The devil is the most charismatic and important figure in the blues tradition. He's not just the music's namesake (""the devil's music""), but a shadowy presence who haunts an imagined Mississippi crossroads where, it is claimed, Delta bluesman Robert Johnson traded away his soul in exchange for extraordinary prowess on the guitar. Yet, as scholar and musician Adam Gussow argues, there is much more to the story of the devil and the blues than these cliched understandings. In this groundbreaking study, Gussow takes the full measure of the devil's presence. Working from original transcriptions of more than 125 recordings released during the past ninety years, Gussow explores the varied uses to which black southern blues people have put this trouble-sowing, love-wrecking, but also empowering figure. The book culminates with a bold reinterpretation of Johnson's music and a provocative investigation of the way in which the citizens of Clarksdale, Mississippi, managed to rebrand a commercial hub as ""the crossroads"" in 1999, claiming Johnson and the devil as their own.

Should we talk of European jazz or jazz in Europe? What kinds of networks link those who make it happen 'on the ground'? What challenges do they have to face? Jazz is a part of the cultural fabric of many of the European countries. Jazz in Europe: Networking and Negotiating Identities presents jazz in Europe as a complex arena, where the very notions of cultural identity, jazz practices and Europe are continually being negotiated against an ever changing social, cultural, political and economic environment. The book gives voice to musicians, promoters, festival directors, educators and researchers regarding the challenges they are faced with in their everyday practices. Jazz identities in Europe result from the negotiation between discourse and practice and in the interstices between the formal and informal networks that support them, as if 'Jazz' and 'Europe' were blank canvases where diversified notions of what jazz and Europe should or could be are projected.

This multidisciplinary collection of readings offers new interpretations of Richard Wagner's ideological position in German history. The issues discussed range from the biographical - the reasons for Wagner's travels, his political life - to the aesthetic and ideological, regarding his re-creation of medieval Nuremberg, his representations of gender and nationality, his vocal iconography, his anti-Semitism, his vegetarian and Christian arguments, and, finally, his musical heirs. The essays avoid journalistic or iconoclastic approaches to Wagner, and depart from the usual uncritical admiration of earlier scholars in an attempt to develop a stimulating and ultimately cohesive collection of new perspectives.

Fantasy has had a modern resurgence in cinema due largely to the success of superhero narratives and the two major fantasy series, the Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter. Often regarded as mere escapism, this genre has been neglected as the subject of serious academic work. This volume explores the way in which music and sound articulate the fantastic in cinema and contribute to the creation of fantasy narratives. Fantasy invokes the magical within its narratives as the means by which to achieve what would be impossible in our own reality, as compared to sci-fi's as-yet unknown technologies and horror's dark and deadly supernatural forces. Fantasy remains problematic, however, because it defies many of the conventional mechanisms by which genre is defined such as setting, mood and audience. In a way quite unlike its co-genres, fantasy moves with infinite flexibility between locations - the world (almost) as we know it, historical, futuristic or mythic locations; between moods - heroic, epic, magical; and between audiences - children, teens, adults. In English-language cinema, it encompasses the grand mythic narratives of Lord of the Rings, Legend and The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad, the heroic narratives of Superman, Flash Gordon and Indiana Jones and the magical narratives of Labyrinth, Edward Scissorhands and the Harry Potter series, to name just some of films that typify the variety that the genre offers. What these films all have in common is a requirement that the audience accepts the a fundamental break with reality within the diegesis of the filmic narrative, and embraces magic in its many and various forms, sometimes benign, sometimes not. This volume examines music in fantasy cinema across a broad historical perspective, from Bernard Herrmann's scores for Ray Harryhausen, through the popular music scores of the 1980s to contemporary scores for films such as The Mummy and the Harry Potter series, allowing the reader to see not only the way that the musical strategies of fantasy scoring have changed over time but also to appreciate the inventiveness of composers such as Bernard Herrmann, John Williams, Jerry Goldsmith, Danny Elfman and Elliot Goldenthal, and popular musicians such as Queen and David Bowie in evoking the mythic, the magical and the monstrous in their music for fantasy film.

Bobby Darin fit a lot into his 37 years. By the age of 22, Darin topped the charts, but soon reinvented himself as a Sinatra-style crooner, winning a Grammy Award, the adulation of millions, a Hollywood contract, and a starlet wife. Bobby Darin examines the entertainer's entire life, from his boyhood in the Bronx to his rise as a musical sensation, his rocky marriage to Sandra Dee, the evolution of his career, and the shocking secret Darin learned later in life.

Iannis Xenakis' Persepolis stood as witness to one of the most important events in modern human history, the Iranian Revolution in 1979. Its existence is owed to an invitation to participate in the 1971 Shiraz Arts Festival, which was overseen by Empress Farah Pahlavi. Like the Festival, and the extravagant celebratory party held the same year, Xenakis' symbolic paean to Persian history was polarizing. Many loved it, others detested it. Overwhelming but also subtle and precise in its non-harmonic shifts in texture and density, listeners and critics simply did not know what to make of it. This book tells the story of Xenakis' early history and involvement in the Resistance against the Axis occupation of Greece during the Second World War, escape and re-settlement in Paris, work as an architect with Le Corbusier, and distinct views on world history and politics that all led to his 1972 electro-acoustic album Persepolis.

Bach representa el genio cumbre de la armon a musical, el hombre de bien que sufre las ingratitudes de su tiempo, el creyente de un Ser Supremo y el forjador de un himno de paz para toda la humanidad y la historia. Vivir es triunfar. Y triunfar es resolver dos fuerzas antag nicas. En todo instante estamos viviendo y muriendo. En todo momento somos y no somos. Ser y no ser frase mas profunda que la de la tragedia shakesperiana. Todo es y deja de ser. Todo cambia y es. Inmanente a la vida est el perpetuo fl uir de lo existente. Bach es el nico artista que ha llegado a esas insondables profundidades del oc ano, en donde se funden y se identifi can la luz y la obscuridad. Adalberto Garc a de Mendoza

In the 1950s, Cleveland, Ohio was the number one music city in the world. It was in Cleveland that DJ Alan Freed first coined the term "rock and roll" and it was in Cleveland that the teenage Henry Niedzwiecki, aka The Ol'Doowopper, grew up with a ringside seat to the birth of rock and roll or doo-wop music. Growing Up Rocking is more than just a collection of photographs and artifacts that Niedzwiecki has taken and amassed over the decades; it is his life story told through rock and roll music. The author invites the reader to relive with him many of the pivotal rock and roll radio and television performances from the Fifties and Sixties; timeless moments that continue to define what we think of as rock music even today. Over the years the author has also interviewed and photographed many of the pivotal stars from the doo-wop and early rock and roll era. Those interviews and photographs are another aspect of what makes Growing Up Rocking such a compelling document of what it was like to be in the exact time and place that rock and roll music first set the world on fire. Now retired, Henry M. Niedzwiecki worked as a millwright for the Ford Motor Company. In addition to writing and photography, his other hobbies include collecting records, dancing, and writing letters to editors and congress. Publisher's website: http: //sbpra.com/HenryMNiedzwiecki

Music pervades Shakespeare's work. In addition to vocal songs and numerous instrumental cues there are thousands of references to music throughout the plays and many of the poems. This book discusses Shakespeare's musical imagery according to categories defined by occurrence in the plays and poems. In turn, these categories depend on their early modern usage and significance. Thus, instruments such as lute and viol deserve special attention just as Renaissance ideas relating to musical philosophy and pedagogical theory need contextual explanation. The objective is to locate Shakespeare's musical imagery, reference and metaphor in its immediate context in a play or poem and explain its meaning. Discussion and explanation of the musical imagery suggests a range of possible dramatic and poetic purposes these musical references serve.

THE #1 MOST COMPREHENSIVE AND HONEST BOOK FOR ANYONE WHO'S EVER WANTED TO SING ON MAJOR TV COMMERCIALS You have a great voice, but record deals are getting harder and harder to come by. Paid gigs don't pay enough and solo albums aren't selling even with promotion. There is an answer for you VOLUME 4 OF THE 30-30 CAREER: MAKING 30 GRAND IN 30 SECONDS SINGING ON MAJOR TV COMMERCIALS walks you through the lucrative world of commercial jingles. What once was stereotyped as a career for campy, cliche vocalists and songwriters has now become a pathway to generating a hit song and promoting bands and brands at the same time. JINGLES today are sounding more and more like SINGLES. Hundreds of thousands of dollars have been made by singers on commercials over the years and the competition is growing tougher and tougher all the time. Whether you are a new comer or veteran in the game, VOLUME 4 of THE 30-30 shows you how to break deeper into this money-making industry right now and have your voice heard locally, nationally and internationally. We break down the SKILL, the NETWORK, and the PSYCHOLOGY of singing on commercials. With the record industry changing day to day, every singer and songwriter should be making extra money in the advertising industry. It's true. You're either NETworking or NOTworking Ever wonder why the politics are never on your side? This book unveils the politics and secrets to working your way onto vocal contracts that get you paid. Start networking today and make "NEW" money by SINGING ON MAJOR TV COMMERCIALS.

As we withdraw farther from American canonical literature and poetry and move closer to a re-appraisal of literature's impact upon the arts through media, we may easily find a match for greater humanism and popular interaction in American rock culture through Paul Bowles. In this work, Bowles is re-invented within the postmodern, the postcolonial, and the renegade future underscored by liberal elites that had breathed new life into the American counterculture. Re-Creating Paul Bowles attests to the moments of relentless humanism and imaginative transformation that are most dreamlike, engaging the antagonism of psychology with imperialism at last. In his youth a classical composer and critic, Bowles deserves credit for spawning new generations of rock and pop music through his use of sound and tapping of non-Western or non-European folk music, bringing classic ethnography to the rock generation with Music of Morocco. Re-Creating Paul Bowles examines the Latin American, American, African, and Arab moments of his scholastic effort, a primary beginning for understanding modern popular music's free transcription of tradition. Re-Creating Paul Bowles includes several examples of films that adapt the author's personal life and times, the production of surrealist technique in film and literature, and the re-invention of classic works such as The Sheltering Sky and Collected Stories. It assumes the technique for re-production allows the elder Bowles greater freedom in crossing cultural boundaries and overruling the colonialist separateness that guarded cultural content for centuries. Bowles has always deserved re-appraisal in the American academy-and liberation from his stereotypical cult figure identity, a positive force in the ethnic comprehension of Self and society.

Silent Films/Loud Music discusses contemporary scores for silent film as a rich vehicle for experimentation in the relationship between music, image, and narrative. Johnston offers an overview of the early history of music for silent film paired with his own first-hand view of the craft of creating new original scores for historical silent films: a unique form crossing musical boundaries of classical, jazz, rock, electronic, and folk. As the first book completely devoted to the study of contemporary scores for silent film, it tells the story of the historical and creative evolution of this art form and features an extended discussion and analysis of some of the most creative works of contemporary silent film scoring. Johnston draws upon his own career in both contemporary film music (working with directors Paul Mazursky, Henry Bean, Philip Haas and Doris Doerrie, among others) and in creating new scores for silent films by Browning, Melies, Kinugasa, Murnau & Reiniger. Through this book, Johnston presents a discussion of music for silent films that contradicts long-held assumptions about what silent film music is and must be, with thought-provoking implications for both historical and contemporary film music.

(Guitar Method). The Hal Leonard Guitar Method is designed for anyone just learning to play acoustic or electric guitar. It is based on years of teaching guitar students of all ages, and it also reflects some of the best guitar teaching ideas from around the world. Book 1 includes tuning; playing position; musical symbols; notes in first position; C, G, G7, D, D7, A7, and Em chords; rhythms through eighth notes; strumming and picking; over 80 great songs, riffs, and examples.

In the 21st Century, the guitar, as both a material object and tool for artistic expression, continues to be reimagined and reinvented. From simple adaptations or modifications made by performers themselves, to custom-made instruments commissioned to fulfil specific functions, to the mass production of new lines of commercially available instruments, the extant and emergent forms of this much-loved musical instrument vary perhaps more than ever before. As guitars sporting multiple necks, a greater number of strings, and additional frets become increasingly common, so too do those with reduced registers, fewer strings, and fretless fingerboards. Furthermore, as we approach the mark of the first quarter-century, the role of technology in relation to the guitar's protean nature is proving key, from the use of external effects units to synergies with computers and AR headsets. Such wide-ranging evolutions and augmentations of the guitar reflect the advancing creative and expressive needs of the modern guitarist and offer myriad new affordances. 21st Century Guitar examines the diverse physical manifestations of the guitar across the modern performative landscape through a series of essays and interviews. Academics, performers and dual-practitioners provide significant insights into the rich array of guitar-based performance practices emerging and thriving in this century, inviting a reassessment of the guitar's identity, physicality and sound-creating possibilities.

This book discusses the relationship between Greek Orthodox ecclesiastical music and laiko (popular) song in Greece. Laiko music was long considered a lesser form of music in Greece, with rural folk music considered serious enough to carry the weight of the ideologies founded within the establishment of the contemporary Greek state. During the 1940s and 1950s, a selective exoneration of urban popular music took place, one of its most popular cases being the originating relationships between two extremely popular musical pieces: Vasilis Tsitsanis’s “Synnefiasmeni Kyriaki” (Cloudy Sunday) and its descent from the hymn “Ti Ypermacho” (The Akathist Hymn). During this period the connection of these two pieces was forged in the Modern Greek conscience, led by certain key figures in the authority system of the scholarly world. Through analysis of these pieces and the surrounding contexts, Ordoulidis explores the changing role and perception of popular music in Greece.

Steve Beresford's polymathic activities have formed a prism for the UK improv scene since the 1970s. He is internationally known as a free improviser on piano, toy piano and electronics, composer for film and TV, and raconteur and Dadaist visionary. His résumé is filled with collaborations with hundreds of musicians and other artists, including such leading improvisers as Derek Bailey, Evan Parker and John Zorn, and he has given performances of works by John Cage and Christian Marclay. In this book, Beresford is heard in his own words through first-hand interviews with the author. Beresford provides compelling insight into an extensive range of topics, displaying the broad cultural context in which music is embedded. The volume combines chronological and thematic chapters, with topics covering improvisation and composition in jazz and free music; the connections between art, entertainment and popular culture; the audience for free improvisation; writing music for films; recording improvised music in the studio; and teaching improvisation. It places Beresford in the context of improvised and related musics – jazz, free jazz, free improvisation – in which there is growing interest. The linear narrative is broken up by 'interventions' or short pieces by collaborators and commentators.

This violent and introspective memoir reveals not only 50 Cent's story but also the story of a generation of youth faced with hard choices and very few options. It is a tale of sacrifice, transformation, and redemption, but also one of hope, determination, and the power of self. Told in 50's unique voice, the narrative drips with the raw insight, street wisdom, and his struggle to survive at all costs -- and behold the riches of the American Dream.