""Is there jazz in China?"" This is the question that sent author Eugene Marlow on his quest to uncover the history of jazz in China. Marlow traces China's introduction to jazz in the early 1920s, its interruption by Chinese leadership under Mao in 1949, and its rejuvenation in the early 1980s with the start of China's opening to the world under Premier Deng Xiaoping. Covering a span of almost one hundred years, Marlow focuses on a variety of subjects--the musicians who initiated jazz performances in China, the means by which jazz was incorporated into Chinese culture, and the musicians and venues that now present jazz performances. Featuring unique, face-to-face interviews with leading indigenous jazz musicians in Beijing and Shanghai, plus interviews with club owners, promoters, expatriates, and even diplomats, Marlow marks the evolution of jazz in China as it parallels China's social, economic, and political evolution through the twentieth and into the twenty-first century. Also featured is an interview with one of the extant members of the Jimmy King Big Band of the 1940s, one of the first major all-Chinese jazz big bands in Shanghai. Ultimately, Jazz in China: From Dance Hall Music to Individual Freedom of Expression is a cultural history that reveals the inexorable evolution of a democratic form of music in a Communist state.

‘Sonic intimacy’ is a key concept through which sound, human and technological relations can be assessed in relation to racial capitalism. What is sonic intimacy, how is it changing and what is at stake in its transformation, are questions that should concern us all. Through an analysis of alternative music cultures of the Black Atlantic (reggae sound systems, jungle pirate radio and grime YouTube music videos), Malcolm James critically shows how sonic intimacy pertains to modernity’s social, psychic, spatial and temporal movements. This book explores what is urgently at stake in the development of sonic intimacy for human relations and alternative black and anti-capitalist public politics.

Connecting four centuries of political, social, and religious history with fieldwork and language documentation, A Transatlantic History of Haitian Vodou analyzes Haitian Vodou's African origins, transmission to Saint-Domingue, and promulgation through song in contemporary Haiti. Split into two sections, the African chapters focus on history, economics, and culture in Dahomey, Allada, and Hueda while scrutinizing the role of Europeans in fomenting tensions. The political, military, and slave trading histories of the kingdoms in the Bight of Benin reveal the circumstances of enslavement, including the geographies, ethnicities, languages, and cultures of enslavers and enslaved. The study of the spirits, rituals, structure, and music of the region's religions sheds light on important sources for Haitian Vodou. Having royal, public, and private expressions, Vodun spirit-based traditions served as cultural systems that supported or contested power and enslavement. At once suppliers and victims of the European slave trade, the people of Dahomey, Allada, and Hueda deeply shaped the emergence of Haiti's creolized culture. The Haitian chapters focus on Vodou's Rada Rite (from Allada) and Gede Rite (from Abomey) through the songs of Rasin Figuier's Vodou Lakay and Rasin Bwa Kayiman's Guede, legendary rasin compact discs released on Jean Altidor's Miami label, Mass Konpa Records. All the Vodou songs on the discs are analyzed with a method dubbed "Vodou hermeneutics" that harnesses history, religious studies, linguistics, literary criticism, and ethnomusicology in order to advance a scholarly approach to Vodou songs.

From the mid-1950s through the 1960s, Hungarian composer Gyoergy Ligeti went through a remarkable period of stylistic transition, from the emulation of his fellow countryman Bela Bartok to his own individual style at the forefront of the Western-European avant-garde. Through careful study of the sketches and drafts, as well as analysis of the finished scores, Metamorphosis in Music takes a detailed look at this compositional evolution. Author Benjamin R. Levy includes sketch studies created through transcriptions and reproductions of archival material-much of which has never before been published-providing new, detailed information about Ligeti's creative process and compositional methods. The book examines all of Ligeti's compositions from 1956 to 1970, analyzing little-known and unpublished works in addition to recognized masterpieces such as Atmospheres, Aventures, the Requieim, and the Chamber Concerto. Discoveries from Ligeti's sketches, prose, and finished scores lead to an enriched appreciation of these already multifaceted works. Throughout the book, Levy interweaves sketch study with comments from interviews, counterbalancing the composer's own carefully crafted public narrative about his work, and revealing lingering attachments to older forms and insights into the creative process. Metamorphosis in Music is an essential treatment of a central figure of the musical midcentury, who found his place in a generation straddling the divide between the modern and post-modern eras.

Listen to Hip Hop! Exploring a Musical Genre provides an overview of hip-hop music for scholars and fans of the genre, with a focus on 50 defining artists, songs, and albums. Listen to Hip Hop! Exploring a Musical Genre explores non-rap hip hop music, and as such it serves as a compliment to Listen to Rap! Exploring a Musical Genre (Greenwood Press, Anthony J. Fonseca, 2019), which discussed at length 50 must-hear rap artists, albums, and songs. This book aims to provide a close listening/reading of a diverse set of songs and lyrics by a variety of artists who represent different styles outside of rap music. Most entries focus on specific songs, carefully analyzing and deconstructing musical elements, discussing their sound, and paying close attention to instrumentation and production values-including sampling, a staple of rap and an element used in some hip hop dance songs. Though some of the artists included may be normally associated with other musical genres and use hip hop elements sparingly, those in this book have achieved iconic status. Finally, sections on the background and history of hip hop, hip hop's impact on popular culture, and the legacy of hip hop provide context through which readers can approach the entries. Provides readers with a history of non-rap hip hop music Offers critical analysis of 50 must-hear songs, albums, and musicians that define the genre Explores both the musical and lyrical dimensions of hip hop music Discusses the impact on popular culture as well as the legacy of hip hop

Breaking is the first and most widely practiced hip-hop dance in the world today, with an estimated one million participants taking part in this dynamic, multifaceted artform. Yet, despite its global reach and over 40 years of existence, historical treatments of the dance have largely neglected the African Americans who founded it. Dancer and scholar Serouj "Midus" Aprahamian offers, for the first time, a detailed look into the African American beginnings of breaking in the Bronx, New York, during the 1970s. Given the pivotal impact the dance had on hip-hop's formation, this book also challenges numerous myths and misconceptions that have permeated studies of hip-hop culture's emergence. Aprahamian draws on untapped archival material, primary interviews, and detailed descriptions of early breaking to bring this buried history to life, with a particular focus on the early aesthetic development of the dance, the institutional settings in which hip-hop was conceived, and the movement's impact on sociocultural conditions in New York throughout the 1970s. By featuring the overlooked first-hand accounts of over 50 founding b-boys and b-girls, this book also shows how indebted breaking is to African American culture and interrogates the disturbing factors behind its historical erasure.

Sonic Writing explores how contemporary music technologies trace their ancestry to previous forms of instruments and media. Studying the domains of instrument design, musical notation, and sound recording under the rubrics of material, symbolic, and signal inscriptions of sound, the book describes how these historical techniques of sonic writing are implemented in new digital music technologies. With a scope ranging from ancient Greek music theory, medieval notation, early modern scientific instrumentation to contemporary multimedia and artificial intelligence, it provides a theoretical grounding for further study and development of technologies of musical expression. The book draws a bespoke affinity and similarity between current musical practices and those from before the advent of notation and recording, stressing the importance of instrument design in the study of new music and projecting how new computational technologies, including machine learning, will transform our musical practices. Sonic Writing offers a richly illustrated study of contemporary musical media, where interactivity, artificial intelligence, and networked devices disclose new possibilities for musical expression. Thor Magnusson provides a conceptual framework for the creation and analysis of this new musical work, arguing that contemporary sonic writing becomes a new form of material and symbolic design--one that is bound to be ephemeral, a system of fluid objects where technologies are continually redesigned in a fast cycle of innovation.

During the formative years of jazz (1890-1917), the Creoles of Color-as they were then called-played a significant role in the development of jazz as teachers, bandleaders, instrumentalists, singers, and composers. Indeed, music penetrated all aspects of the life of this tight-knit community, proud of its French heritage and language. They played and/or sang classical, military, and dance music, as well as popular songs and cantiques that incorporated African, European, and Caribbean elements decades before early jazz appeared. In Jazz a la Creole: French Creole Music and the Birth of Jazz, author Caroline Vezina describes the music played by the Afro-Creole community since the arrival of enslaved Africans in La Louisiane, then a French colony, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, emphasizing the many cultural exchanges that led to the development of jazz. Vezina has compiled and analyzed a broad scope of primary sources found in diverse locations from New Orleans to Quebec City, Washington, DC, New York City, and Chicago. Two previously unpublished interviews add valuable insider knowledge about the music on French plantations and the danses Creoles held in Congo Square after the Civil War. Musical and textual analyses of cantiques provide new information about the process of their appropriation by the Creole Catholics as the French counterpart of the Negro spirituals. Finally, a closer look at their musical practices indicates that the Creoles sang and improvised music and/or lyrics of Creole songs, and that some were part of their professional repertoire. As such, they belong to the Black American and the Franco-American folk music traditions that reflect the rich cultural heritage of Louisiana.

Released in 2008, J-pop trio Perfume's GAME shot to the top of Japanese music charts and turned the Hiroshima trio into a household name across the country. It was also a high point for techno-pop, the genre's biggest album since the heyday of Yellow Magic Orchestra. This collection of maximalist but emotional electronic pop stands as one of the style's finest moments, with its influence still echoing from artists both in Japan and from beyond. This book examines Perfume's underdog story as a group long struggling for success, the making of GAME, and the history of techno-pop that shaped it. 33 1/3 Global, a series related to but independent from 33 1/3, takes the format of the original series of short, music-basedbooks and brings the focus to music throughout the world. With initial volumes focusing on Japanese and Brazilian music, the series will also include volumes on the popular music of Australia/Oceania, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and more.

From the Tin Pan Alley 32-bar form, through the cyclical forms of modal jazz, to the more recent accumulation of digital layers, beats, and breaks in Electronic Dance Music, repetition as both an aesthetic disposition and a formal property has stimulated a diverse range of genres and techniques. From the angles of musicology, psychology, sociology, and science and technology, Over and Over reassesses the complexity connected to notions of repetition in a variety of musical genres. The first edited volume on repetition in 20th- and 21st-century popular music, Over and Over explores the wide-ranging forms and use of repetition - from large repetitive structures to micro repetitions - in relation to both specific and large-scale issues and contexts. The book brings together a selection of original texts by leading authors in a field that is, as yet, little explored. Aimed at both specialists and neophytes, it sheds important new light on one of the fundamental phenomena of music of our times.

This book is devoted to one of the world's greatest late twentieth-century symphonists, Chinese composer Zhu Jianer. Each of his 10 symphonies is discussed in detail and can be grouped into such concepts as the Cultural Revolution (nos. 1-2), an emphasis on human topics (nos. 3-4-5), and his continuous expansion of traditional symphonic boundaries (nos. 6-7-8-9-10). Zhu's symphonies can be relevant to all peoples and all cultures due to his concern for heaven, earth, and humankind. This in-depth discussion of Chinese and Western elements in Zhu's symphonies includes such topics as his free use of twelve-tone rows, his exploration of sound possibilities, his diverse and fascinating approaches to musical form, the concept of the lonely individual struggling within a decadent society, and his belief that humans must be ethical and responsible to ensure future hope for humankind. Courses in symphonic literature, Asian composers, or intercultural composers would benefit significantly from this book.

Antonin Dvorak was a clever and highly communicative humorist and musical dramatist. His masterful compositional strategies underscore, heighten, and construct sonic humor in his six (!!) comic operas. He crafts musical slapstick, satire, parody, and merriment using sudden breaks in rhythmic patterns, explosive harmonic shifts, excessive repetition, and startling pauses, as well as incongruous tempi, dynamics, range, and instrumentation. Dvorak also gives the orchestra its own "voice," breaking the metaphorical "fourth wall" to reveal humor outside of the characters' awareness. Narrative description and comprehensive music examples guide the reader through all six of Dvorak's works in this genre, revealing a significantly under-appreciated side of the composer's immense creative skills.

Marvelous Rise of Superheroes in Cinema: Evolution of the Genre from Sequels to Universes addresses the superhero movie genre's transformation between 1978 and 2019. To emphasize and illustrate the conceptual and thematic transformation, the main conventions of the genre are scanned through several periods, focusing on the developmental age of the genre, including the dominant period of DC Comics-based superhero movies (1978-1997) and the Marvel "boom" (2000-2007), and the contemporary age. For this purpose, the book traces the fundamentals of superheroes from the first appearance of Superman in Action Comics #1 (1938) to the final installment of the MCU's Phase 3, Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019). The transformation has two significant points. First, the genre's main conventions have been in a change. Second, the genre's focus has changed from sequel filmmaking to the universe concept. The study investigates the Marvel Cinematic Universe's dominant, leading, and major role in the genre's evolutionary process. Besides, the future of the superhero movie genre is questioned through the multiverse concept to broaden an understanding of the genre's following directions.

Discovering Music Theory is a suite of workbooks and corresponding answer books that offers all-round preparation for the updated ABRSM Music Theory exams from 2020, including the new online papers. This full-colour workbook will equip students of all ages with the skills, knowledge and understanding required for the ABRSM Grade 3 Music Theory exam. Written to make theory engaging and relevant to developing musicians of all ages, it offers: - straightforward explanations of all new concepts - progressive exercises to build skills and understanding, step by step - challenge questions to extend learning and develop music-writing skills - helpful tips for how to approach specific exercises - ideas for linking theory to music listening, performing and instrumental/singing lessons - clear signposting and progress reviews throughout - a sample practice exam paper showing you what to expect in the new style of exams from 2020 As well as fully supporting the ABRSM theory syllabus, Discovering Music Theory provides an excellent resource for anyone wishing to develop their music literacy skills, including GCSE and A-Level candidates, and adult learners.