50 Christmas carols
The volumes of Carols for Choirs have established themselves as the quintessential carol books for carol-singers around the world. Each volume presents a wide rage of carols to suit every occasion, from well-known tunes superbly arranged to be the best original compositions. Carols for Choirs 1 includes carols for audience and congregation with varied harmonizations and festive descants, the full text of the traditional Nine Lessons printed in the appendix, and a detailed list of the carol orchestrations available on rental.
Orchestrations for several of the carols from this collection are available on sale or hire under the titles Three Carol Orchestrations and Five Christmas Carols.
Eight Carol Accompaniments for 5 and 8 part brass (to accompany carols from CfC1 and CfC2) are also on sale.

Based on extensive fieldwork and documentary research in China, this book is a chronicle of the musical history of Lijiang County in China's southern Yunnan Province. It focuses on Dongjing music, a repertoire borrowed from China's Han ethnic majority by the indigenous Naxi inhabitants of Lijiang County. Used in Confucian worship as well as in secular entertainment, Dongjing music played a key role the Naxi minority's assimilation of Han culture over the last 200 years. Prized for its complexity and elegance, which set it apart from "rough" or "simpler" indigenous Naxi music, Dongjing played an important role in defining social relationships, since proficiency in the music and membership in the Dongjing associations signified high social status and cultural refinement. In addition, there is a strong political component in its examination of the role of indigenous music in the relation of a socialist state to its ethnic minorities.
The first in English on this rich musical tradition, this book is also unique in providing a complete history of the music in a single region in China over the twentieth century. It integrates individual, local, and national histories with musical experience and musical change. Ethnic music in China provides a vivid example of the tremendous cultural changes over the past century, and the tradition continues to evolve as China encourages ethnic diversity within a unified socialist nation. The book includes a case study of China's tourist trade and its policies toward minorities.

(Limelight). With disciplined lyricism and entirely devoid of technical jargon, Bruce Adolphe's book probes into the heart of such matters as the role of memory and imagination in creative expression, the meaning of inspiration, spirituality in music, the challenge of arts education and how music communicates.

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.

Presents musical case studies from various regions including Africa, the Caribbean, Latin America, North America, and Europe, that engage with broader interdisciplinary issues about race, gender, politics, nationalism and music. In eleven original essays, this collection examines such diverse musics and issues as the blues aesthetic, the globalisation of jazz and the role of militarism in Hatian vodou music. The African Diaspora answers the question of why music claims such pride of place in the African diasporic imagination.

Acclaimed cultural critic Greil Marcus tells the story of Bob Dylan through the lens of seven penetrating songs "The most interesting writer on Dylan over the years has been the cultural critic Greil Marcus. . . . No one alive knows the music that fueled Dylan's imagination better. . . . Folk Music . . . [is an] ingenious book of close listening."-David Remnick, New Yorker "Marcus delivers yet another essential work of music journalism."-Kirkus Reviews (starred review) "Further elevates Marcus to what he has always been: a supreme artist-critic."-Hilton Als Across seven decades, Bob Dylan has been the first singer of American song. As a writer and performer, he has rewritten the national songbook in a way that comes from his own vision and yet can feel as if it belongs to anyone who might listen. In Folk Music, Greil Marcus tells Dylan's story through seven of his most transformative songs. Marcus's point of departure is Dylan's ability to "see myself in others." Like Dylan's songs, this book is a work of implicit patriotism and creative skepticism. It illuminates Dylan's continuing presence and relevance through his empathy-his imaginative identification with other people. This is not only a deeply felt telling of the life and times of Bob Dylan but a rich history of American folk songs and the new life they were given as Dylan sat down to write his own.

Born in South Carolina, White spent his childhood as a "lead boy" for traveling blind bluesmen. In the early '30s he moved to New York and became a popular blues star, then introduced folk-blues to a mass white audience in the 1940s. He was famed both for his strong Civil Rights songs, which made him a favorite of the Roosevelts, and for his sexy stage persona. The king of Café Society-also home to Billie Holiday--he was the one bluesman to consistently pack the New York nightspots, and the first black singer-guitarist to act in Hollywood films and star on Broadway.
In the 1950s, White's bitter compromise with the blacklisters left him with few friends on either end of the political spectrum. He spent much of the decade in Europe, then came back strong in the 1960s folk revival. By 1963, he was voted one of America's top three male folk stars, but his health was failing and he did not survive the decade.
Written in an engaging style, Society Blues portrays the difficult balancing act that all black performers must face in a predominantly white culture. Through the twists and turns of White's life, it traces the evolution of the blues and folk revival, and is a must read for anyone interested in the history of American popular culture, as well as a fascinating life story.

The Appalachian dulcimer is one of America's major contributions to world music and folk art. Homemade and handmade, played by people with no formal knowledge of music, this beautiful instrument arrived in the light of the 20th century with virtually no written record. Appalachian Dulcimer Traditions is a first-hand report to enlarge our knowledge of the dulcimer's history by searching the hills and "hollers" of Appalachia, looking at old instruments, and listening to the tales of old folks. After reviewing the instrument's special musical features, the book describes some related instruments, and reveals little-known facts about the dulcimer's origins on the early Appalachian frontier. The book then describes three major design traditions of the dulcimer, each centered in its own geographical area, and focuses on important makers in each of the three traditions-the Melton family of Galax, Virginia, Charles M. Prichard of Huntington, West Virginia, and "Uncle Ed" Thomas of Kentucky. A final chapter describes four Appalachian makers of the folk revival transition, who began making instruments the old-time way and modernized them to meet the needs of Post-World-War-II urban players. The book concludes with listings of dulcimer recordings in the Archive of Folk Culture of the Library of Congress.

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.

The last quarter of the twentieth-century saw a renewed interest in the hammered dulcimer in the United States at the grassroots level as well as from elements of the Folk Revival. This book offers the reader a discussion of the medieval origins of the dulcimer and its subsequent spread under many different names to other parts of the world. Drawing on articles the author has written in English as well as articles by specialists in their own languages, Gifford explains the history and evolution of the instrument. Special attention is paid to the North American tradition from the early 18th-century to the 1970s revival. Drawing from local histories, news clippings, photographs, and interviews, the book examines the playing of the dulcimer and its associated social meanings.

'En France, tout finit par des chansons' is the well-known phrase which sums up the importance of chanson for the French. A song tradition that goes back to the Middle Ages and troubadours of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, chanson is part of the texture of everyday life in France - a part of the national identity and a barometer of popular taste. In this first study of chanson in English, Peter Hawkins examines the background to the genre and the difficulties in defining what is and what is not chanson. The focus then moves to the development of the singer-songwriter of chanson from 1880 to the present day. This period saw the emergence of national icons from Aristide Bruant at the end of the nineteenth century through to internationally recognized musicians such as Jacques Brel and Serge Gainsbourg. Each of these figures used chanson to express the particular moral dilemmas, tragic situations and moments of euphoria particular to themselves and their times. The book provides bibliographies, discographies and details of video recordings for each of the singer-songwriters that it discusses. It is both an essential reference guide to the genre and a useful case history of the adaptation of an ancient form to the demands of the modern mass media.

The 1930s and 1940s represented an era in United States history when large groups of citizens took political action in response to their social and economic circumstances. The vision, attitudes, beliefs and purposes of participants before, during, and after this time period played an important part of American cultural history. Richard and JoAnne Reuss expertly capture the personality of this era and the fascinating chronology of events in American Folk Music and Left-Wing Politics, 1927-1957, a historical analysis of singers, writers, union members and organizers and their connection to left-wing politics and folk music during this revolutionary time period. While scholarship on folk music, history, and politics is not unique in and of itself, Reuss' approach is noteworthy for its folklorist perspective and its long, encompassing assessment of a broad cross-section of participants and their interactions. An innovative and informative look into one of the most evocative and challenging eras in American history, American Folk Music and Left-Wing Politics, 1927-1957 stands as a historic milestone in this period's scholarship and evolution.

Series Information:
Native Americans: Interdisciplinary Perspectives

The blind mendicant in Ukrainian folk tradition is a little-known social order, but an important one. The singers of Ukrainian epics, these minstrels were organized into professional guilds that set standards for training and performance. Repressed during the Stalin era, this is their story.

Mark Anthony Neal reads the story of black communities through the black tradition in popular music. His history challenges the view that hip-hop was the first black cultural movement to speak truth to power. Beginning with the role of music in 19th-century slave culture, Neal covers key black cultural movements (Harlem, jazz, blaxploitation films, Motown, hip-hop, etc.), the social forces and organizations that countered them, including the FBI and the Nixon administration, a myriad of artists (Marvin Gaye figures significantly), and the relation of black music to such forces as the black feminist movement, black liberation, and identity politics.

Beginning with the role of music in nineteenth century slave culture, Neal covers key black cultural movements (Harlem, jazz, blaxploitation films, Motown, hip-hop, etc.), the social forces and organizations that countered them, including the FBI and the Nixon administration, a myriad of artists (Marvin Gaye figures significantly), and the relation of black music to such forces as the black feminist movement, black liberation, and identity politics.

The classic three volumes of Hebridean Folksongs, reissued simultaneously for the first time since their original publication (1969, 1977, 1981), contain 135 songs connected with the waulking of homespun tweed cloth in the Hebridean isles. Volume 1 is based on waulking songs collected by Donald MacCormick in South Uist in 1893. Volumes 2 and 3 are based on John Lorne Campbell's recordings of songs made between 1938 and 1965 in Barra, South Uist, Eriskay and Benbecula. The translations for all the songs in Volumes 2 and 3 and many of those in Volume 1 are by John Lorne Campbell, who also wrote detailed notes discussing the songs. Multiple versions of the same song are compared with each other and with versions drawn from unpublished manuscript sources. Francis Collinson's meticulous musical transcriptions of the songs, and musicological analyses, are invaluable. The songs are from the repertoires of some well-known singers of their generation, including Miss Annie Johnson, her brother Calum and Miss Mary Morrison, all of Barra, Mrs Neil Campbell of South Uist, and Miss Nan MacKinnon of Vatersay.

Among the many intriguing characteristics of the Ukrainian folk tradition is the fact that Ukrainian epics were sung by a special type of minstrel -- the blind mendicant. These minstrels were organized into professional guilds that set standards for training and performance and provided the singers with protection and support throughout their careers.

The separateness of Ukrainian culture became politically salient, and epic singers became the target of repression during the Stalin era (in 1939 there was a massacre of Ukrainian minstrels). For this reason -- and due also to tire secrecy that always surrounded the guilds' rites of membership and their association with mendicancy -- Ukrainian ministrelsy has been little studied.

Natalie Kononenko's work is thus a revelation of a distinctive folk tradition and a little-known social order. It will be of interest to anyone with an interest in folklore, Ukrainian culture, or rural social history.

Within Israel there are a number of musical traditions and styles encompassing sacred and secular, old and new, folk and sophisticated forms. Contributions to this issue form a discussion of significant traditions established before 1948: the search for the establishment of a new and typically Israeli art and folk music; the attitude of the protagonist of the old, exile, traditional heritage of the Jewish people; and the struggle of the immigrants after the creation of the State of Israel to ensure the survival of their musical traditions as well as to cope with the new physical and cultural environment. The general scope of these contributions corresponds to major events marking the musical and cultural history of modern Israel from the 1920s to 1990s, including local Arab music. A CD of examples of Arab music, Yiddish song, Klezmer, and Judeo-Spanish song is included with Part 2.

In May 1991 the Richard Reuss Memorial Folk Music Conference, the first of its kind, was held at Indiana University in Bloomington. For two days a stellar gathering of folk music performers, scholars, journalists, and activists discussed their memories of the folk music revival in the United States during the 1950s and 1960s. These presentations, now substantially revised and published for the first time, give an exciting overview of the revival from a variety of important and stimulating perspectives. Various key performers and folklorists give personal accounts of the time, while Irwin Sibler (editor of Sing Out!) and Jon Pankake and Barry Hansen (editors of The Little Sandy Review) discuss the development and role of the leading folk music magazines. These essays retain the idiosyncrasies of the original presentations, while giving multiple insights and understandings of the folk music revival, a crucial cultural and musical moment in recent U.S. history, as well as racial, gender, and political differences within the revival, popular versus traditional folk music styles, and much more. Scholars and students of folk music and popular music of the 1950s and 1960s, as well as those interested in American popular culture in general, will benefit from these wide-ranging and stimulating essays. Cloth edition [0-8108-2955-X] previously published in 1995.

Originally published in 1969. Until the latter half of the nineteenth century, it was thought that England, alone among the European countries, and unlike Scotland and Ireland where collections of ballads and songs had already been published as early as the eighteenth century, had no important native tradition of music. The founding of the (English) Folk-Song Society in 1898, however, and the pioneering work of such collectors as Lucy Broadwood, the Reverend S. Baring-Gould and, later, Cecil Sharp uncovered a still flourishing folk culture. Since then interest in this subject has grown steadily, and the bibliography of publications of actual folk-songs and ballads is now huge. Frank Howes sets out a general and scholarly introduction, first examining in detail the history and origins of folk music and going on to show the nature and vast amount of the material, enforcing his arguments with a wealth of examples from around the world. His discussion of the differences of national idiom leads on to a comparison of British folk music with that of other European countries and America, in which he pays due attention to the Celtic and Norse traditions. Separate sections on balladry, carols, street cries, broadsides, sea shanties, nursery rhymes and instruments illustrate both the variety of folk music and the extent to which it permeates our national heritage.

Originally published in 1983. Song has always been a natural way to record everyday experiences - an expression of celebration, commiseration, complaint and protest. This innovative book is a study of popular and working-class song combining several approaches to the subject. It is a history of working-class song in Britain which concentrates not simply on the songs and the singers but attempts to locate such song in its cultural context and apply principles of literary criticism to this essentially oral medium. It triggered controversy: some critics castigated its Marxist approach, others enthused that 'such unabashed partisanship amply reveals the outstanding characteristic of Watson's book'. The author discusses the way in which the popular song, from Victorian times onwards, has been forced by the entertainment industry out of its roots in popular culture, to become a blander form of art with minimal critical potential. The book ends by considering the possibilities for a continued flourishing of a genuine popular song culture in an electronic age. It has become a standard title in bibliographies and curricula. Much has changed since 1983, not least in music; but this then innovative book still has a lot to say about popular song in its social and historical context.

Originally published in 1995. This book's collection of key essays presents a coherent overview of touchstone statements and issues in the study of Anglo-American popular ballad traditions and suggests ways this panoramic view affords us a look at Euro-American scholarship's questions, concerns and methods. The study of ballads in English began early in the eighteenth century with Joseph Addison's discussions which marked the onset of an aesthetic and scholarly interest in popular traditions. Therefore the collection begins with him and then chronologically includes scholars whose views mark pivotal moments which taken together tell a story that does not emerge through an examination of the ballads themselves. The book addresses debates in tradition, orality, performance and community as well as national genealogies and connections to contexts. Each selected piece is pre-empted by an introductory section on its importance and relevance.

During the 1990s, Asian pop artists began entering the mainstream of the British music industry for the first time. Bands such as Black Star Liner, Cornershop, Fun Da Mental and Voodoo Queens, led those within and without the industry to start asking questions such as what did it mean to be Asian? How did the bands' Asian background affect their music? What did their music say about Asians in Britain? In this book, Rehan Hyder draws on in-depth interviews with musicians from these bands and with critics and record producers, to examine the pressures associated with making music as a young Asian in today's multi-ethnic Britain. As the book reveals, these musicians wish to convey an authentic sense of creativity in their music, while at the same time wanting to assert a positive ethnic identity. Hyder explores these two impulses against the backdrop of a music industry and a society at large that hold a range of confining stereotypes about what it means to be Asian. The experiences of these bands add considerably to the wider debate about the nature of identity in the contemporary world.