Theory of music and musicology Books

Book SynopsisTrade ReviewBy sharing the performance experiences, rather than texts, Donkor accomplishes the challenging task of introducing rare theatre performances in a particularly compelling context for a Western readership in a global age. * Theatre Survey *Overall, as a Ghanaian actor and director as well as a scholar, Donkor's cultural insider analyses of ananse theatre within the space of political economy make important contributions and interventions to the discourses on performance (theory) and neoliberalism and their interaction in Ghana and Africa. * African Studies Review *Table of ContentsIntroduction1. From State to Market: The History of a Social Compact2. Once Upon a Spider: Ananse and the Counterhegemonic Trickster Ethos3. Selling the President: Stand-Up Comedy and the Politricks of Endorsement4. Ma Red's Maneuvers: Popular Theater and "Progressive" Culture5. In the House of Stories: Village Aspirations and Heritage TourismConclusionNotesBibliographyIndex

Read more less

Book SynopsisTrade ReviewThis is an impressive and invaluable book, and one I am sure scholars from numerous fields will be citing for years to come. * Music Theory Spectrum *Highly recommended. * Choice *This book puts forth a beautiful account of what it's like to listen to music. -- Elizabeth MargulisOne of the best studies on the role of conceptual metaphor in music comprehension and theory I've ever read. -- Mark Johnson * author (with George Lakoff) of Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and Its Challenge to Weste *Table of ContentsAcknowledgmentsPart One: Theoretical BackgroundIntroduction1. Mimetic Comprehension2. Mimetic Comprehension of Music3. Metaphor and Related Means of ReasoningPart Two: Spatial Conceptions4. Pitch Height5. Temporal Motion and Musical Motion6. Perspectives on Musical MotionPart Three: Beyond Musical Space7. Music and the External Senses8. Musical Affect9. Applications10. Review and ImplicationsAppendix I. Mimetic Subvocalization and Absolute PitchAppendix II. Levels of Abstraction Among MetaphorsBibliographyIndex

Read more less

Book SynopsisJewish Music in Nineteenth Century America looks at key Jewish American musical figures and texts from the 19th century, demonstrating the significant influence central European traditions had during this period and complicating the notion that American Jewish musical traditions "progressed" from solo chant to canters and choirs.Trade ReviewOccasionally an historical work provides the breadth and details of an era that forever changes our perceptions of that period. Judah Cohen's book accomplishes this feat for Jewish music in America in the nineteenth century. * AJL Reviews *The story Cohen tells by analyzing these musical works, their authors, underlying ideas, and envisaged practices is fascinating and thoroughly researched. . . . Cohen succeeds in his aim of "chronicling this era in musical terms" without requiring in-depth specialist music knowledge of the reader (p. 9). The author does not trail off in detailed musical analyses of individual compositions. Rather, he examines music publications as a whole, in designing a bigger picture of their genesis and history. He analyzes their scopes and paratexts, their authorship, their meaning for the performance and the liturgy, and their reception in Jewish communities. The generous use of illustrations, showing the original musical material rather than rewritten musical examples, gives an unaltered impression of the settings, layout, and presentation of the original works. A large number of quotations from primary sources, like the contemporary press and meeting minutes from community organizations, make this pioneering study a vivid reading. Unmuting the American Jewish nineteenth century, it is indeed an important contribution to American Jewish history and Jewish music studies. -- Martha Stellmacher * H-Judaic *Cohen's achievement here sets a high standard for historical musicology, engaging the archival record while contributing to the establishment of evidence-based criteria for identifying the "Jewish" in "Jewish Religious Music"—criteria that actively deconstruct inherited wisdom that has inhibited the scope of research agendas. -- Jeremiah Lockwood * Musica Judaica *Judah M. Cohen's work takes a refreshing approach to Jewish music history, which to date has been largely examined within its own context—that is, away from discussions of other sacred (or secular) music. . . . Cohen's work is an important addition to both Jewish music and more mainstream musicological literature. -- Danielle Padley * Notes *Table of ContentsAcknowledgementsAccessing Supplemental MaterialsIntroduction1. Early Strata: Of Choirs and Reform through the Mid-Nineteenth Century2. The Sound of German Jewry: Hymnals and Singing Societies in Wilhelm Fischer's Zemirot Yisrael3. Bildungsmusik: G. M. Cohen, B'nai B'rith, and the Voices of American Jewish Cultivation4. Musical Populists: G. S. Ensel, Simon Hecht, and the Quest for the Singing Congregation5. The 1866 Sulzerfeier: the Viennese Model and the Grandeur of the Urban Worship6. A New Cantor, A New Repertoire: Zimrath Yah7. The Path to The Union HymnalConclusion: Restoring the Soundtrack of Jewish Life in Nineteenth Century AmericaWorks CitedIndex

Read more less

Book SynopsisJewish Music in Nineteenth Century America looks at key Jewish American musical figures and texts from the 19th century, demonstrating the significant influence central European traditions had during this period and complicating the notion that American Jewish musical traditions "progressed" from solo chant to canters and choirs.Trade ReviewOccasionally an historical work provides the breadth and details of an era that forever changes our perceptions of that period. Judah Cohen's book accomplishes this feat for Jewish music in America in the nineteenth century. * AJL Reviews *The story Cohen tells by analyzing these musical works, their authors, underlying ideas, and envisaged practices is fascinating and thoroughly researched. . . . Cohen succeeds in his aim of "chronicling this era in musical terms" without requiring in-depth specialist music knowledge of the reader (p. 9). The author does not trail off in detailed musical analyses of individual compositions. Rather, he examines music publications as a whole, in designing a bigger picture of their genesis and history. He analyzes their scopes and paratexts, their authorship, their meaning for the performance and the liturgy, and their reception in Jewish communities. The generous use of illustrations, showing the original musical material rather than rewritten musical examples, gives an unaltered impression of the settings, layout, and presentation of the original works. A large number of quotations from primary sources, like the contemporary press and meeting minutes from community organizations, make this pioneering study a vivid reading. Unmuting the American Jewish nineteenth century, it is indeed an important contribution to American Jewish history and Jewish music studies. -- Martha Stellmacher * H-Judaic *Cohen's achievement here sets a high standard for historical musicology, engaging the archival record while contributing to the establishment of evidence-based criteria for identifying the "Jewish" in "Jewish Religious Music"—criteria that actively deconstruct inherited wisdom that has inhibited the scope of research agendas. -- Jeremiah Lockwood * Musica Judaica *Judah M. Cohen's work takes a refreshing approach to Jewish music history, which to date has been largely examined within its own context—that is, away from discussions of other sacred (or secular) music. . . . Cohen's work is an important addition to both Jewish music and more mainstream musicological literature. -- Danielle Padley * Notes *Table of ContentsAcknowledgementsAccessing Supplemental MaterialsIntroduction1. Early Strata: Of Choirs and Reform through the Mid-Nineteenth Century2. The Sound of German Jewry: Hymnals and Singing Societies in Wilhelm Fischer's Zemirot Yisrael3. Bildungsmusik: G. M. Cohen, B'nai B'rith, and the Voices of American Jewish Cultivation4. Musical Populists: G. S. Ensel, Simon Hecht, and the Quest for the Singing Congregation5. The 1866 Sulzerfeier: the Viennese Model and the Grandeur of the Urban Worship6. A New Cantor, A New Repertoire: Zimrath Yah7. The Path to The Union HymnalConclusion: Restoring the Soundtrack of Jewish Life in Nineteenth Century AmericaWorks CitedIndex

Read more less

Book SynopsisTrade Review"The attribution of a large portion of the manuscript to MarcAntoine Charpentier can only bring this work to the forefront of critical interest internationally for performers and scholars alike. Carla Williams is to be applauded for her achievement."—Dana Marsh, Indiana University Bloomington"A Case for Charpentier will prove useful to students and scholars wishing to learn more about pedagogical approaches to composition and continuo realization in late 17th-century France as well as those wishing to have a greater understanding of Charpentier's theoretical writings."—Jane Gosine, Memorial UniversityTable of ContentsAcknowledgmentsTranslator's IntroductionTraité d'accompagnement: Parallel Transcription and TranslationBibliography

Read more less

Book SynopsisTrade ReviewScholarship has established that arts exist through complex networks with historical time; aesthetic forms have distinctive rhythmic-temporal lives; and devotional meditations are based on diurnal, mythical and other time-based imaginings. Yet, The Politics of Musical Time brings these dimensions together in a most original manner, throwing sharp analytical light on synchronic and diachronic relations between musical and social temporalities in Bengal. It does so by analyzing the materiality of sonic time as a highly nuanced expansion of relations between affect and economy, meaning and rhythm, the past and the contemporary, devotion and context, and aesthetics and everyday life. It is a unique and significant contribution to studies of South Asian religions, aesthetics, and historical and contemporary time. -- Sukanya Sarbadhikary, author of The Place of Devotion: Siting and Experiencing Divinity in Bengal-VaishnavismTable of ContentsAccessing Audiovisual MaterialsAcknowledgmentsNotes on Spelling and TransliterationNotes on Representing Musical SoundNotes on Dating SystemsIntroduction: Kīrtan's Influence Derives from TimePart I: Genealogies of Kīrtan1. Temporality and Devotional Performance in Bengal2. The Seeds of Kīrtan: Histories and Imaginaries of Devotional Song in Early Modern Bengal3. Devotional Song Arrives in the City: Histories of Patronage and Images of the Devout Musician in the Colonial Period4. Institutional Pasts and Professional Futures: Temporalities of Instruction and Performance in Contemporary West BengalPart II: The Devotional Aesthetics of Musical Expansion5. Word-Pictures: Expansions of Mood and Meaning in Kīrtan Song Texts6. Sonic Synchronies of Tāl Theory7. The Divine Play of the Tax Collector: Musical Expansion, Embodied Response, and Didactic Storytelling in a Līlā KīrtanPart III: The Shrinking Markets for Expanding Songs8. The Marketplace of Music Festivals: Modern Social Time and Musical Labor9. Media Markets: Visualization and the Abstraction of Musical Time10. Conclusion: Kīrtan OnlineGlossaryBibliographyIndex

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book SynopsisA study on fiddling in the Fulbe, Hausa, and Dagbamba cultures of West Africa. This book not only explains the history of the instrument itself, but also discusses the processes of stylistic transference and adaptation, suggesting how these may have contributed to differing performance practices.Trade ReviewThe scope of this fascinating and painstakingly researched study is broad, but it is also meticulously focused, so that, after an introduction to the one-stringed spike bowl lute and a look at how it came to the region, Cogdell Djedje takes on each of the three cultures [Fulbe, Hausa and Dagbamba] in turn.October 2009 -- Catherine Nelson * The Strad *Fiddling in West Africa furnishes substantive and intelligent answers to various questions about the nature and purpose of fiddling in Fulbe, Hausa, and Dagbamba. Djedje makes a significant contribution to ethnomusicology with far-reaching impact across disciplinary boundaries. Fiddling in West Africa is an invaluable resource for students and scholars, as well as the general public. Volume 36, No. 3, August 2009 * American Ethnologist *Fiddling in West Africa . . . is a phenomenal addition to critical literature on African music in particular and ethnomusicology in general.Ths seminal publication represents an excellent consummation of a sustained scholarship on a West African music tradition that spans three decades. May 2008 * Intl. Journal of African Historical Studies *This impressive book is both ambitious in its scope and meticulously detailed. . . The importance of Fiddlers in West Africa spans far beyond being a rich source of information about fiddling traditions. . . DjeDje's book defies these stereotypes by opening the reader to the sheer diversity of musical instruments, approaches, and repertoires in West Africa.66.2 Dec. 2009 * Notes *. . . Fiddling in West Africa is a good resource not only for a Westerner who knows next to nothing about fiddling in some 'obscure' corner of Africa, but also for the African student and scholar trying to understand the musical practices of their folk. This interesting piece is as informative as it educative, and should be at the head of reading-lists for students of ethnomusicology and cultural studies, and on the desk of the avid reader.October 15, 2008 -- Abdulai Salifu * Indiana University *[T]his is a fascinating book that deserves the attention not only of African-oriented scholars but also of ethnomusicologists in general, and it is recommended to all institutions dealing with African cultures. 51(2), 2009 * The World of Music *Table of ContentsContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: A Master Fiddler and a Significant but Little-Known Tradition1. Fiddling in West Africa: Understanding the Culture Area2. An Affirmation of Identity: Fulbe Fiddling in Senegambia3. Calling the Bori Spirits: Hausa Fiddling in Nigeria4. In Service to the King: Dagbamba Fiddling in GhanaConclusion Appendix: Distribution of the One-Stringed FiddleNotesList of References Discography and VideographyIndex

Read more less

Book SynopsisStudies music and social dance in the 18th and 19th centuriesTrade ReviewI think this is an important book for musicians and dance academics alike, since McKee proposes that to understand the musical structures of the minuet and waltz, 'it is helpful to be aware of the bodily rhythms of the dance upon which they are based and the social contexts in which they were performed'. . . . McKee's holistic approach illuminates the total experiences of all the participants. . . . highly informative on the importance of dancing at every level of society, and its varying social functions, during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. * Dance Europe *McKee's overall orientation is laudable, since functional dance music has largely been ignored by music analysts, and stylized dance music has been treated as if it had minimal connection to the practice of dancing. . . . Despite the amount of close music analysis, McKee's writing is accessible to a wide range of readers. . . . One hopes that McKee has plans for a future book to follow the mid-century delirium of the waltz to its twentieth-century demise. * Nineteenth-Century Music Review *Think back . . . to an enlightened age of rhythmic egalitarianism, when life was lived in the lightness, suppleness, and grace of triple meter as well as duple, and the two reigning dances were in 3/4. This book is a much-needed, restorative paean to that two-century era and its emblematic dances: the minuet and the waltz. * DANCE CHRONICLE *McKee's book. . . fulfils its aim: that of presenting dance-music relations in two out of three of the most popular ballroom dances in several centuries. To my knowledge, there is no other English publication on such intersection of topics – thus it deserves a place in the libraries of music and dance departments. -- Gediminas Karoblis * Dance Research *Table of ContentsAcknowledgementsIntroduction1. Influences of the Early Eighteenth-Century Ballroom Minuet on the Minuets from J. S. Bach's French Suites, BWV 812–8172. Mozart in the Ballroom: Minuet-Trio Contrast and the Aristocracy in Self-Portrait3. The Musical Visions of Joseph Lanner and Johann Strauss Sr.4. Dance and the Music of Chopin: Historical Background5. The Musical Visions of Chopin6. Chopin's Approach to Waltz FormNotesBibliographyIndex

Read more less

Book SynopsisThe poetry in Humanophone, the third volume from award-winning poet Janet Holmes, celebrates composers and creators such as Harry Partch, Raymond Scott, Leon Theremin, and George Ives, who had to invent new instruments to capture the music heard in their mind's ear. Taking its title from a George Ives inventionan instrument made from a group of humans, each of whom sings a single note, arrayed like a xylophoneHumanophone appears on its surface to be about music. But its real subject is the artist's creative dilemmahow to deliver a new idea, whether it be a song or a poem, through existing media.Holmes works language into a variety of forms both familiarsyllabics, couplets, villanelles, sonnetsand engagingly new. With everything from kumquats to abandoned wedding pictures, Clara Bow to Bill Robinson, Keats's belle dame to Dante's Francesca, feng shui to a recipe for octopus, Humanophone celebrates how the body shapes art from the world it isTrade Review“. . . these poems surprise, they are carefully crafted, intelligent first-person lyrics—the line-breaks alone are a lesson in poetic craft—but often untraditional, despite the appearance of some recognizable forms. . . . Having come to respect how words are made new in this book, I went back to my dictionary to find "ferment" is not only a cause of agitation or intense activity, but also a living organism. Humanophone has forever changed the word for me.” —Women’s Review of Books“Holmes’... pursuit of new methodology invigorates and vibrates throughout the book.... Throughout Humanophone, Holmes continues to develop her always musical sense of the multiple voices within the writer, and proves herself to be, as Partch said of himself, ‘a profound traditionalist, but of an unusual sort.’” —Boston Review"I was immediately taken by the true originality of conception, the inventive audacity, the subtlety of phrasing and vocabulary of Janet Holmes’s poems. Music in these pieces becomes a metaphor, a true metaphor that cannot be paraphrased but sends out its illuminating beams over the singularity of our lives, our life. The delicacy and subtlety of her work have grown with each reading." —W. S. Merwin"Holmes makes moving and amusing poems . . . a most memorable concert." —Booklist“These are not poems built to thunder-nor is the book itself constructed this way, but rather to create a space for us to hear those slight, nearly invisible sounds and moments that all but get lost-not a flute, but 'the echo of a flute,' that sound 'the unborn listen . . . to . . . conducted through bone, through fluid and dark' before, in the face of unfiltered reality, 'it's different now-harsher-—'” —Poetry International"Humanophone creates an extended meditation on sound as it is shaped by a body, received by the human ear, and woven by the brain into musical compositions. . . .The musical subjects of Humanophone are not only well-researched and explored in varied forms and tones, but also woven beautifully into a brilliant and cohesive design. . . .With Humanophone, Janet Holmes enters and extends the dialogue on poetics in the twenty-first century." —Sandra Alcosser, author of Except by Nature and A Fish to Feed All Hunger“The book is full of various delights.” —Beloit Poetry Journal, Fall 2002“Witty, learned, bedazzling, bold: the poems of Janet Holmes’s new book veer before our eyes from clarity and good humor into aesthetic mystery and a darker irony. This poet is beautifully unpredictable as to subject and mode, the variety of her purposes winningly enlivening the forms they invent. For her, music is more than metaphor. It is the characteristic shape of her breath, a way of beholding. As Humanophone testifies, the idea of a human-voice instrument is enacted, again and again, in the notation and perfect pitch of these poems.” —James Applewhite“...Holmes borrows her project from history, mining lives to find a single tone to convey the creative experience, its daily trials, its processes, its awe. Holmes masters the broad metaphor, sampling stories ranging from a man beating an octopus against a counter, to the reinvention of sounds by Raymond Scott.... The result is a book unified by a central conceit: how to catch life, with its beautiful, funny, and regrettable sounds, and replicate the experience for readers and listeners. Perhaps what is most intriguing about this collection is the sheer eclectic nature of its subjects and the varied mind that connects them. Sirenic.... Holmes parallels the protagonist of her poems, leaving readers with the certainty that this compulsion is toward something brave.” —ForeWord Magazine“Holmes is a wonderful poet—one of the best of her generation now at work in America.” —John Matthias

Read more less

Book SynopsisThe poetry in Humanophone, the third volume from award-winning poet Janet Holmes, celebrates composers and creators such as Harry Partch, Raymond Scott, Leon Theremin, and George Ives, who had to invent new instruments to capture the music heard in their mind's ear. Taking its title from a George Ives inventionan instrument made from a group of humans, each of whom sings a single note, arrayed like a xylophoneHumanophone appears on its surface to be about music. But its real subject is the artist's creative dilemmahow to deliver a new idea, whether it be a song or a poem, through existing media.Holmes works language into a variety of forms both familiarsyllabics, couplets, villanelles, sonnetsand engagingly new. With everything from kumquats to abandoned wedding pictures, Clara Bow to Bill Robinson, Keats's belle dame to Dante's Francesca, feng shui to a recipe for octopus, Humanophone celebrates how the body shapes art from the world it isTrade Review“. . . these poems surprise, they are carefully crafted, intelligent first-person lyrics—the line-breaks alone are a lesson in poetic craft—but often untraditional, despite the appearance of some recognizable forms. . . . Having come to respect how words are made new in this book, I went back to my dictionary to find "ferment" is not only a cause of agitation or intense activity, but also a living organism. Humanophone has forever changed the word for me.” —Women’s Review of Books“Holmes’... pursuit of new methodology invigorates and vibrates throughout the book.... Throughout Humanophone, Holmes continues to develop her always musical sense of the multiple voices within the writer, and proves herself to be, as Partch said of himself, ‘a profound traditionalist, but of an unusual sort.’” —Boston Review"I was immediately taken by the true originality of conception, the inventive audacity, the subtlety of phrasing and vocabulary of Janet Holmes’s poems. Music in these pieces becomes a metaphor, a true metaphor that cannot be paraphrased but sends out its illuminating beams over the singularity of our lives, our life. The delicacy and subtlety of her work have grown with each reading." —W. S. Merwin"Holmes makes moving and amusing poems . . . a most memorable concert." —Booklist“These are not poems built to thunder-nor is the book itself constructed this way, but rather to create a space for us to hear those slight, nearly invisible sounds and moments that all but get lost-not a flute, but 'the echo of a flute,' that sound 'the unborn listen . . . to . . . conducted through bone, through fluid and dark' before, in the face of unfiltered reality, 'it's different now-harsher-—'” —Poetry International"Humanophone creates an extended meditation on sound as it is shaped by a body, received by the human ear, and woven by the brain into musical compositions. . . .The musical subjects of Humanophone are not only well-researched and explored in varied forms and tones, but also woven beautifully into a brilliant and cohesive design. . . .With Humanophone, Janet Holmes enters and extends the dialogue on poetics in the twenty-first century." —Sandra Alcosser, author of Except by Nature and A Fish to Feed All Hunger“The book is full of various delights.” —Beloit Poetry Journal, Fall 2002“Witty, learned, bedazzling, bold: the poems of Janet Holmes’s new book veer before our eyes from clarity and good humor into aesthetic mystery and a darker irony. This poet is beautifully unpredictable as to subject and mode, the variety of her purposes winningly enlivening the forms they invent. For her, music is more than metaphor. It is the characteristic shape of her breath, a way of beholding. As Humanophone testifies, the idea of a human-voice instrument is enacted, again and again, in the notation and perfect pitch of these poems.” —James Applewhite“...Holmes borrows her project from history, mining lives to find a single tone to convey the creative experience, its daily trials, its processes, its awe. Holmes masters the broad metaphor, sampling stories ranging from a man beating an octopus against a counter, to the reinvention of sounds by Raymond Scott.... The result is a book unified by a central conceit: how to catch life, with its beautiful, funny, and regrettable sounds, and replicate the experience for readers and listeners. Perhaps what is most intriguing about this collection is the sheer eclectic nature of its subjects and the varied mind that connects them. Sirenic.... Holmes parallels the protagonist of her poems, leaving readers with the certainty that this compulsion is toward something brave.” —ForeWord Magazine“Holmes is a wonderful poet—one of the best of her generation now at work in America.” —John Matthias

Read more less

Book SynopsisIn presenting four substantial, historically valuable collections from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, this book illustrates how understanding the motivations and training (or lack thereof) of individual music collectors significantly informs how we should approach their work and contextualize their place in the folk music canon.Trade ReviewA compelling and highly original study of Irish traditional music collecting. No author has previously undertaken such a comprehensive local study of music collections in Ireland, locating them both in terms of Irish cultural and wider disciplinary history. This is a major contribution."" - Diarmuid Ó GiollÁin, University of Notre Dame ""NÍ Chonghaile's expertise in both musical scholarship and the Irish language adds value to her innovative contribution. Singers, musicians, and collectors emerge in their full humanity, their emotional attachment to their culture clearly apparent."" - Lillis Ó Laoire, National University of Ireland, Galway

Read more less

Book SynopsisA critical historiographical study of the practice of documenting traditional music, this volume is the first to focus on the archipelago off the west coast of Ireland. THe author argues for a culturally equitable framework that considers negotiation, collaboration, canonization, and marginalization to understand the process of musical curation.

Read more less

Book SynopsisThe fascinating story of how creative cooperation inspired two of the world’s most celebrated musical acts.

Read more less

Book SynopsisThe fascinating story of how creative cooperation inspired two of the world’s most celebrated musical acts.

Read more less

Book SynopsisA Juilliard-trained musician and professor of history explores the fascinating entanglement of classical music with American foreign relations.Trade Review"A riveting and illuminating book." -- Lloyd Schwartz - Wall Street Journal"Authoritative….not only valuable and fair-minded history but an unceasingly engaging series of tales." -- Tim Page - Washington Post"It’s remarkable how much Rosenberg’s detailed study applies to current events and cultural discourse…A clear-eyed and perspicacious work for classical music scholars and fans and anyone interested in the intersection of politics and culture." -- Library Journal"Rosenberg masterfully tells these stories." -- Booklist"A thoroughly researched and engrossing history…Richly detailed and freshly illuminating. " -- Kirkus Reviews (starred review)"Classical music aficionados will find much enjoyable lore from a time when the music was at the center of international rivalries." -- Publishers Weekly"Backed up by meticulous scholarship, Dangerous Melodies is clearly motivated by a great love for music; throughout this tribute to its emotional power, the author poses insightful and disturbing questions about the political uses that can be made of humanity’s deep need for artistic communication." -- Eugene Drucker, founding member, Emerson String Quartet, and author of The Savior"Jonathan Rosenberg’s important book provides a panoramic yet fascinatingly detailed—and often surprising—view of the political role played, willingly or otherwise, by classical music and musicians in the United States through much of the twentieth century. Highly recommended for anyone who cares about the intersection of art and politics." -- Harvey Sachs, author of Toscanini: Musician of Conscience"Riveting and eye opening, Dangerous Melodies tells the story of a long period in American history when classical music played an intensely dramatic role in how US citizens viewed world events, often fearing for their very safety if certain performances were to take place. Thoroughly researched and well written, the book offers both scholar and general reader invaluable information through gripping stories of intrigue, heroism, and villainy." -- L. Michael Griffel, chairperson of the Music History Department, Juilliard School"Jonathan Rosenberg provides a richly textured portrait of how classical music, with its concentration of German and Russian repertoire and performers, could fixate American communities and give rise to sentiments across the political spectrum, from knee-jerk nationalism to subtle reflection. The result is an engrossing story that illuminates an earlier era while serving as a cautionary tale for our own." -- James M. Keller, program annotator of the New York Philharmonic and the San Francisco Symphony

Read more less

Book SynopsisThe ultimate resource for music theory teachers and pedagogy classes

Read more less

Book SynopsisBrain and Music explores how, when, and where in the brain music is processed. The book is the first one to cover all core aspects of music perception with regards to their neural correlates.Table of ContentsPreface ix Part I Introductory Chapters 1 1 Ear and Hearing 3 1.1 The ear 3 1.2 Auditory brainstem and thalamus 6 1.3 Place and time information 8 1.4 Beats, roughness, consonance and dissonance 9 1.5 Acoustical equivalency of timbre and phoneme 11 1.6 Auditory cortex 12 2 Music-theoretical Background 17 2.1 How major keys are related 17 2.2 The basic in-key functions in major 20 2.3 Chord inversions and Neapolitan sixth chords 21 2.4 Secondary dominants and double dominants 21 3 Perception of Pitch and Harmony 23 3.1 Context-dependent representation of pitch 23 3.2 The representation of key-relatedness 26 3.3 The developing and changing sense of key 29 3.4 The representation of chord-functions 30 3.5 Hierarchy of harmonic stability 31 3.6 Musical expectancies 35 3.7 Chord sequence paradigms 36 4 From Electric Brain Activity to ERPs and ERFs 40 4.1 Electro-encephalography (EEG) 43 4.1.1 The 10–20 system 43 4.1.2 Referencing 45 4.2 Obtaining event-related brain potentials (ERPs) 45 4.3 Magnetoencephalography (MEG) 48 4.3.1 Forward solution and inverse problem 49 4.3.2 Comparison between MEG and EEG 49 5 ERP Components 51 5.1 Auditory P1, N1, P2 51 5.2 Frequency-following response (FFR) 53 5.3 Mismatch negativity 54 5.3.1 MMN in neonates 57 5.3.2 MMN and music 57 5.4 N2b and P300 59 5.5 ERP-correlates of language processing 59 5.5.1 Semantic processes: N400 60 5.5.2 Syntactic processes: (E)LAN and P600 63 5.5.3 Prosodic processes: Closure Positive Shift 67 6 A Brief Historical Account of ERP Studies of Music Processing 70 6.1 The beginnings: Studies with melodic stimuli 70 6.2 Studies with chords 74 6.3 MMN studies 75 6.4 Processing of musical meaning 76 6.5 Processing of musical phrase boundaries 77 6.6 Music and action 77 7 Functional Neuroimaging Methods: fMRI and PET 79 7.1 Analysis of fMRI data 81 7.2 Sparse temporal sampling in fMRI 84 7.3 Interleaved silent steady state fMRI 85 7.4 ‘Activation’ vs. ‘activity change’ 85 Part II Towards a New Theory of Music Psychology 87 8 Music Perception: A Generative Framework 89 9 Musical Syntax 98 9.1 What is musical syntax? 98 9.2 Cognitive processes 102 9.3 The early right anterior negativity (ERAN) 109 9.3.1 The problem of confounding acoustics and possible solutions 113 9.3.2 Effects of task-relevance 120 9.3.3 Polyphonic stimuli 121 9.3.4 Latency of the ERAN 127 9.3.5 Melodies 127 9.3.6 Lateralization of the ERAN 129 9.4 Neuroanatomical correlates 131 9.5 Processing of acoustic vs. music-syntactic irregularities 133 9.6 Interactions between music- and language-syntactic processing 138 9.6.1 The Syntactic Equivalence Hypothesis 145 9.7 Attention and automaticity 147 9.8 Effects of musical training 149 9.9 Development 151 10 Musical Semantics 156 10.1 What is musical semantics? 156 10.2 Extra-musical meaning 158 10.2.1 Iconic musical meaning 158 10.2.2 Indexical musical meaning 159 Excursion: Decoding of intentions during musinc listening 161 10.2.3 Symbolic musical meaning 162 10.3 Extra-musical meaning and the N400 163 10.4 Intra-musical meaning 170 Excursion: Posterior temporal cortex and processing of meaning 166 10.4.1 Intra-musical meaning and the N5 171 10.5 Musicogenic meaning 177 10.5.1 Physical 177 10.5.2 Emotional 179 10.5.3 Personal 180 10.6 Musical semantics 181 10.6.1 Neural correlates 181 10.6.2 Propositional semantics 182 10.6.3 Communication vs. expression 182 10.6.4 Meaning emerging from large-scale relations 183 10.6.5 Further theoretical accounts 184 11 Music and Action 186 11.1 Perception–action mediation 186 11.2 ERP correlates of music production 189 12 Emotion 203 12.1 What are ‘musical emotions’? 204 12.2 Emotional responses to music – underlying mechanisms 207 12.3 From social contact to spirituality – The Seven Cs 208 12.4 Emotional responses to music – underlying principles 212 12.5 Musical expectancies and emotional responses 216 12.5.1 The tension-arch 218 12.6 Limbic and paralimbic correlates of music-evoked emotions 219 12.6.1 Major–minor and happy–sad music 225 12.6.2 Music-evoked dopaminergic neural activity 226 12.6.3 Music and the hippocampus 227 12.6.4 Parahippocampal gyrus 231 12.6.5 A network comprising hippocampus, parahippocampal gyrus, and temporal poles 232 12.6.6 Effects of music on insular and anterior cingulate cortex activity 232 12.7 Electrophysiological effects of music-evoked emotions 233 12.8 Time course of emotion 234 12.9 Salutary effects of music making 235 13 Concluding Remarks and Summary 241 13.1 Music and language 241 13.2 The music-language continuum 244 13.3 Summary of the theory 249 13.4 Summary of open questions 258 References 267 Index 303

Read more less

Book SynopsisBrain and Music explores how, when, and where in the brain music is processed. The book is the first one to cover all core aspects of music perception with regards to their neural correlates.Table of ContentsPreface ix Part I Introductory Chapters 1 1 Ear and Hearing 3 1.1 The ear 3 1.2 Auditory brainstem and thalamus 6 1.3 Place and time information 8 1.4 Beats, roughness, consonance and dissonance 9 1.5 Acoustical equivalency of timbre and phoneme 11 1.6 Auditory cortex 12 2 Music-theoretical Background 17 2.1 How major keys are related 17 2.2 The basic in-key functions in major 20 2.3 Chord inversions and Neapolitan sixth chords 21 2.4 Secondary dominants and double dominants 21 3 Perception of Pitch and Harmony 23 3.1 Context-dependent representation of pitch 23 3.2 The representation of key-relatedness 26 3.3 The developing and changing sense of key 29 3.4 The representation of chord-functions 30 3.5 Hierarchy of harmonic stability 31 3.6 Musical expectancies 35 3.7 Chord sequence paradigms 36 4 From Electric Brain Activity to ERPs and ERFs 40 4.1 Electro-encephalography (EEG) 43 4.1.1 The 10–20 system 43 4.1.2 Referencing 45 4.2 Obtaining event-related brain potentials (ERPs) 45 4.3 Magnetoencephalography (MEG) 48 4.3.1 Forward solution and inverse problem 49 4.3.2 Comparison between MEG and EEG 49 5 ERP Components 51 5.1 Auditory P1, N1, P2 51 5.2 Frequency-following response (FFR) 53 5.3 Mismatch negativity 54 5.3.1 MMN in neonates 57 5.3.2 MMN and music 57 5.4 N2b and P300 59 5.5 ERP-correlates of language processing 59 5.5.1 Semantic processes: N400 60 5.5.2 Syntactic processes: (E)LAN and P600 63 5.5.3 Prosodic processes: Closure Positive Shift 67 6 A Brief Historical Account of ERP Studies of Music Processing 70 6.1 The beginnings: Studies with melodic stimuli 70 6.2 Studies with chords 74 6.3 MMN studies 75 6.4 Processing of musical meaning 76 6.5 Processing of musical phrase boundaries 77 6.6 Music and action 77 7 Functional Neuroimaging Methods: fMRI and PET 79 7.1 Analysis of fMRI data 81 7.2 Sparse temporal sampling in fMRI 84 7.3 Interleaved silent steady state fMRI 85 7.4 ‘Activation’ vs. ‘activity change’ 85 Part II Towards a New Theory of Music Psychology 87 8 Music Perception: A Generative Framework 89 9 Musical Syntax 98 9.1 What is musical syntax? 98 9.2 Cognitive processes 102 9.3 The early right anterior negativity (ERAN) 109 9.3.1 The problem of confounding acoustics and possible solutions 113 9.3.2 Effects of task-relevance 120 9.3.3 Polyphonic stimuli 121 9.3.4 Latency of the ERAN 127 9.3.5 Melodies 127 9.3.6 Lateralization of the ERAN 129 9.4 Neuroanatomical correlates 131 9.5 Processing of acoustic vs. music-syntactic irregularities 133 9.6 Interactions between music- and language-syntactic processing 138 9.6.1 The Syntactic Equivalence Hypothesis 145 9.7 Attention and automaticity 147 9.8 Effects of musical training 149 9.9 Development 151 10 Musical Semantics 156 10.1 What is musical semantics? 156 10.2 Extra-musical meaning 158 10.2.1 Iconic musical meaning 158 10.2.2 Indexical musical meaning 159 Excursion: Decoding of intentions during musinc listening 161 10.2.3 Symbolic musical meaning 162 10.3 Extra-musical meaning and the N400 163 10.4 Intra-musical meaning 170 Excursion: Posterior temporal cortex and processing of meaning 166 10.4.1 Intra-musical meaning and the N5 171 10.5 Musicogenic meaning 177 10.5.1 Physical 177 10.5.2 Emotional 179 10.5.3 Personal 180 10.6 Musical semantics 181 10.6.1 Neural correlates 181 10.6.2 Propositional semantics 182 10.6.3 Communication vs. expression 182 10.6.4 Meaning emerging from large-scale relations 183 10.6.5 Further theoretical accounts 184 11 Music and Action 186 11.1 Perception–action mediation 186 11.2 ERP correlates of music production 189 12 Emotion 203 12.1 What are ‘musical emotions’? 204 12.2 Emotional responses to music – underlying mechanisms 207 12.3 From social contact to spirituality – The Seven Cs 208 12.4 Emotional responses to music – underlying principles 212 12.5 Musical expectancies and emotional responses 216 12.5.1 The tension-arch 218 12.6 Limbic and paralimbic correlates of music-evoked emotions 219 12.6.1 Major–minor and happy–sad music 225 12.6.2 Music-evoked dopaminergic neural activity 226 12.6.3 Music and the hippocampus 227 12.6.4 Parahippocampal gyrus 231 12.6.5 A network comprising hippocampus, parahippocampal gyrus, and temporal poles 232 12.6.6 Effects of music on insular and anterior cingulate cortex activity 232 12.7 Electrophysiological effects of music-evoked emotions 233 12.8 Time course of emotion 234 12.9 Salutary effects of music making 235 13 Concluding Remarks and Summary 241 13.1 Music and language 241 13.2 The music-language continuum 244 13.3 Summary of the theory 249 13.4 Summary of open questions 258 References 267 Index 303

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book SynopsisOffers the first thorough accounting of collegiate a cappella music's history and reveals how the critical issues of sociability, gender, performance, and technology affect its music and experience. Just as importantly, Joshua S. Duchan provides a vital contribution to music scholarship more broadly.Trade ReviewWell aware that few musical pleasures top the sensation of joining one's voice with others to create a meticulously blended sound, Joshua Duchan proves himself an effective writer and historian, clear thinker, and skilled musician in showing how American college students today, using contemporary pop recordings, have organized a social framework built upon the experience of vocal blending."" —Richard Crawford, University of Michigan""The scholarship is excellent. Duchan draws on relevant researchers and theorists in sociology, anthropology, music criticism, music history, culture and communication, musicology, and ethnomusicology. The sources cited are woven with care into the text to produce a fine analytic fabric treating of a cappella in all its complexity. Most impressive."" —Robert Stebbins, University of Calgary""Collegiate a cappella is a hundred years old and touches the lives of hundreds of thousands of students each year. Finally we have a scholarly look at this community that's thoughtful and insightful. Often treated as rock stars on their campus, many college students find a cappella to be the most powerful musical experience they will ever have, and we now have a book that explains how and why."" —Deke Sharon, Founder of the Contemporary A Cappella Society and the International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella

Read more less

Book SynopsisWritten by a group of music analysts who care deeply about musical theatre, this collection provides new understanding of how musicals are put together, how composers and lyricists structure words and music to complement one another, and how music helps us understand the human relationships and historical and social contexts.Table of Contents List of Examples and Figures List of Tables Acknowledgements Introduction Michael Buchler and Gregory J. Decker Part 1: Chapters that engage multiple works Chapter 1. “Was It Ever Real?”: Tonic Return via Stepwise Modulation in Broadway Songs Nathan Beary Blustein (American University) Chapter 2. Sondheim’s Dissonant Tonality Drew Nobile (University of Oregon) Chapter 3. Topical Interpretive Strategies in American Musical Theatre: Three Brief Case Studies Gregory J. Decker (Bowling Green State University) Chapter 4. A Phenomenological Approach to Music Theater Rhyme Richard Plotkin (New York, NY) Chapter 5. The Changing Rhythms of Bridges and Ends Rachel Short (Shenandoah Conservatory) Part 2: Chapters that engage a single work, organized chronologically Chapter 6. Three Notions of Long-Range Form in Guys and Dolls Michael Buchler (Florida State University) Chapter 7. Style, Tonality, and Sexuality in The Rocky Horror Show Nicole Biamonte (McGill University) Chapter 8. Music, Time, and Memory in Jason Robert Brown’s The Last Five Years Jonathan De Souza (University of Western Ontario) Chapter 9. Lesbian Desire in Fun Home Rachel Lumsden (Florida State University) Chapter 10. The Hip-Hop History of Hamilton Robert Komaniecki (University of Iowa) Chapter 11. “Isn’t it queer?”: The Kinsey Sicks and the Art of Broadway Parody J. Daniel Jenkins (University of South Carolina) List of Contributors Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisCharting the divergent paths of paranoid and reparative affects through illness narratives, academic work, queer life, noise pollution, sonic torture, and other touchy subjects, William Cheng exposes a host of stubborn norms in our daily orientations toward scholarship, self, and sound. Cheng contends that reparative attitudes toward music and musicology can serve as barometers of better worlds.Trade Review“Just Vibrations is without question a groundbreaking book, bothaccessible to a wide readership (including undergraduate students) andtheoretically nuanced. Cheng elegantly balances clarity of explanationwith a depth and breadth of scholarship that encourage the reader todive more deeply into the theoretical underpinnings of his readings andinterpretative approaches. All this is accomplished through a writing stylethat is eminently readable, borderline poetic at times.” - Andrew Dell’Antonio, the University of Texas at Austin

Read more less

Book SynopsisOffers a listener-based, philosophical-psychological theory of harmonic effects for Anglophone popular music since the 1950s. It begins with chords, their functions and characteristic hierarchies, then identifies the most common and salient harmonic-progression classes, or harmonic schemas.Trade ReviewDoll’s writing allows for a broad spectrum of musical literacy in his audience… It’s thorough enough for music scholars, but accessible enough to be suited for other scholars with some musical background, and perhaps even rock musicians and fans with intellectual interests."" - Shaugn O’Donnell, Associate Professor of Music Theory and Director of Graduate Studies at the City College of New York

Read more less

Book SynopsisOffers a study of creativity in the context of expert popular music instrumental performance. Applying ideas from cultural psychology to findings from research into the creative behaviors of a specific subset of popular music instrumentalists, Bill Bruford demonstrates the ways in which expert drummers experience creativity in music performance.Trade Reviewan intelligent, thought-provoking treatise on the notion of creativity in Western popular music. Over the course of a number of interviews and case studies involving expert drummers, Bill Bruford examines how such practitioners approach and understand creativity. In the process, he crafts a relational processual model for understanding creativity and the creative process for real-time interactive performing arts (theatre, dance, music). The result is a fascinating and rewarding read that will surely affect players and listeners alike as they think about the concept of finding ‘creative meaning in making it work and making it matter."" - Rob Bowman, Grammy Award Winning Professor of Music""It is no surprise to find Dr. Bruford so eloquently putting into language that which springs from such a non-linguistic source. Bill’s scholarly insights matched with a career’s-worth of personal experience shed an authoritative light on the creative role of the drummer. In today’s world of computer-generated rhythmic music, how wonderful to tap into this most organic and visceral element in music’s heritage, and deepen our appreciation of this immense creativity, past and present."" - Tim Garland

Read more less

Book SynopsisExamines how musicians from the West African Republic of Benin transform Benin’s cultural traditions, especially the ancestral spiritual practice of vodun and its musical repertoires, as part of the process of healing postcolonial trauma through music and ritual.Table of Contents List of Illustrations Fon-language Pronunciation Guide Acknowledgments Introduction Part I: Multiple Temporalities 1. History and Healing in VÒdÚn Practice, Power, and Value 2. Making la Musique Moderne: Cultural Renaissance in Postcolonial Benin Part II: Transforming VÒdÚn 3. GangbÉ Brass Band: Producing VÒdÚn, Producing Livelihood 4. Eyo’nlÉ Brass Band: Transforming the Blues 5. Jomion and the Uklos: Hwedo-Jazz and VÒdÚn in the New African Diaspora Conclusion: Trauma, Translation, Transformation Bibliography Glossary

Read more less

Book SynopsisExamines how the teaching and learning of improvisational musical practices can be understood as vital and publicly resonant acts that generate new forms of knowledge, new understandings of identity and community, and new imaginative possibilities.Trade ReviewComing from two authors who are improvisers themselves, and who have sought out the views and visions of improvising musicians and thoughtful scholars, Jamming the Classroom paves a pathway for honing one’s skills, for evaluating the process by which improvisation develops, and for offering a critical analysis of improvisation and how it is taught/learned. This is scholarship at its best, where in this case the very best minds on the topic are featured in support of themes surrounding improvisation and pedagogical practice." - Patricia Shehan Campbell, University of Washington; Carleton University"By highlighting the many ways that people learn and engage with musical improvisation, as well as the potential benefits of musical improvisation for both individuals and communities, Jamming the Classroom serves as a valuable contribution to—and indeed, may rise to the top of—the recent wave of studies that seek to trouble and expand received notions of musical values." - David Ake, Frost School of Music, University of MiamiTable of Contents Preface – “Stepping into Another World” Introduction – The Many Classrooms of Improvisation Chapter One – Solo Dialogics: Autodidactic Methods of Learning to Improvise Chapter Two – Hearing What the Other Has to Play: Co-Learning through Musical Improvisation Chapter Three – Music Festivals as Alternative Pedagogical Institutions Chapter Four – Improv Goes to School: Musical Improvisation and the Academy Chapter Five – A Force That’s Active in the World: Community-Oriented Pedagogies of Improvisation Coda: Performance as Pedagogy Works Cited Selected Discography of Improvised Music Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisExamines how musicians from the West African Republic of Benin transform Benin’s cultural traditions, especially the ancestral spiritual practice of vodun and its musical repertoires, as part of the process of healing postcolonial trauma through music and ritual.Trade Review“This tour de force study of vÒdÚn music and religion addresses how the two intersect, interpenetrate, and inform each other—and the world at large. A beautifully written book, at once intellectually rigorous and poetic, Transforming VÒdÚn is a must-read for scholars, students, practitioners, and the general public alike—anyone interested in global music, religion, and how Africa has shaped both.”—Suzanne Blier, Harvard University“This is a colorful, nuanced, and dynamically conceived manuscript that makes the sounds and concepts of one of West Africa’s most important music cultures accessible to the wider world. It is destined to sit among the classic works of African musical history.”—Michael E. Veal, Yale University“Transforming VÒdÚn contributes to the literature on Beninese jazz and brass bands and vÒdÚn, approaching these topics from the viewpoint of postcolonial trauma studies, diaspora studies, and music and ritual. For all of these reasons, the manuscript will be of interest to ethnomusicologists and can be used in classes on African music, global pop music, jazz studies, and West African history.”—Patricia Tang, Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyTable of Contents List of Illustrations Fon-language Pronunciation Guide Acknowledgments Introduction Part I: Multiple Temporalities 1. History and Healing in VÒdÚn Practice, Power, and Value 2. Making la Musique Moderne: Cultural Renaissance in Postcolonial Benin Part II: Transforming VÒdÚn 3. GangbÉ Brass Band: Producing VÒdÚn, Producing Livelihood 4. Eyo’nlÉ Brass Band: Transforming the Blues 5. Jomion and the Uklos: Hwedo-Jazz and VÒdÚn in the New African Diaspora Conclusion: Trauma, Translation, Transformation Bibliography Glossary

Read more less

Book SynopsisExamines how the teaching and learning of improvisational musical practices can be understood as vital and publicly resonant acts that generate new forms of knowledge, new understandings of identity and community, and new imaginative possibilities.Trade ReviewComing from two authors who are improvisers themselves, and who have sought out the views and visions of improvising musicians and thoughtful scholars, Jamming the Classroom paves a pathway for honing one’s skills, for evaluating the process by which improvisation develops, and for offering a critical analysis of improvisation and how it is taught/learned. This is scholarship at its best, where in this case the very best minds on the topic are featured in support of themes surrounding improvisation and pedagogical practice." - Patricia Shehan Campbell, University of Washington; Carleton University"By highlighting the many ways that people learn and engage with musical improvisation, as well as the potential benefits of musical improvisation for both individuals and communities, Jamming the Classroom serves as a valuable contribution to—and indeed, may rise to the top of—the recent wave of studies that seek to trouble and expand received notions of musical values." - David Ake, Frost School of Music, University of MiamiTable of Contents Preface – “Stepping into Another World” Introduction – The Many Classrooms of Improvisation Chapter One – Solo Dialogics: Autodidactic Methods of Learning to Improvise Chapter Two – Hearing What the Other Has to Play: Co-Learning through Musical Improvisation Chapter Three – Music Festivals as Alternative Pedagogical Institutions Chapter Four – Improv Goes to School: Musical Improvisation and the Academy Chapter Five – A Force That’s Active in the World: Community-Oriented Pedagogies of Improvisation Coda: Performance as Pedagogy Works Cited Selected Discography of Improvised Music Index

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book SynopsisEarle Brown (1926-2002) was a crucial part of the seminal group of experimental composers known as the New York School, and his work intersects in fascinating ways with that of his colleagues John Cage, Morton Feldman, and Christian Wolff. This book seeks to expand our view of Brown's work, addressing his practices as a painter and composer as well as his collaborations with visual artists.Trade ReviewOne of the best [multi-authored books] I’ve seen. . . . It makes a huge contribution. Earle Brown has long been neglected, and it’s nice to see his work receiving the attention it deserves."" - Amy Beal, University of California-Santa Cruz

Read more less

Book SynopsisArgues that the seemingly disparate styles of post-triadic music in fact share common structural elements. This book describes the foundational assumptions of this post-diatonic tonality and illustrates its compositional functions with numerous musical examples. It also discusses new developments in the theory and practice of twelve-tone tonality.

Read more less

Book SynopsisThis is an ethnography of a powerful western cultural organization, the renowned Institut de Recherche et de Co-ordination Acoustique/Musique (IRCAM) in Paris. The book studies the social and cultural economy of an institution for research and production of avant-garde and computer music.Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction I. Themes and Debates 2. Prehistory: Modernism, Postmodernism, and Music 3· Background: IRCAM's Conditions of Existence 4· The Institution of IRCAM: Culture and Status 5. Power, Institutional Conflict, Politics 6. Music: Uncertainty, the Canon, and Dissident Musics 7. Science, Technology, the Music Research Vanguard 8. A Composer's Visit: Mediations and Practices 9· Aporias: Technological and Social Problems around Production IO. Subjectivities: Difference and Fragmentation II. Conclusions: IRCAM, Cultural Power, and the Reproduction of Aesthetic Modernism Appendix: IRCAM Workers and Visitors as Introduced in the Text, by Acronym Glossary of terms and acronyms in the text Notes General Bibliography Bibliography of Music-Related References Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisTaking us into a composer's workshop, this title reevaluates what we call 'twentieth-century music' - a term used to refer to modern or contemporary music that represents a radical break from the tonal tradition, or 'common practice', of the preceding three centuries.

Read more less

Book SynopsisShows how classical music can take on new meaning and new life when approached from postmodernist standpoints. This book provides an account of the postmodernist ethos, explains its relationship to music, and explores that relationship in a series of case studies ranging from Haydn and Mendelssohn to Ives and Ravel.Table of ContentsList of Musical Examples and Figure Preface Acknowledgments 1. Prospects Postmodernism and Musicology 2. From the Other to the Abject Music as Cultural Trope 3. Music and Representation In the Beginning with Haydn's Creation 4. Musical Narratology A Theoretical Outline 5. Felix Culpa Mendelssohn, Goethe, and the Social Force of Musical Expression 6. The Lied as Cultural Practice Tutelage, Gender, and Desire in Mendelssohn's Goethe Songs 7. Cultural Politics and Musical Form The Case of Charles Ives 8. Consuming the Exotic Ravel's Daphnis and Chloe Epilogue Autonomy, Elvis, Cinders, Fingering Bach Appendix: Mendelssohn: Three Goethe Songs Notes Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisA selection of the author's critical essays on music, which includes an analysis of Beethoven's obsession with the key of C minor, an account of William Byrd as a spokesman for the Elizabethan Catholic minority, and papers on the operas Don Giovanni, The Magic Flute and Tristan and Isolde.Table of ContentsPreface CRITICISM 1 A Profile for American Musicology 2 How We Got into Analysis, and How to Get Out 3 A Few Canonic Variations 4 Critics and the Classics BYRD, TALLIS, ALFONSO FERRABOSCO 5 William Byrd and Elizabethan Catholicism 6 Byrd, Tallis, and the Art of Imitation 7 "Write All These Down": Notes on a Song by Byrd 8 The Missa Puer natus est by Thomas Tallis 9 An Italian Musician in Elizabethan England BEETHOVEN 10 Tovey's Beethoven 11 An die ferne Geliebte 12 Taking the Fifth 13 Beethoven's Minority OPERA AND CONCERTO 14 Translating The Magic Flute 15 Wagner: Thoughts in Season 16 Verdi's Use of Recurring Themes 17 Two Early Verdi Operas; Two Famous Terzetti 18 Reading Don Giovanni 19 Mozart's Piano Concertos and Their Audience 20 Tristan und Isolde: The Prelude and the Play Acknowledgments

Read more less

Book SynopsisThere is a well-developed vocabulary for discussing classical music, but when it comes to popular music, how do we analyze its effects and its meaning? This text demonstrates how listeners form opinions about popular songs, and how they come to attribute a rich variety of meaning to them.Table of ContentsPreface 1 Introduction Prelude I. Codes and competences II. Who is the author? III. Musicology and popular music IV. Postlude 2 Family values in music? Billie Holiday's and Bing Crosby's "I'll Be Seeing You" I. A tale of two (or three) recordings II. Critical discourse III. Biographical discourse IV. Style and history V. Performance, effect, and affect 3 When you're lookin' at Hank (you're looking at country) I. Lyrics, metanarratives, and the great authenticity debate II. Sound, performance, gender, and the hanky-tonk III. "A feeling called the blues" IV. The emergence of "country-western" 4 James Brown's "Superbad" and the double-voiced utterance I. The discursive space of black music II. Signifyin(g)-words and performance III. Musical signifyin(g) 5 Writing, music, dancing, and architecture in Elvis Costello's "Pills and Soap" I. The "popular aesthetic" II. Style and aesthetics III. Interpretation and (post)modern pop IV. A question of influence 6 Afterword: the citizens of Simpleton Appendix A. Reading the spectrum photos B. Registral terminology Notes Bibliography Select discography Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisThough known chiefly as a writer of novels and stories, Paul Bowles (1910-99) thought of himself first and foremost as a composer. This book collects the music criticism that Bowles published between 1935 and 1946 as well as an interview conducted by Irene Herrmann shortly before his death.Table of ContentsIntroduction --Timothy Mangan Articles and Reviews by Paul Bowles 1935-39 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945 1946 Interview with Paul Bowles, by Irene Hermann Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisFocusing on rhythm, this book offers examination of diverse black cultures across the New World. It traces the central - and contested - role of music in shaping identities, politics, social history, and artistic expression.Trade Review"A compelling interdisciplinary exploration of rhythm and sound in the circum-Caribbean." -- Kaima L. Glover Oxford Journal 20120703 "Examining Black music in the western hemisphere since slavery, this book makes clear the essential role it has played in culture, politics and social change." B.l.a.c. 20100801Table of ContentsContents Acknowledgments Introduction: Slaves to the Rhythm 1. Beating Back Darkness: Rhythm and Revolution in Haiti 2. Rhythm, Creolization, and Conflict in Trinidad 3. Rhythm, Music, and Literature in the French Caribbean 4. James Brown, Rhythm, and Black Power Conclusion: Listening to New World History Notes References Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisSongs of Seoul is an ethnographic study of voice in South Korea, where the performance of Western opera, art songs, and choral music is an overwhelmingly Evangelical Christian enterprise. Drawing on fieldwork in churches, concert halls, and schools of music, Harkness argues that the European-style classical voice has become a specifically Christian emblem of South Korean prosperity. By cultivating certain qualities of voice and suppressing others, Korean Christians strive to personally embody the social transformations promised by their religion: from superstition to enlightenment; from dictatorship to democracy; from sickness to health; from poverty to wealth; from dirtiness to cleanliness; from sadness to joy; from suffering to grace. Tackling the problematic of voice in anthropology and across a number of disciplines, Songs of Seoul develops an innovative semiotic approach to connecting the materiality of body and sound, the social life of speech and song, and the cultural voicing of perspective and personhood.Table of ContentsList of Illustrations Acknowledgments Note on Romanization Introduction PART ONE. THE QUALITIES OF VOICE 1. Transformations of Voice 2. Voicing an Advanced Korea 3. Cultivating the Christian Voice 4. The Clean Voice PART TWO. THE SOCIALITY OF VOICE 5. Tuning the Voice 6. The Voice of Homecoming 7. Feeling the Voice Conclusion Notes References Cited Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisExperiencing Latin American Music draws on human experience as a point of departure for musical understanding.Students explore broad topicsidentity, the body, religion, and moreand relate these to Latin American musics while refining their understanding of musical concepts and cultural-historical contexts. With its brisk and engaging writing, this volume covers nearly fifty genres and provides both students and instructors with online access to audio tracks and listening guides. A detailed instructor's packet contains sample quizzes, clicker questions, and creative, classroom-tested assignments designed toencourage critical thinking and spark the imagination. Remarkably flexible, thisinnovativetextbook empowers students from a variety of disciplines to study a subject that is increasingly relevant in today's diverse society. In addition to the instructor's packet, online resources for students include:customized Spotify playlistonline listening guidesaudio sound links to reinforce musical conceptsstimulating activities for individual and group workTable of ContentsList of Audio Selections Acknowledgments Note on the Text 1 Experiencing Latin American Music: An Introduction Study Guide Key Terms For Further Study 2 Experiencing Latin American Film Music Conclusions Study Guide Key Terms For Further Study Reading for Pleasure 3 Experiencing Musical Concepts: Focus on Latin America Conclusions Study Guide Key Terms For Further Study 4 Experiencing Latin American Religious Music Conclusions Study Guide Key Terms For Further Study Reading for Pleasure 5 Experiencing Latin American Music And Identity Conclusions Study Guide Key Terms For Further Study Reading for Pleasure 6 Experiencing Latin American Music through the Body Conclusions Study Guide Key Terms For Further Study Reading for Pleasure 7 Experiencing Latin American Music And Politics Conclusions Study Guide Key Terms For Further Study Reading for Pleasure 8 But Is It Art? Experiencing Latin American Classical Music Conclusions Study Guide Key Terms For Further Study Reading for Pleasure 9 Experiencing Latin American Music: Globalization And Transnationalism Conclusions Study Guide Key Terms For Further Study Reading for Pleasure Independent Research Interview-Research Essay Glossary of Musical Terms Selected Bibliography (English) Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisVirginia Woolf famously claimed that, around December 1910, human character changed. This book addresses how music, the phonograph, and film served as cultural agents facilitating the many extraordinary social, artistic, and cultural shifts that characterized the new century and much of what followed long thereafter.Trade Review"Richard Leppert’s book is a tour de force that marries the cultural history of opera and film with the technological history of modern media and sound technology in order to tackle fundamental questions about art in the age of modernity and our relationship to it." * Music & Letters *Table of ContentsList of Illustrations List of Musical Examples Acknowledgments Introduction PART I. MODERNITY AND OPERA; NATURE AND REDEMPTION 1. The Civilizing Process: Music and the Aesthetics of Time-Space Relations in The Girl of the Golden West 2. Opera, Aesthetic Violence, and the Imposition of Modernity: Fitzcarraldo PART II. VOICING SUBJECTIVITY EXCURSUS: OPERA, MONUMENTALITY, AND LOOKING AT LOOKING 3. Caruso, Phonography, and Operatic Fidelities: Regimes of Musical Listening, 1904--1929 4. Aesthetic Meanderings of the Sonic Psyche: Three Operas, Two Notes, and One Ending at the Boundary of the Great Divide PART III. MODERNITY, NATURE, AND DYSTOPIA EXCURSUS: NATURAL BEAUTY / ART BEAUTY 5. Sound, Subjectivity, and Death: Days of Heaven (promesse du bonheur) Conclusion: Acoustic Invocations of Crisis and Hope Appendix: Chapter 5 Tables Notes Bibliography Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisHow do keyboards make music playable? Drawing on theories of media, systems, and cultural techniques, this title deals with the genealogy of musical play and its animation via improvisation, performance, and recreation.Trade Review"Keys to Play" has been called a "game-changer" and "dazzling and daring" by reviewers. It cuts across the traditional sub-disciplines of music studies to offer new and challenging connections between them." Cornell ChronicleTable of ContentsAcknowledgments Prelude: Press Any Key to Start Part I. Fields and Interfaces of Musical Play Key 1. Ludomusicality 1–1 Orders of Play 1–2 Beyond Work and Play 1–3 The Sound of Gunplay 1–4 Bits and Beats 1–5 Playing Undead Key 2. Digital Analogies 2–1 Apollo 1, Marsyas 0 2–2 Notes on Keys 2–3 Interface Values 2–4 (Key)board Games and Temperamental Tactics 2–5 Tristan’s Chord, Schoenberg’s Voice Part II. Play by Play: Improvisation, Performance, Recreation Key 3. The Emergence of Musical Play 3–1 Unforeheard Circumstances 3–2 Pantomimes and Partimenti 3–3 From Black Box to Glassy Shell 3–4 The Case of Winkel’s Componium 3–5 The Invisible Thumb on the Scale Key 4. High Scores: WAM vs. LVB 4–1 Unsettled Scores 4–2 Mozart’s Two-Player Games 4–3 Concerted Action 4–4 Mozart and Mario Play the Field 4–5 Beethoven’s Recursive Feedback Loops Key 5. Play Again? 5–1 Nintendo’s Brand of Ludomusicality 5–2 Analogous Digitalities 5–3 The Ludomusical Emergence of Toshio Iwai 5–4 High Scores: Nodame Cantabile 5–5 Replay: A Cento Notes Bibliography Ludography Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisThe study of South Asian music falls under the purview of ethnomusicology; whereas that of South Asian literature falls under South Asian studies. This book examines the history of Sinhala-language song and poetry in twentieth-century Sri Lanka.Trade Review"Modernizing Composition is a product of thorough research, fresh interpretation, and clear writing; it will be of great value to readers in postcolonial studies looking to broaden their regional outlook and readers in Sri Lanka studies seeking to expand their theoretical perspectives." * Asian Music *Table of ContentsList of Illustrations Acknowledgments Note on Translation and Transliteration Introduction Part One: The Colonial Era 1. Nationalist Thought and the Sri Lankan World 2. Brothers of the Pure Sinhala Fraternity 3. Wartime Romance Part Two: The Postcolonial Era 4. Divergent Standards of Excellence 5. For the People 6. Illusions to Disillusions Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisRace, politics, and opera production during apartheid South Africa intersect in this historiographic work on the Eoan Group, a coloured cultural organization that performed opera in the Cape. The La Traviata Affair charts Eoan's opera activities from the group's inception in 1933 until the cessation of their productions by 1980. It explores larger questions of complicity, compromise, and compliance; of assimilation, appropriation, and race; and of European art music in situations of non-European dispossession and disenfranchisement. Performing under the auspices of apartheid, the group's unquestioned acceptance of and commitment to the art of opera could not redeem it from the entanglements that came with the political compromises it made. Uncovering a rich trove of primary source materials, Hilde Roos presents here for the first time the story of one of the premier cultural agencies of apartheid South Africa. Table of ContentsList of Illustrations Acknowledgments Note on Terminology Introduction 1 • We Live to Serve: A Demimonde before Art 2 • The La Traviata Affair: From Courtesan to Lover 3 • Eoan’s Best Opera Success: An Amorous Fantasy 4 • Scala Is Scala and Eoan Is Eoan: Th e Struggle to Breathe 5 • Slow Death: On Twilight and Loss Postscript Appendix 1: Eoan’s Music Productions Appendix 2: The Eoan Group Constitution Notes Selected Bibliography Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisHungarian composer and musician Zoltán Kodály (18821967)is best known for his pedagogical system, the Kodály Method, which has been influential in the development of music education around the world. Author Anna Dalos considers, for the first time in publication, Kodály's career beyond the classroom and provides a comprehensive assessment of his works as a composer. A noted collector of Hungarian folk music, Kodály adapted thetraditional heritage musics inhis own compositions, greatly influencing the work of his contemporary, Béla Bartók. Highlighting Kodály's major music experiences, Dalos shows how his musical works were also inspired by Brahms, Wagner, Debussy, Palestrina, and Bach. Set against the backdrop of various oppressive regimes of twentieth-century Europe, this study of Kodály's careeralso explores decisive, extramusical impulses,such as hisbitter experiences of World War I, Kodály's reception of classical antiquity, and his interpretation of the male and female roles in his music. Written by the leading Kodály expert, this impressive work of historical and musical insight provides a timely and much-needed English-language treatment of the twentieth-century composer.Trade Review"This book is a major contribution to the growing English-language literature on Hungarian music-history . . . Dalos, with her excellent command of English and expansive knowledge of Kodály’s role in Hungarian music-history, is an ideal scholar to re-introduce Kodály to the English-speaking world as one of the great classical composers and minds of the twentieth century." * Hungarian Cultural Studies *"The great merit of Dalos’s extremely informative and readable book is to bring Kodály out of his shadowy existence as 'Bartók’s little-known, almost mysterious companion'... Since the book not only represents an enormous scholarly gain but is also eminently suitable for pedagogical purposes, it is certain to be widely received." * Studia Musicologica *"This book will be of particular interest to musicologists and those interested in aspects of Kodály’s life that are not yet as celebrated internationally, but which remained a major impetus for his commitment to a better music education in Hungary." * Journal of the History of Music Education *Table of ContentsIllustrations and Tables Acknowledgments Introduction 1. Zoltán Kodály's Path 2. Kodály the Brahmin: The Beginning of the Composer's Career 3. A Paradigm Shift: The Reinterpretation of the Folk Song Concept 4. Finding the Voice of His "Deepest Inner Self": The Case of String Quartet No. 1 5. Commentaries on Debussy: Kodály's Turn toward Western Modernity 6. Nausicaa, Sappho, and Other Women in Love: Women and Modernism in Kodály's Songs 7. "From These Times of War": The Case of String Quartet No. 2 8. Reflections of a Nonpolitical Man: Kodály after the Trianon Treaty (1920) 9. An Encounter with a Young Man: The Peacock Variations 10. Palestrina in Budapest: Kodály's Views on Church Music 11. Why Jeppesen?: Kodály's Readings on Counterpoint 12. Hungarian Counterpoint: Contrapuntal Technique in Kodály's Works 13. The Art of Fugue: About Kodály's Concerto 14. A Symphonic Self-Portrait: The Last Years Epilogue Chronology of the Life of Zoltán Kodály Notes Bibliography General Index Index of Kodály's Works

Read more less