Description
Book SynopsisIn 1960s and 1970s singer-songwriter music, some artists used malleable metric settings alongside other features of self-expression in performance. This resulted in songs with extremes of self-expressive timing flexibility that cannot be accounted for using a single conception of meter. This book proposes a theory of flexible meter that recasts metric structure as encompassing the variety of metric scenarios presented by the self-expressive performance practice of singer-songwriters, from metric regularity to metric ambiguity, and vacillations between these two possibilities. Author Nancy Murphy explores performances by Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Paul Simon, and Cat Stevens to investigate the individual metric style of each artist and how their flexible metric techniques contribute to the self-expressive rhetoric of the singer-songwriter performance tradition.
Table of ContentsAbstract Table of Contents List of Figures and Captions Acknowledgements Chapter 1: The Self Expressive Rhetoric of Flexible Meter Self-Expressive Features Flexible Meter and "The Fiddle and the Drum" Self-Expression and the Singer-Songwriter Expectations for Singer-Songwriter Music Bob Dylan and The Folk Revival Flexible Meter as Self-Expression in Singer-Songwriter Music Chapter 2: The Theory of Flexible Meter Types of Flexible Meter Regular Meter Reinterpreted Meter Lost Meter Ambiguous Meter Metric Potential Chapter 3: Regular and Reinterpreted Meter Regular Meter Reinterpreted Meter Joni Mitchell's Rhapsodic Sentiments Paul Simon: Reinterpreted Meter Expressing Enigmatic Lyrics Cat Stevens's Introspection A Closer Look: Joni Mitchell's "Lesson in Survival" Chapter 4: Self-Expressive Innovations: Lost Meter Bob Dylan's "Only a Pawn in Their Game" Cat Stevens's "Time" Joni Mitchell's "Blue" Chapter 5: Intensifying "Imperfection": Ambiguous Meter Bob Dylan's "Down the Highway" Bob Dylan's "Restless Farewell" Joni Mitchell's "The Fiddle and the Drum" Buffy Sainte-Marie's "Sir Patrick Spens" Chapter 6: What Happens Next? Self-Expressive Flexible Meter Beyond 1982 Future Singer-Songwriters Buffy Sainte-Marie's "My Country" (1966) "My Country" (1966, Rainbow Quest) "My Country" (2017, Medicine Songs) Conclusion: Flexible Meter as Self-Expression Index
