Finding the Beat explores humankind’s ability, propensity, and enjoyment in finding the beat in live and recorded experiences of music-making through the lens of entrainment, the human capacity to perceive a beat and to synchronize to it. Anyone who has attended a concert, gone to a club, or watched a sporting event has witnessed and/or participated in tapping, clapping, or dancing along with a piece, song, or chant. It doesn’t matter who or where you are in the world—as humans we spend a lot of time taking pleasure in matching our bodily movements with a perceived beat. Drawing upon diverse examples from the North American and British rock repertoire, Nathan Hesselink demonstrates that listeners are gripped in deep, compelling, and socially meaningful ways when musicians play with or against expectations set up by entrainment. Via musicology, music theory, popular music studies, ethnomusicology, and cognitive neuroscience, he illustrates the creative, aesthetic, and participatory pleasure and wonder afforded by our collective ability to find the beat.

See the film Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, A Journey, A Song from Sony Pictures Classics This "thoughtful and illuminating" (The New York Times) work of music journalism is an unforgettable, fascinating, and unexpected account of one of the most performed and beloved songs in pop history-Leonard Cohen's heartrending "Hallelujah." Featuring a new foreword and afterword by the author. When Leonard Cohen first wrote and recorded the song "Hallelujah," it attracted little attention or airplay, dismissed by both fans and critics alike. Today, it is one of the most recorded songs in history, having been covered by a variety of music icons including Celine Dion, Bon Jovi, Willie Nelson, and, most famously, Jeff Buckley. It's been featured on soundtracks as diverse as Shrek to The West Wing. And in the days after major tragedies, it has brought comfort to thousands after being featured in the MTV 9/11 tribute video and the telethon for the 2010 Haitian earthquake. So how did one relatively unknown song become an unofficial international anthem for human triumph and tragedy, one which each successive generation feels they have discovered and claimed as uniquely their own? Through in-depth interviews and expansive research, longtime music journalist Alan Light follows the captivating and improbable journey of "Hallelujah" to the heart of popular culture. Discover how great songs come to be, and how we as listeners have the endless ability to project a succession of meanings onto a cultural artifact, forever reinterpreting art through the lens of current events and the latest trends. "A combination mystery tale, detective story, pop critique, and sacred psalm of its own" (Daily News, New York),The Holy or the Broken is a revelatory and masterful exploration of the overwhelming power of music.

This title was first published in 2000. John Ireland (1879-1962) was as elusive as the music that he composed. His music resists easy categorization, in part because it is linked so closely to specific events, places and people in Ireland's personal life. The Music of John Ireland explores the expressive and extramusical qualities of Ireland's compositions and their complex system of personal musical symbols, images and ideas. Fiona Richards interweaves biography and musical analysis in a series of chapters which take their themes from the significant influences in Ireland's life: Anglo-Catholicism, paganism, the countryside, the city, love and war. Ireland emerges as highly individual, struggling with his religious beliefs, his sexuality, and an uncertainty as to his success. His music, often an expression of a state of mind, is given, for the first time, the close investigation that it merits. Ireland preferred to compose on a small scale, showing a masterful command of form and a gift for melody. Richards reveals how the essence of the man shines through in the miniatures that he wrote.

Peter Kivy is the author of many books on the history of art and, in particular, the aesthetics of music. This collection of essays spans a period of some thirty years and focuses on a richly diverse set of issues: the biological origins of music, the role of music in the liberal education, the nature of the musical work and its performance, the aesthetics of opera, the emotions of music, and the very nature of music itself. Some of these subjects are viewed as part of the history of ideas, others as current problems in the philosophy of art. A particular feature of the volume is that Kivy avoids the use of musical notation so that no technical knowledge at all is required to appreciate his work. The essays will prove enjoyable and insightful not just to professionals in the philosophy of art and musicologists, or to musicians themselves, but also to any motivated general reader with a deep interest in music.

The contributions in this volume focus on the ways in which silence and music relate, contemplate each other and provide new avenues for addressing and gaining understanding of various realms of human endeavour. The book maps out this little-explored aspect of the sonic arena with the intention of defining the breadth of scope and to introduce interdisciplinary paths of exploration as a way forward for future discourse. Topics addressed include the idea of 'silent music' in the work of English philosopher Peter Sterry and Spanish Jesuit St John of the Cross; the apparently paradoxical contemplation of silence through the medium of music by Messiaen and the relationship between silence and faith; the aesthetics of Susan Sontag applied to Cage's idea of silence; silence as a different means of understanding musical texture; ways of thinking about silences in music produced during therapy sessions as a form of communication; music and silence in film, including the idea that music can function as silence; and the function of silence in early chant. Perhaps the most all-pervasive theme of the book is that of silence and nothingness, music and spirituality: a theme that has appeared in writings on John Cage but not, in a broader sense, in scholarly writing. The book reveals that unexpected concepts and ways of thinking emerge from looking at sound in relation to its antithesis, encompassing not just Western art traditions, but the relationship between music, silence, the human psyche and sociological trends - ultimately, providing deeper understanding of the elemental places both music and silence hold within world philosophies and fundamental states of being. Silence, Music, Silent Music will appeal to those working in the fields of musicology, psychology of religion, gender studies, aesthetics and philosophy.

This book is the first full-length study of the courtly love songs of the trouvere to address the central musical problems of the repertoire as a whole, embracing source studies, interpretation, historiography, and analysis. The argument of the book revolves around three axes, each of which is essential to the appreciation of the others: problems concerning the extant manuscript tradition; the crucial role of orality; and stylistic changes and plurality in the reperotire. For the first time, a full overview of the sources and notation is undertaken. This reveals the idiosyncrasies of individual manuscripts but, more importantly, it identifies two basic phases in the manuscript tradition. The study of melodic variants reveals the performance art that lies at the heart of the courtly grand chant; processes and techniques of variation are examined, bringing us to a closer understanding of the tenets of the melodic art of the early trouveres. A close study of select trouveres from the different generation reveals stylstic change and plurality, particularly in the melodic art which in some respects was less prescribed than the poetic texts. Consequently the courtly songs of the trouveres truly come alive in this book.

Between 1958 and 2002, Luciano Berio wrote fourteen pieces entitled Sequenza, along with several versions of the same work for different instruments, revisions of the original pieces and also the parallel Chemins series, where one of the Sequenzas is used as the basis for a new composition on a larger scale. The Sequenza series is one of the most remarkable achievements of the late twentieth century. It is a collection of virtuoso pieces that explores the capabilities of a solo instrument and its player, making extreme technical demands of the performer whilst developing the musical vocabulary of the instrument in compositions so assured and so distinctive that each piece both initiates and potentially exhausts the repertoire of a new genre.The Sequenzas have significantly influenced the development of composition for solo instruments and voice, and there is no comparable series of works in the output of any other composer. Series of pieces tend to be linked by the instruments for which the composer writes, but this is a series in which the pieces are linked instead by the variety of instruments for which Berio composed. The varied approaches taken by the contributors in discussing the pieces demonstrate the richness of this repertoire and the many levels on which Berio and these landmark compositions can be considered. Contributions are arranged under three main headings: Performance Issues; Berio's Compositional Process and Aesthetics; Analytical Approaches.

Richard Dawkins's formulation of the meme concept in his 1976 classic The Selfish Gene has inspired three decades of work in what many see as the burgeoning science of memetics. Its underpinning theory proposes that human culture is composed of a multitude of particulate units, memes, which are analogous to the genes of biological transmission. These cultural replicators are transmitted by imitation between members of a community and are subject to mutational-evolutionary pressures over time. Despite Dawkins and several others using music in their exemplifications of what might constitute a meme, these formulations have generally been quite rudimentary, even naA-ve. This study is the first musicologically-orientated attempt systematically to apply the theory of memetics to music. In contrast to the two points of view normally adopted in music theory and analysis - namely those of the listener and the composer - the purpose of this book is to argue for a distinct and illuminating third perspective. This point of view is metaphorical and anthropomorphic, and the metaphor is challenging and controversial, but the way of thinking adopted has its basis in well-founded scientific principles and it is capable of generating insights not available from the first two standpoints. The perspective is that of the (selfish) replicated musical pattern itself, and adopting it is central to memetics. The approach taken is both theoretical and analytical. Starting with a discussion of evolutionary thinking within musicology, Jan goes on to cover the theoretical aspects of the memetics of music, ranging from quite abstract philosophical speculation to detailed consideration of what actually constitutes a meme in music. In doing so, Jan draws upon several approaches current in music theory, including Schenkerism and Narmour's implication-realization model. To demonstrate the practical utility of the memetic perspective, Chapter 6 applies it analytically, tracing the transmission o

Already during his lifetime but even more so during Romanticism and up to the present day writers and philosophers have been inspired by Mozart's life and work. Don Giovanni has repeatedly served as the central starting point for such poetic and intellectual engagement but also the composer's personality which epitomizes the notion of the genius-artist. This volume contains the proceedings of a conference held at Queen Mary College, University of London, in April 2006. The contributors discuss the Mozart myth with regard to its literary, philosophical and cultural implications as well as its attempted disenchantment.

Basso continuo accompaniment calls upon a complex tapestry of harmonic, rhythmic, compositional, analytical and improvisational skills. The evolving knowledge that underpinned the performance of basso continuo was built up and transmitted from the late 1500s to the second half of the eighteenth century, when changes in instruments together with the assertion of control by composers over their works brought about its demise. By tracing the development of basso continuo over time and across the regions of Italy where differing practices emerged, Giulia Nuti accesses this body of musical usage. Sources include the music itself, introductions and specific instructions and requirements in song books and operas, contemporary accounts of performances and, in the later period of basso continuo, description and instruction offered in theoretical treatises. Changes in instruments and instrumental usage and the resulting sounds available to composers and performers are considered, as well as the altering relationship between the improvising continuo player and the composer. Extensive documentation from both manuscript and printed sources, some very rare and others better known, in the original language, followed by a precise English translation, is offered in support of the arguments. There are also many musical examples, transcribed and in facsimile. Giulia Nuti provides both a scholarly account of the history of basso continuo and a performance-driven interpretation of how this music might be played.

Schubert's late music has proved pivotal for the development of diverse fields of musical scholarship, from biography and music history to the theory of harmony. This collection addresses current issues in Schubert studies including compositional technique, the topical issue of 'late' style, tonal strategy and form in the composer's instrumental music, and musical readings of the 'postmodern' Schubert. Offering fresh approaches to Schubert's instrumental and vocal works and their reception, this book argues that the music that the composer produced from 1822-8 is central to a paradigm shift in the history of music during the nineteenth century. The contributors provide a timely reassessment of Schubert's legacy, assembling a portrait of the composer that is very different from the sentimental Schubert permeating nineteenth-century culture and the postmodern Schubert of more recent literature.

The preponderance of early Black composers wrote choral music and even the most outstanding among them did not compose works for woodwinds. However, the later half of the twentieth century has witnessed a rise in compositions for woodwinds, both for solo and chamber ensembles by relatively unknown Black composers. This pioneering volume will become the standard source of information on nineteenth and twentieth century Black composers from three continents as well as their woodwind compositions. It contains the most current and complete biographical data on 90 African composers, Afro-American composers, Afro-Latin composers, and Afro-European composers, including their education and professional experience and information on their continuing musical influence. A distinctive feature is the separate, easy-to-use woodwind music index of both published and unpublished works for solo and chamber ensembles that groups the music by medium and numbers into 27 categories that contain some 430 works. Exact instrumentation, dedication or commission, premiere performance, and publisher are also found here. A list of abbreviations, key to publishers, collections, and manuscripts, and a discography of 38 recordings of woodwind works by 26 of the included composers complete the volume.

This first bibliography of woodwind music by Black composers is an excellent reference work for Black composers, for the woodwind repertoire, and for American music in general. It will be highly useful in college-level courses such as "Survey of Afro-American Music and Woodwind Literature" as well as to woodwind players, ensemble directors, and scholars.

In this previously unpublished essay Schenker, one of the most influential music theorists of the twentieth century, turned his attention to the performer's role, arguing that the cult of the virtuoso has led to an overemphasis on technical display and discussing specific ways in which performers can better serve the composer's ideas.

This volume of original essays is dedicated to Owen Wright in recognition of his formative contribution to the study of music in the Islamic Middle East. Wright's work, which comprises, at the time of writing, six field-defining volumes and countless articles, has reconfigured the relationship between historical musicology and ethnomusicology. No account of the transformation of these fields in recent years can afford to ignore his work. Ranging across the Middle East, Central Asia and North India, this volume brings together historical, philological and ethnographic approaches. The contributors focus on collections of musical notation and song texts, on commercial and ethnographic recordings, on travellers' reports and descriptions of instruments, on musical institutions and other spaces of musical performance. An introduction provides an overview and critical discussion of Wright's major publications. The central chapters cover the geographical regions and historical periods addressed in Wright's publications, with particular emphasis on Ottoman and Timurid legacies. Others discuss music in Greece, Iraq and Iran. Each explores historical continuities and discontinuities, and the constantly changing relationships between music theory and practice. An edited interview with Owen Wright concludes the book and provides a personal assessment of his scholarship and his approach to the history of the music of the Islamic Middle East. Extending the implications of Wright's own work, this volume argues for an ethnomusicology of the Islamic Middle East in which past and present, text and performance are systematically in dialogue.

This study examines relativistic aspects of Arnold Schoenberg's harmonic and aesthetic theories in the light of a framework of ideas presented in the early writings of Ludwig Wittgenstein, the logician, philosopher of language, and Schoenberg's contemporary and Austrian compatriot. The author has identified correspondences between the writings of Schoenberg, the early Wittgenstein (the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, in particular), and the Vienna Circle of philosophers, on a wide range of topics and themes. Issues discussed include the nature and limits of language, musical universals, theoretical conventionalsim, word-to-world correspondence in language, the need for a fact- and comparison-based approach to art criticism, and the nature of music-theoretical formalism and mathematical modeling. Schoenberg and Wittgenstein are shown to have shared a vision that is remarkable for its uniformity and balance, one that points toward the reconciliation of the positivist/relativist dualism that has dominated recent discourse in music theory. Contrary to earlier accounts of Schoenberg's harmonic and aesthetic relativism, this study identifies a solid epistemological core underlying his thought, a view that waw very much in step with Wittgenstein and the Vienna Circle, and thereby with the most vigorous and pivotal developments in early twentith century intellectual history.

One of the biggest debates in Australian Indigenous education today revolves around the many contested and competing ways of knowledge about Indigenous cultures and the means by which Indigenous intellectual traditions and knowledges make the journey into mainstream educational settings. Grounded in Bakhtin's theories of dialogue and voice, this book explores the polyphonic nature of power relations, performance roles and pedagogical texts in the context of teaching and learning Indigenous Australian women's music and dance. In this discussion, the author focuses on her experiences as a lecturer in the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies Unit at the University of Queensland and her involvement in this educational setting with students and guest lecturers/performers. The performance classroom is examined as a potential site for disturbing and dislocating dominant modes of representation of Indigenous women's performance through the construction, mediation and negotiation of Indigenous knowledge from and between both non-Indigenous and Indigenous voices. This book contains a CD with video clips illustrating the ways in which an embodied approach to teaching and learning happens in this classroom context.

Compositional Process in Elliott Carter's String Quartets is an interdisciplinary study examining the evolution and compositional process in Elliott Carter's five string quartets. Offering a systematic and logical way of unpacking concepts and processes in these quartets that would otherwise remain opaque, the book's narrative reveals new aspects of understanding these works and draws novel conclusions on their collective meaning and Carter's place as the leading American modernist. Each of Carter's five string quartets is driven by a new idea that Carter was exploring during a particular period, which allows for each quartet to be examined under a unique lens and a deeper understanding of his oeuvre at large. Drawing on key ideas from a variety of subjects including performance studies, philosophy, music cognition, musical meaning and semantics, literary criticism, and critical theory, this is an informative volume for scholars and researchers in the areas of music theory and musicology. Analyses are supplemented with sketch study, correspondence, text manuscripts, and other archival sources from the Paul Sacher Stiftung, the Library of Congress, and the New York Public Library.

Max Steiner's contribution to the formulation of early Hollywood scoring techniques is significant, particularly through his music for "King Kong" (1933) and "The Informer" (1935). The Academy Award winning score for "Now, Voyager "reflects the maturation of the composer's understanding of the dramatic function of music in film. The primary resources incorporated in the analysis include, from the Max Steiner collection at Brigham Young University, Steiner's letters and scrapbooks and his unpublished autobiography "Notes to You." In addition to contributing to the composer's own perspective on the music for this film and on scoring practice in general, these papers contribute to a broader debate about how films are interpreted and the part music plays in these schemes of criticism. This study of the film score occurs within the broader theoretical and historical debates currently characterizing film musicology and explores, from varied perspectives, how the score is meaningful and important to the film.

Devoted to a single score, this study brings together for analysis all the contingent factors in the score's creation, use, and reception and will appeal to film music scholars and to scholars of music and of film. The scope of the analysis will also interest scholars involved in music in multi-disciplinary art forms, feminist musicologists and film scholars, and students of musical theater. Separate chapters discuss Steiner's musical background, his technique of film scoring, historical and critical contexts of the film, the music and its context, and an analysis of the score. Musical examples illustrate the text and an appendix of selected film scores by Steiner is included along with a selected bibliography.

Wie ist musikalische Bedeutung möglich? Wie können musikalische Textur, Syntaktik oder Klanglichkeit etwas bedeuten, abgesehen von subjektiven Assoziationen oder Symbolik. Die Systematik der Herleitung musikalischer Bedeutung macht sich hier am philosophischen Satz vom Grund fest. Nichts ist ohne zureichenden Grund, kann hierbei in verschiedenen Lesarten den Bedeutungszusammenhang von musikalischen und außermusikalischen Inhalten ontologisch vermitteln. Diese Vermittlung, die aus dem Wesen der Begründung überhaupt hervorgeht, leitet so bereits einfache musikalische Sachverhalte her, wie etwa Rhythmus oder Pausen. Hieraus ergeben sich logisch auch ethische Aussagen im Bereich musikalischen Handelns sowie eine Basis vorhandener Lehren musikalischer Bedeutung in der Philosophie.

Why does poetry appeal to music? Can music be said to communicate, as language does? What, between music and poetry, is it possible to translate? These fundamental questions have remained obstinately difficult, despite the recent burgeoning of word and music studies. Peter Dayan contends that the reasons for this difficulty were worked out with extraordinary rigour and consistency in a French literary tradition, echoed by composers such as Berlioz and Debussy, which stretches from Sand to Derrida. Their writing shows how it is both necessary and futile to look for music in poetry, or for poetry in music: necessary, because each art defines itself by reference to what it is not, and cannot be, in order to point to an idealized totality outside itself; futile, because the musicality of poetry, like the poetic meaning of music, must remain as elusive as that idealized totality; its distance is the very condition of the art. Thus is generated a subtle but unmistakable general definition of the nature of art which has proved uniquely able to survive all the probings of poststructuralism. That definition of art is inseparable from a disturbingly effective scepticism towards all forms of explication and explanation in critical discourse, so it is doubtless not surprising that critics in general have done their best to ignore it. But by bringing out what Sand, Baudelaire, Mallarme, Proust, Debussy, Berlioz, Barthes, and Derrida all do in the same way as they work on the limits of the analogy between music and literature, this book shows how it is possible, productive, illuminating, and fascinating to work on those limits; though to do so, as we find repeatedly, in Chopin's dreams as in Derrida's 'tombeaux', requires us to have the courage to face, in music, our literal death, and the limits of our intelligence.

Christians and Christianity have been central to Hip Hop since its inception. This book explores the intersection of Christians and Hip Hop and the multiple outcomes of this intersection. It lays out the ways in which Christians and Hip Hop overlap and diverge. The intersection of Christians and Hip Hop brings together African diasporic cultures, lives, memories and worldviews. Moving beyond the focus on rappers and so-called "Christian Hip Hop," each chapter explores three major themes of the book: identifying Hip Hop, irreconcilable Christianity, and boundaries.There is a self-identified Christian Hip Hop (CHH) community that has received some scholarly attention. At the same time, scholars have analyzed Christianity and Hip Hop without focusing on the self-identified community. This book brings these various conversations together and show, through these three themes, the complexities of the intersection of Christians and Hip Hop. Hip Hop is more than rap music, it is an African diasporic phenomenon. These three themes elucidate the many characteristics of the intersection between Christians and Hip Hop and our reasoning for going beyond "Christian Hip Hop." This collection is a multi-faceted view of how religious belief plays a role in Hip Hoppas' lives and community. It will, therefore, be of great interest to scholars of Religion and Hip Hop, Hip Hop, African Diasporas, Religion and the Arts, Religion and Race and Black Theology as well as Religious Studies more generally.

Beatles For Sale on Parlophone Records covers all of the singles, albums and extended play discs issued by the Beatles in the U.K. from 1962 through 1970. Each record is given a separate chapter, which tells the stories behind how the songs appearing on the disc were written and recorded. The chapters also detail how the records were marketed and contain sales and chart information. The book has chapters on the history of EMI and Parlophone Records, how records are mastered and manufactured, how EMI contracted with other record companies to press Beatles singles and albums to help meet demand, British radio and record charts in the sixties and other record-related topics. The book has over 700 illustrations, all in either color or original black and white.

"Orchestration: An Anthology of Composer's Writings" is designed to be a primary or ancillary text for college-level music majors. Although there are several "how to" textbooks aimed at this market, there is little available that traces the history of orchestration through the writings of composers themselves. By collecting writings from the 19th century to today, Mathews illuminates how orchestration has grown and developed, as well as presenting a wide variety of theories that have been embraced by the leading practitioners in the field.
The book begins with a general essay about the history of the study of orchestration, as well as the leading theories of the last two centuries. The collection then traces the history of orchestration, beginning with Beethoven's Orchestra (with writings by Berlioz, Wagner, Gounod, Mahler, and others), the 19th century (Mahler, Gevaert, Strauss) the fin de siecle (on the edge of musical modernism; writings by Berlioz, Jadassohn, Delius, and Rimsky Korsakov), early modern (Busoni, Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Grainger, and others), and high modern (Carter, Feldman, Reich, Brant). Many of these pieces have never been translated into English before; some only appeared in small journals or the popular press and have never appeared in a book; and none have ever been collected in one place.
The study of orchestration is a key part of all students of music theory and composition. "Orchestration: An Anthology of Composer's Writings "provides a much needed resource for these students, filling a gap in the literature.

Der in das Historische Archiv der Stadt Köln im April 1994 verbrachte und bislang unbeachtete künstlerische Nachlass des deutsch-britischen Tänzers und Choreografen Ernest Berk eröffnete dem Autor die Möglichkeit der Erforschung eines weiteren Gebiets künstlerischer Tätigkeit Berks: der Komposition elektronischer Musik im Spannungsfeld zwischen Musique concrète und Modern Dance. - Ernest Berk wurde am 12. Oktober 1909 in Köln geboren, von wo aus er nach Ausbildung am Kölner Wigman-Institut (Ausdruckstanz) und an der Rheinischen Musikhochschule (Komposition) an verschiedenen Orten als Solotänzer und Choreograf tätig wurde. 1934 ging Berk nach England. Hier war sein Streben, durch breit gefächertes Kunstschaffen neue Formen des Tanzes publik zu machen, weshalb er 1955 sein eigenes Studio für elektronische Musik in London gründete. Mit dessen Instrumentarium schuf er ein Gesamtwerk von ca. 230 Tonbandkompositionen für Ballett, Ausdruckstanz, Film und Fernsehen. 1985 folgte Berk einem Ruf der Hochschule der Künste in Berlin und erweiterte hier seine Aktivitäten durch Lehrtätigkeit, als Schauspieler am Theater und in Spielfilmen. Berk starb am 30. September 1993.