has influenced many lives is undeniable to his fans. He requisitions and challenges his audiences, through frequently indirect lyrics and images, to critically question sanity, identity and essentially what it means to be ‘us’ and why we are here. Enchanting David Bowie explores David Bowie as an anti-temporal figure and argues that we need to understand him across the many media platforms and art spaces he intersects with including theatre, film, television, the web, exhibition, installation, music, lyrics, video, and fashion. This exciting collection is organized according to the key themes of space, time, body, and memory - themes that literally and metaphorically address the key questions and intensities of his output.Trade ReviewThis scintillating collection considers David Bowie's contemporaneity, showing how the star looks very different today—and how every different Bowie is a hero, if just for one day. With each chapter like a crystal ball ricocheting around a multi-level labyrinth, Enchanting David Bowie is full of surprises and delights for the fan and scholar alike. * Christopher Schaberg, Associate Professor of English, Loyola University New Orleans, USA, and author of The Textual Life of Airports and _Deconstructing Brad Pitt *Consider for a moment, David Bowie’s extraordinary body of work, not just the music, but also his assimilation of different media practices: writing, painting, performance, film and video. This volume coheres around four thematic vectors–space, time, body and memory–to interrogate Bowie’s remarkable corpus of cultural production. In the process, Enchanting David Bowie–itself a standout work–not only illuminates but also construes ‘Bowie’–or versions of Bowie–that are at once compelling and fascinating. * Constantine Verevis, Associate Professor of Film & Screen Studies, Monash University, Australia *A comprehensive critical study of the enigma that is David Bowie has been a long time coming - and now it's finally here! Enchanting David Bowie: Space/Time/Body/Memory offers a rich, thoughtful and intellectually challenging series of essays that paint a picture of the complex chameleon that is Bowie. The charismatic array of alter egos, the fascination with cosmic travel, the groundbreaking music that sang its way into the souls of many generations, the transformation of music performance into an art form, the transgressive play with gendered identity - this and so much more makes this collection a must have for anyone serious about Bowie, his identity, his music and his iconic status, which continues to spellbind into the twenty-first century. * Angela Ndalianis, Head of Screen and Cultural Studies, University of Melbourne, Australia *If Bowie, ever the chameleon, is in the habit of leaving aesthetic corpses behind, the goal of Enchanting Bowie is to dissect them. The volume is organized around four thematic concepts: space, time, body, and memory … This may sound disconcerting to Bowiephiles and musicologists, but the end result is actually quite impressive. Bowie’s performance becomes a supple text that can be endlessly reinterpreted. * LA Review of Books *The overwhelming strength of this volume is its extremely broad definition of Bowie’s ‘work’. From album covers, to a customised jacket, to his atypical eyes, we move far beyond monochrome analysis of lyrical content. Its inter- and cross-disciplinary approach, presenting analysis informed by film-making, fashion, musicology, performance and drama, as well as cultural studies and media and communication, results in some highly creative contributions… The effect of this volume as a whole is that much of Bowie’s output, however familiar to the reader, cannot be viewed in the same way after encountering these contributors’ analyses. * Celebrity Studies *Table of ContentsIntroduction: Toija Cinque, Christopher Moore and Sean Redmond List of Contributors Introduction Section One: Space Section Introduction Chapter 1: Keeping Space Fantastic: The Transformative Journey of Major Tom Michael Lupro, Portland State University, USA Chapter 2: Ziggy’s Urban Alienation : Assembling the Heroic Outsider Ian Chapman, The University of Otago, New Zealand Chapter 3: Desperately Seeking Bowie: How Berlin Bowie Tourism Transcends the Sacred Jennifer Otter and John Sparrowhawk, University of East London, UK Chapter 4: Confronting Bowie’s Mysterious Corpses Tanja Stark, Manager, Canasta Studio, Brisbane, Australia Section Two: Time Section Introduction Chapter 5: Time Again: The David Bowie Chronotope Will Brooker, Kingston University, UK Chapter 6: Bowie’s Covers: the Artist as Modernist David Baker, Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia Chapter 7: Ain't There One Damn Flag That Can Make Me Break Down and Cry?: The Formal, Performative and Emotional Tactics of Bowie's Singular Critical Anthem 'Young Americans’ Amedeo D’Adamo, University of Switzerland (It) and the Universita Cattolica, Italy Chapter 8: 2004 (Bowie vs Mashup) Christopher Moore, Deakin University, Australia Section Three: Body Section Introduction Chapter 9: The Eyes of David Bowie Kevin Hunt, Nottingham Trent University, UK Chapter 10: Semantic Shock: David Bowie Toija Cinque, Deakin University, Australia Chapter 11: The Whiteness of David Bowie Sean Remond, Deakin University, Australia Chapter 12: David Bowie is … Customizing Helene Thian, University of the Arts London/London College of Fashion Postgraduate Programme, UK Section Four: Memory Section Introduction Chapter 13: He's Not There: Velvet Goldmine and the Specters of David Bowie Glenn D’Cruz, Deakin University, Australia Chapter 14: Between Sound and Vision: Low and Sense Dene October, University Arts London, UK Chapter 15: Where Are We Now?: Walls and memory in David Bowie’s Berlins Tiffany Naiman, University of California, Los Angeles, USA Chapter 16: ‘You never knew that, that I could do that’: Bowie, Video Art and the Search for Potsdammer Platz Daryl Perrins, University of Glamorgan, UK

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Book SynopsisMusic, Health, and the Body: Cross-Cultural Perspectives focuses on the role of music in understanding new dimensions of health and healing through a unique relationship between identity, social interactions and the human body under the overarching paradigm of culture. The recent Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted the significance of social and individual factors in perception of music experiences and their ability to handle pandemic situations. Based on inter-disciplinary themes, and contributions from highly qualified international cohort of scholars, the volume will command attention amongst historians, ethnologists, musicologists, sociologists, anthropologists, psychotherapists and other scholars in arts and humanities.

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Book SynopsisKelly Baron is Managing Director of Siren Recordings, a sonic poetry label and archive.Andrew DuBois is Associate Professor of English at the University of Toronto.

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Book SynopsisLeon de Bruin is Senior Lecturer and coordinator of the Master of Music Performance Teaching degree program at the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music, the University of Melbourne.Renee Crawford is Associate Professor in the Faculty of Education at Monash University.Graham McPhail is Associate Professor in the School of Curriculum and Pedagogy at the Faculty of Education and Social Work at the University of Auckland.Jane Southcott is Professor in the Faculty of Education at Monash University.

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Book SynopsisRobert McParland is Professor of English and the Humanities at Felician University, USA. He is a singer-songwriter who holds degrees in arts administration, literary studies, and cultural history. His books include Beyond Gatsby: How Fitzgerald, Hemingway and Other Writers of the 1920s Shaped American Literature (2015), Citizen Steinbeck (2016), and Rock Music Imagination (2019), all published by Bloomsbury.

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Book SynopsisLeon de Bruin is Senior Lecturer in Music at the University of Melbourne, Conservatorium of Music, and coordinator of the Master of Music-Performance Teaching degree program.Anthea Skinner is an ethnomusicologist and a McKenzie Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Faculty of Fine Arts and Music. Jane Southcott is a Professor, Faculty of Education, Monash University, Australia.

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