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Books > Music > Folk music
Song and dance style--viewed as nonverbal communications about culture--are here related to social structure and cultural history. Patterns of performance, theme, text and movement are analyzed in large samples of films an recordings from the whole range of human culture, according to the methods explained in this volume. Cantometrics, which means song as a measure of man, finds that traditions of singing trace the main historic distributions of human culture and that specific traits of performance are communications about identifiable aspects of society. The predictable and universal relations between expressive communication and social organization, here established for the first time, open up the possibility of a scientific aesthetics, useful to planners. Alan Lomax is Director, Cantometrics and Choreometrics Projects at Columbia University.
David Hanrahan is a well-known and respected exponent of accordion music and he uses his experience to bring you an sagacious and informative guide to playing the accordion. Using a QandA format, and by concentrating on the most frequently asked questions, he gives confidence to a developing beginner. All the fundamental skills are covered in this book, from playing first notes and adding bass notes to the function of the air valve and bellows action. With illustrations, music theory and general tips, The Box is a perfect start for those wanting to learn the accordion and provides a source of early and easy extracts and melodies. Includes a demonstration CD.
The study of 'Celtic' culture has been locked within modern nationalist paradigms, shaped by contemporary media, tourism, and labor migration. Celtic Modern collects critical essays on the global circulation of Celtic music, and the place of music in the construction of Celtic 'Imaginaries'. It provides detailed case studies of the global dimensions of Celtic music in Scotland, Wales, Ireland, Brittany, and amongst Diasporas in Canada, the United States and Australia, with specific reference to pipe bands, traditional music education in Edinburgh, the politics of popular/traditional crossover in Ireland, and the Australian bush band phenomenon. Contributors include performer musicians as well as academic writers. Critique necessitates reflexivity, and all of the contributors, active and in many cases professional musicians as well as writers, reflect in their essays on their own contributions to these kind of encounters. Thus, this resource offers an opportunity to reflect critically on some of the insistent 'othering' that has accompanied much cultural production in and on the Celtic World, and that have prohibited serious critical engagement with what are sometimes described as the 'traditional' and 'folk' music of Europe.
An unorthodox musician from the start, singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell's style of composing, performing, and of playing (and tuning) the guitar is unique. In the framework of sexual difference and the gendered discourses of rock this immediately begs the questions: are Mitchell's songs specifically feminine and, if so, to what extent and why? Anne Karppinen addresses this question focusing on the kind of music and lyrics Mitchell writes, the representation of men and women in her lyrics, how her style changes and evolves over time, and how cultural context affects her writing. Linked to this are the concepts of subjectivity and authorship: when a singer-songwriter sings a song in the first person, about whom are they actually singing? Mitchell offers a fascinating study, for the songs she writes and sings are intricately woven from the strands of her own life. Using methods from critical discourse analysis, this book examines recorded performances of songs from Mitchell's first nine studio albums, and the contemporary reviews of these albums in Anglo-American rock magazines. In one of the only books to discuss Mitchell's recorded performances, with a focus that extends beyond the seminal album Blue, Karppinen explores the craft of Mitchell's songwriting and her own attitudes towards it, as well as the dynamics and politics of rock criticism in the 1960s and 1970s more generally.
A moving portrait of the contemporary experiences of migrant Moroccan men. Umbria is known to most Americans for its picturesque rolling hills and medieval villages, but to the many migrant Moroccan men who travel there, Umbria is better known for the tobacco fields, construction sites, small industries, and the outdoor weekly markets where they work. Marginalized and far from their homes, these men turn to Moroccan traditions of music and poetry that evoke the countryside they have left- l-'arubiya, or the rural. In this book, Alessandra Ciucci takes us inside the lives of Moroccan workers, unpacking the way they share a particular musical style of the rural to create a sense of home and belonging in a foreign and inhospitable nation. Along the way, she uncovers how this culture of belonging is not just the product of the struggles of migration, but also tied to the reclamation of a noble and virtuous masculine identity that is inaccessible to Moroccan migrants in Italy. The Voice of the Rural allows us to understand the contemporary experiences of migrant Moroccan men by examining their imagined relationship to the rural through sound, shedding new light on the urgent issues of migration and belonging.
'Leonard Cohen taught us that even in the midst of darkness there is light, in the midst of hatred there is love, with our dying breath we can still sing Hallelujah.' - The late Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks 'Among the finest volumes on Cohen's life and lyrics ... An exploration which would have intrigued and engaged Leonard himself.' - John McKenna, writer and friend of Leonard Cohen Harry Freedman uncovers the spiritual traditions that lie behind Leonard Cohen's profound and unmistakable lyrics. The singer and poet Leonard Cohen was deeply learned in Judaism and Christianity, the spiritual traditions that underpinned his self-identity and the way he made sense of the world. In this book Harry Freedman, a leading author of cultural and religious history, explores the mystical and spiritual sources Cohen drew upon, discusses their original context and the stories and ideas behind them. Cohen's music is studded with allusions to Jewish and Christian tradition, to stories and ideas drawn from the Bible, Talmud and Kabbalah. From his 1967 classic 'Suzanne', through masterpieces like 'Hallelujah' and 'Who by Fire', to his final challenge to the divinity, 'You Want It Darker' he drew on spirituality for inspiration and as a tool to create understanding, clarity and beauty. Born into a prominent and scholarly Jewish family in Montreal, Canada, Cohen originally aspired to become a poet, before turning to song writing and eventually recording his own compositions. Later, he became immersed in Zen Buddhism, moving in 1990 to a Zen monastery on Mount Baldy, California where he remained for some years. He died, with immaculate timing, on the day before Donald Trump was elected in 2016, leaving behind him a legacy that will be felt for generations to come. Leonard Cohen: The Mystical Roots of Genius looks deeply into the imagination of one of the greatest singers and lyricists of our time, providing a window on the landscape of his soul. Departing from traditional biographical approaches, Freedman explores song by song how Cohen reworked myths and prayers, legends and allegories with an index of songs at the end of the book for readers to search by their favourites. By the end the reader will be left with a powerful understanding of Cohen's story, together with a far broader insight into the mystical origins of his inimitable work.
Ballads offer one of the most fascinating and revealing records of humankind-our deepest feelings and most profound experiences, our laughter and joys, our troubles and sorrows. There is no battle, no romance, no escapade, no tragedy recorded in song which is not rich both in historical significance and in contemporary experience. A ballad is a link with past generations, traditions, and the basic character traits of a people, a region, or a country. The associations formed, the recollections stirred make the study of this form of music a rewarding experience. The first printed collection of ballads was made in 1723-25 and entitled simply Old Ballads. That it met with warm approval is indicated by the fact that a third edition was published as soon as 1727. Since the publication of that first collection, interest in the ballad and demand for ballad texts have grown constantly. During the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries, several hundred collections were published. Many of these collections have become classics in the field of balladry. With the publication of this fourth and final volume of the Ancient Ballads series, the Helen Hartness Flanders Collection took its place with the other classics in the field. Volume IV contains child ballads 250-295 with thirty-six versions of "The Sweet Trinity," or "The Golden Vanity," alone. This is representative of the completeness of the series and reflects the years of scholarship that went into the collecting, interviewing, scoring, and editing of the collection. With analyses by Tristram P. Coffin and musical annotations by Bruno Netti, Helen Hartness Flanders's work constitutes an invaluable source for the student of the ballad, as well as those interested in the related studies of musicology, literature, history, social sciences, and ethnology. Ancient Ballads Traditionally Sung in New England provides endless opportunity for both scholarly study and sheer fascination.
Originally formed by singer-songwriter Ian Anderson in psychedelic 1968, the band Hethro Tull has been recording its own kind of rock and roll and touring the globe for more than three decades. This is a history of the band through the present, written by a personal acquaintance of several of its members. The book includes a chronology of all of the band's recordings and information on all accompanying tours, with the author's critiques as well as the band's own reminiscences and opinions of each album. Also included are previously unpublished interviews with founder Ian Anderson long-time band member David Pegg, Mick Abrahams, Jeffrey Hammond, and Doane Perry, and other band members.
Ballads offer one of the most fascinating and revealing records of humankind-their deepest feelings and most profound experiences, their laughter and joys, their troubles and sorrows. There is no battle, no romance, no escapade, no tragedy recorded in song which is not rich both in historical significance and in contemporary experience. A ballad is a link with past generations, traditions, and the basic character traits of a people, a region, or a country. The associations formed, the recollections stirred make the study of this form of music a rewarding experience. Ancient Ballads Traditionally Sung in New England is complied an edited from the Helen Harness Flanders Ballad Collection at Middlebury College. The texts of the ballads are printed and their tunes set exactly as the singers gave then in the original form, with succinct and accurate notes to reach. This rich collection contains nearly all the traditional ballads of America, many of them in multiple versions. Volume III contains Child ballads 95-243 from the numbered Francis James Child Collection.
The Life and Songs of Stephen Foster offers an engaging reassessment of the life, politics, and legacy of the misunderstood father of American music. Once revered the world over, Foster's plantation songs, like "Old Folks at Home" and "My Old Kentucky Home," fell from grace in the wake of the Civil Rights Movement due to their controversial lyrics. Foster embraced the minstrel tradition for a brief time, refining it and infusing his songs with sympathy for slaves, before abandoning the genre for respectable parlor music. The youngest child in a large family, he grew up in the shadows of a successful older brother and his president brother-in-law, James Buchanan, and walked a fine line between the family's conservative politics and his own pro-Lincoln sentiments. Foster lived most of his life just outside of industrial, smoke-filled Pittsburgh and wrote songs set in a pastoral South-unsullied by the grime of industry but tarnished by the injustice of slavery. Rather than defining Foster by his now-controversial minstrel songs, JoAnne O'Connell reveals a prolific composer who concealed his true feelings in his lyrics and wrote in diverse styles to satisfy the changing tastes of his generation. In a trenchant reevaluation of his NewYork Bowery years, O'Connell illustrates how Foster purposely abandoned the style for which he was famous to write lighthearted songs for newly popular variety stages and music halls. In the last years of his life, Foster's new direction in songwriting stood in the vanguard of vaudeville and musical comedy to pave the way for the future of American popular music. His stylistic flexibility in the face of evolving audience preferences not only proves his versatility as a composer but also reveals important changes in the American music and publishing industries. An intimate biography of a complex, controversial, and now neglected composer, The Life and Songs of Stephen Foster is an important story about the father of American music. This invaluable portrait of the political, economic, social, racial, and gender issues of antebellum and Civil War America will appeal to history and music lovers of all generations.
From Aristotle to Heidegger, philosophers distinguished two orders of time, before, after and past, present, future, presenting them in a wide range of interpretations. It was only around the turn of the 1970s that two theories of time which deliberately went beyond that tradition, enhancing our notional apparatus, were produced independently of one another. The nature philosopher Julius T. Fraser, founder of the interdisciplinary International Society for the Study of Time, distinguished temporal levels in the evolution of the Cosmos and the structure of the human mind: atemporality, prototemporality, eotemporality, biotemporality and nootemporality. The author of the book distinguishes two 'dimensions' in time: the dimension of the sequence of time (syntagmatic) and the dimension of the sizes of duration or frequency (systemic). On the systemic scale, the author distinguishes, in human ways of existing and acting, a visual zone, zone of the psychological present, zone of works and performances, zone of the natural and cultural environment, zone of individual and social life and zone of history, myth and tradition. In this book, the author provides a synthesis of these theories.
In sunbaked Terlingua, Texas (pop., a few hundred), residents joke that there is a musician under every rock. Located ten miles from Mexico in one of the remotest corners of the United States, the town had a recording studio before it had a school, a well-stocked grocery store, or even a water utility. Open jam sessions are a daily ritual, and some songwriters make a living from their craft despite being thousands of miles from New York or Nashville. Why does such a tiny and isolated place ring with singing and guitars? Based on more than two years of on-the-ground research, On the Porch tells the story of this small but remarkable community. Chase Peeler invites us into the music, introducing us to a cast of characters as unique as the town itself. He reveals how novices and experts perform together-a rarity in contemporary America. He recounts the devastation brought on by a border closure and describes how music is once again uniting people across the Rio Grande. He considers the impact of gentrification in an off-the-grid paradise, and how this threatens to transform a precarious musical ecosystem. On the Porch is a celebration of human musicality, of the role that music plays and can play in our lives, both in Terlingua and beyond.
This book consists primarily of papers presented at the international symposium Approaches to Music Research: Between Practice and Epistemology, held in Ljubljana (Slovenia) in May 2008. Scholars from various music research areas offered heterogeneous views of one central issue: the relations between music-research ideals and practices. The intention was to offer a reflection concerning disciplinary intersections as ideal-typical formations in which different contemporary musicological practices meet each other, either positively or in more negative terms. The topoi of the symposium discussed elemental, difficult-to-answer questions about the position that musicology holds within the humanities and sciences. The symposium especially encouraged case studies of basic epistemological reflections with an emphasis on the practice of music research from any field.
When he emerged from the nightclubs of Greenwich Village, Bob Dylan was often identified as a "protest" singer. As early as 1962, however, Dylan was already protesting the label: "I don't write no protest songs," he told his audience on the night he debuted "Blowin' in the Wind." "Protest" music is largely perceived as an unsubtle art form, a topical brand of songwriting that preaches to the converted. But popular music of all types has long given listeners food for thought. Fifty years before Vietnam, before the United States entered World War I, some of the most popular sheet music in the country featured anti-war tunes. The labor movement of the early decades of the century was fueled by its communal "songbook." The Civil Rights movement was soundtracked not just by the gorgeous melodies of "Strange Fruit" and "A Change Is Gonna Come," but hundreds of other gospel-tinged ballads and blues. In Which Side Are You On?, author James Sullivan delivers a lively anecdotal history of the progressive movements that have shaped the growth of the United States, and the songs that have accompanied and defined them. Covering one hundred years of social conflict and progress across the twentieth century and into the early years of the twenty-first, this book reveals how protest songs have given voice to the needs and challenges of a nation and asked its citizens to take a stand-asking the question "Which side are you on?"
The Power of Song shows how the people of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania confronted a military superpower and achieved independence in the Baltic "Singing Revolution." When attacked by Soviet soldiers in public displays of violent force, singing Balts maintained faith in nonviolent political action. More than 110 choral, rock, and folk songs are translated and interpreted in poetic, cultural, and historical context. Watch the trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gh7vFFjK0rc
When singer, musician, and broadcast journalist Malka Marom had the
opportunity to interview Joni Mitchell in 1973, she was eager to
reconnect with the performer she'd first met late one night in 1966
at a Yorkville coffeehouse. More conversations followed over the
next four decades of friendship, and it was only after Joni and
Malka completed their last recorded interview, in 2012, that Malka
discovered the heart of their discussions: the creative process.
A tour de force of storytelling years in the making: a dual biography of two of the greatest songwriters, Bob Dylan and Woody Guthrie, that is also a murder mystery and a history of labor relations and socialism, big business and greed in twentieth-century America-woven together in one epic saga that holds meaning for all working Americans today. When thirteen-year-old Daniel Wolff first heard Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone," it ignited a life-long interest in understanding the rock poet's anger. When he later discovered "Song to Woody," Dylan's tribute to his hero, Woody Guthrie, Wolff believed he'd uncovered one source of Dylan's rage. Sifting through Guthrie's recordings, Wolff found "1913 Massacre"-a song which told the story of a union Christmas party during a strike in Calumet, Michigan, in 1913 that ended in horrific tragedy. Following the trail from Dylan to Guthrie to an event that claimed the lives of seventy-four men, women, and children a century ago, Wolff found himself tracing the history of an anger that has been passed down for decades. From America's early industrialized days, an epic battle to determine the country's direction has been waged, pitting bosses against workers and big business against the labor movement. In Guthrie's eyes, the owners ultimately won; the 1913 Michigan tragedy was just one example of a larger lost history purposely distorted and buried in time. In this magnificent cultural study, Wolff braids three disparate strands-Calumet, Guthrie, and Dylan-together to create a devastating revisionist history of twentieth-century America. Grown-Up Anger chronicles the struggles between the haves and have-nots, the impact changing labor relations had on industrial America, and the way two musicians used their fury to illuminate economic injustice and inspire change.
Since World War I, the self-contained communities of Gaelic-speaking Scotland, characterised by collaborative effort and a robust sense of communal identity, have been transformed. Improved transport and communications have brought today's Gaelic speakers into the culture of mainstream Western society. Once an integral part of daily life, Gaelic singing has become an art form heard less at home than on concert platforms, at the Mod, and on commercial recordings, where a "good voice" and emotive style - neither part of the traditional aesthetic - help singers differentiate themselves in the traditional music marketplace. Written in an accessible style and providing guidance for those wishing to access audible examples, this book will help both scholars and general readers grasp the magnitude of change as it has transformed an important aspect of Scottish Gaelic culture.
Harry Belafonte is not just one of the greatest entertainers of our
time; he has led one of the great American lives of the last
century. Now, this extraordinary icon tells us the story of that
life, giving us its full breadth, letting us share in the
struggles, the tragedies, and, most of all, the inspiring triumphs.
"From the Hardcover edition."
A second collection of 50 carols, mostly for SATB, some unaccompanied, and some having accompaniments for piano, organ, orchestra, or brass ensemble. Many of the carols are from traditional sources, rearranged, as well as carols written especially for this volume by composers including William Walton, Benjamin Britten, Richard Rodney Bennett, and William Mathias. Instrumental material for most of the accompanied items is available on hire. Eight Carols for Brass for 5 and 8 part brass (to accompany carols from Carols for Choirs 1 and Carols for Choirs 2) are also on sale.
I've Always Kept a Unicorn tells the story of Sandy Denny, one of the greatest British singers of her time and the first female singer-songwriter to produce a substantial and enduring body of original songs. Sandy Denny laid down the marker for folk-rock when she joined Fairport Convention in 1968, but her music went far beyond this during the seventies. After leaving Fairport she formed Fotheringay, whose influential eponymous album was released in 1970, before collaborating on a historic one-off recording with Led Zeppelin - the only other vocalist to record with Zeppelin in their entire career - and releasing four solo albums across the course of the decade. Her tragic and untimely death came in 1978. Sandy emerged from the folk scene of the sixties - a world of larger-than-life characters such as Alex Campbell, Jackson C. Frank, Anne Briggs and Australian singer Trevor Lucas, whom she married in 1973. Their story is at the core of Sandy's later life and work, and is told with the assistance of more than sixty of her friends, fellow musicians and contemporaries, one of whom, to paraphrase McCartney on Lennon, observed that she sang like an angel but was no angel.
This book explores the growing phenomenon of music tourism - instances of people visiting places because of a connection with music. Asking how an abstract art form such as music can lead to tourism and how the popularity of music tourism in contemporary culture might be explained, it presents a comparative study of musical tourism in various locations across Europe, in relation to a range of musical genres. Through the concept of 'musical topophilia', the author offers a timely and insightful analysis of the affective attachment to place and music, showing how and why music literally moves people. This account enables us to grasp the complex ways in which music, place, and tourism are connected in practice. Based on empirical case studies, Contemporary Music Tourism lays the foundation for a theoretical grounding of music tourism as a research field and, as such, will appeal to scholars of geography, music, sociology, tourism, and cultural studies.
A traveling salesman with little formal education, Max Hunter gravitated to song catching and ballad hunting while on business trips in the Ozarks. Hunter recorded nearly 1600 traditional songs by more than 200 singers from the mid-1950s through the mid-1970s, all the while focused on preserving the music in its unaltered form. Sarah Jane Nelson chronicles Hunter's song collecting adventures alongside portraits of the singers and mentors he met along the way. The guitar-strumming Hunter picked up the recording habit to expand his repertoire but almost immediately embraced the role of song preservationist. Being a local allowed Hunter to merge his native Ozark earthiness with sharp observational skills to connect--often more than once--with his singers. Hunter's own ability to be present added to that sense of connection. Despite his painstaking approach, ballad collecting was also a source of pleasure for Hunter. Ultimately, his dedication to capturing Ozarks song culture in its natural state brought Hunter into contact with people like Vance Randolph, Mary Parler, and non-academic folklorists who shared his values. |
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