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Books > Music > Theory of music & musicology
Keith Hatschek tells the story of three determined artists: Louis
Armstrong, Dave Brubeck, and Iola Brubeck and the stand they took
against segregation by writing and performing a jazz musical titled
The Real Ambassadors. First conceived by the Brubecks in 1956, the
musical's journey to the stage for its 1962 premiere tracks
extraordinary twists and turns across the backdrop of the civil
rights movement. A variety of colorful characters, from Broadway
impresarios to gang-connected managers, surface in the compelling
storyline. During the Cold War, the US State Department enlisted
some of America's greatest musicians to serve as jazz ambassadors,
touring the world to trumpet a so-called "free society." Honored as
celebrities abroad, the jazz ambassadors, who were overwhelmingly
African Americans, returned home to racial discrimination and
deferred dreams. The Brubecks used this double standard as the
central message for the musical, deploying humor and pathos to
share perspectives on American values. On September 23, 1962, The
Real Ambassadors's stunning debut moved a packed arena at the
Monterey Jazz Festival to laughter, joy, and tears. Although
critics unanimously hailed the performance, it sadly became a
footnote in cast members' bios. The enormous cost of reassembling
the star-studded cast made the creation impossible to stage and
tour. However, The Real Ambassadors: Dave and Iola Brubeck and
Louis Armstrong Challenge Segregation caps this jazz story by
detailing how the show was triumphantly revived in 2014 by Jazz at
Lincoln Center. This reaffirmed the musical's place as an integral
part of America's jazz history and served as an important reminder
of how artists' voices are a powerful force for social change.
Since advent of autism as a diagnosed condition in the 1940s, the
importance of music in the lives of autistic people has been widely
observed and studied. Articles on musical savants, extraordinary
feats of musical memory, unusually high rates of absolute or
"perfect" pitch, and the effectiveness of music-based therapies
abound in the autism literature. Meanwhile, music scholars and
historians have posited autism-centered explanatory models to
account for the unique musical artistry of everyone from Bela
Bartok and Glenn Gould to "Blind Tom" Wiggins. Given the great deal
of attention paid to music and autism, it is surprising to discover
that autistic people have rarely been asked to account for how they
themselves make and experience music or why it matters to them that
they do. In Speaking for Ourselves, renowned ethnomusicologist
Michael Bakan does just that, engaging in deep conversations - some
spanning the course of years - with ten fascinating and very
different individuals who share two basic things in common: an
autism spectrum diagnosis and a life in which music plays a central
part. These conversations offer profound insights into the
intricacies and intersections of music, autism, neurodiversity, and
life in general, not from an autistic point of view, but rather
from many different autistic points of view. They invite readers to
partake of a rich tapestry of words, ideas, images, and musical
sounds (on the companion website) that speak to both the diversity
of autistic experience and the common humanity we all share.
A special issue of New German Critique The posthumous publication
of Theodor W. Adorno's works on music continues to reveal the
special relationship between music and philosophy in his thinking.
These important works have not, however, received as much scholarly
attention as they deserve. Contributors to this issue seek to
provide insight into some of the key themes raised in these works,
including the sociology of musical genre, the historical
transformation of music from the "heroic" or high-bourgeois era to
late modernity, the meaning of both performance and listening in
the era of mass communication, and the specific challenges or
deformations of the radio on musical form, a theme that implicates
many of the digital practices of our own age. There is much left to
discover in these new publications, and they pose again, with
renewed vigor, the question of Adorno's Aktualitat-his polyvalent,
untranslatable term for, among other things, the intellectual
relationship between the present and the past. Contributors Daniel
K. L. Chua, Lydia Goehr, Peter E. Gordon, Martin Jay, Brian Kane,
Max Paddison, Alexander Rehding, Fred Rush, Martin Scherzinger
Professor Michael Edgeworth McIntyre is an eminent scientist who
has also had a part-time career as a musician. From a lifetime's
thinking, he offers this extraordinary synthesis exposing the
deepest connections between science, music, and mathematics, while
avoiding equations and technical jargon. He begins with perception
psychology and the dichotomization instinct and then takes us
through biological evolution, human language, and acausality
illusions all the way to the climate crisis and the weaponization
of the social media, and beyond that into the deepest parts of
theoretical physics - demonstrating our unconscious mathematical
abilities.He also has an important message of hope for the future.
Contrary to popular belief, biological evolution has given us not
only the nastiest, but also the most compassionate and cooperative
parts of human nature. This insight comes from recognizing that
biological evolution is more than a simple competition between
selfish genes. Rather, he suggests, in some ways it is more like
turbulent fluid flow, a complex process spanning a vast range of
timescales.Professor McIntyre is a Fellow of the Royal Society of
London (FRS) and has worked on problems as diverse as the Sun's
magnetic interior, the Antarctic ozone hole, jet streams in the
atmosphere, and the psychophysics of violin sound. He has long been
interested in how different branches of science can better
communicate with each other and with the public, harnessing aspects
of neuroscience and psychology that point toward the deep 'lucidity
principles' that underlie skilful communication.
Once the domain of a privileged few, the art of record production
is today within the reach of all. The rise of the ubiquitous DIY
project studio and internet streaming have made it so. And while
the creative possibilities available to everyday musicians are
seemingly endless, so too are the multiskilling and project
management challenges to be faced. In order to demystify the
contemporary popular-music-making phenomenon, Marshall Heiser
reassesses its myriad processes and wider sociocultural context
through the lens of creativity studies, play theory and cultural
psychology. This innovative new framework is grounded in a diverse
array of creative-practice examples spanning the CBGBs music scene
to the influence of technology upon modern-day music. First-hand
interviews with Jerry Harrison (Talking Heads), Bill Bruford (King
Crimson, Yes) and others whose work has influenced the way records
are made today are also included. Popular Music, Power and Play is
as thought provoking as it will be indispensable for scholars,
practitioners and aficionados of popular music and the arts in
general.
THE INSPIRATION FOR THE MAJOR MOTION PICTURE A COMPLETE UNKNOWN. One of
the music world’s pre-eminent critics takes a fresh and much-needed
look at the day Dylan “went electric” at the Newport Folk Festival.
On the evening of July 25, 1965, Bob Dylan took the stage at Newport
Folk Festival, backed by an electric band, and roared into his new rock
hit, Like a Rolling Stone. The audience of committed folk purists and
political activists who had hailed him as their acoustic prophet
reacted with a mix of shock, booing, and scattered cheers. It was the
shot heard round the world—Dylan’s declaration of musical independence,
the end of the folk revival, and the birth of rock as the voice of a
generation—and one of the defining moments in twentieth-century music.
In Dylan Goes Electric!, Elijah Wald explores the cultural, political
and historical context of this seminal event that embodies the
transformative decade that was the sixties. Wald delves deep into the
folk revival, the rise of rock, and the tensions between traditional
and groundbreaking music to provide new insights into Dylan’s artistic
evolution, his special affinity to blues, his complex relationship to
the folk establishment and his sometime mentor Pete Seeger, and the
ways he reshaped popular music forever. Breaking new ground on a story
we think we know, Dylan Goes Electric! is a thoughtful, sharp appraisal
of the controversial event at Newport and a nuanced, provocative,
analysis of why it matters.
Shortlisted for the 2021 Prime Minister's Literary Award for
Australian History. Representing Australian Aboriginal Music and
Dance 1930-1970 offers a rethinking of recent Australian music
history. In this open access book, Amanda Harris presents accounts
of Aboriginal music and dance by Aboriginal performers on public
stages. Harris also historicizes the practices of non-Indigenous
art music composers evoking Aboriginal music in their works,
placing this in the context of emerging cultural institutions and
policy frameworks. Centralizing auditory worlds and audio-visual
evidence, Harris shows the direct relationship between the limits
on Aboriginal people's mobility and non-Indigenous representations
of Aboriginal culture. This book seeks to listen to Aboriginal
accounts of disruption and continuation of Aboriginal cultural
practices and features contributions from Aboriginal scholars
Shannon Foster, Tiriki Onus and Nardi Simpson as personal
interpretations of their family and community histories.
Contextualizing recent music and dance practices in broader
histories of policy, settler colonial structures, and
postcolonizing efforts, the book offers a new lens on the
development of Australian musical cultures. The ebook editions of
this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license
on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by Australian
Research Council.
How did Melbourne earn its place as one of the world's 'music
cities'? Beginning with the arrival of rock 'n' roll in the 1950s,
this book explores the development of different sectors of
Melbourne's popular music ecosystem in parallel with broader
population, urban planning and media industry changes in the city.
The authors draw on interviews with Melbourne musicians, venue
owners and policy-makers, documenting their ambitions and
experiences across different periods, with accompanying spotlights
on the gendered, multicultural and indigenous contexts of playing
and recording in Melbourne. Focusing on pop and rock, this is the
first book to provide an extensive historical lens of popular music
within an urban cultural economy that in turn investigates the
contemporary nature and challenges of urban music activities and
policy.
Timbre is among the most important and the most elusive aspects of
music. Visceral and immediate in its sonic properties, yet also
considered sublime and ineffable, timbre finds itself caught up in
metaphors: tone "color", "wet" acoustics, or in Schoenberg's words,
"the illusory stuff of our dreams." This multi-disciplinary
approach to timbre assesses the acoustic, corporeal, performative,
and aesthetic dimensions of tone color in Western music practice
and philosophy. It develops a new theorization of timbre and its
crucial role in the epistemology of musical materialism through a
vital materialist aesthetics in which conventional binaries and
dualisms are superseded by a vibrant continuum. As the aesthetic
and epistemological questions foregrounded by timbre are not
restricted to isolated periods in music history or individual
genres, but have pervaded Western musical aesthetics since early
Modernity, the book discusses musical examples taken from both
"classical" and "popular" music. These range, in "classical" music,
from the Middle Ages through the Baroque, the belcanto opera and
electronic music to saturated music; and, in "popular" music, from
indie through soul and ballad to dark industrial.
This book explores an album of popular music with a remarkable
significance to a violent wave of postcolonial tensions in the
Netherlands in the 1970s. Several "actions" were claimed by a small
number of first-generation descendants of ca. 12,500 reluctant
migrants from the young independent state of Indonesia (former
Dutch East Indies). Transferred in 1951, this culturally coherent
group consisted of ex-Royal Dutch Colonial Army personnel and their
families. Their ancient roots in the Moluccan archipelago and their
protestant-christian faith defined their minority image. Their
sojourn should have been temporary, but frustratingly turned out to
be permanent. At the height of strained relations, Massada rose to
the occasion. Astaganaga (1978) is a telling example of the will to
negotiate a different diasporic Moluccan identity through uplifting
contemporary sounds.
Sonata form is the most commonly encountered organizational plan in
the works of the classical-music masters, from Haydn, Mozart, and
Beethoven to Schubert, Brahms, and beyond. Sonata Theory, an
analytic approach developed by James Hepokoski and Warren Darcy in
their award-winning Elements of Sonata Theory (2006), has emerged
as one of the most influential frameworks for understanding this
musical structure. What can this method from "the new Formenlehre"
teach us about how these composers put together their most iconic
pieces and to what expressive ends? In this new Sonata Theory
Handbook, Hepokoski introduces readers step-by-step to the main
ideas of this approach. At the heart of the book are close readings
of eight individual movements - from Mozart's Piano Sonata in
B-flat, K. 333, to such structurally complex pieces as Schubert's
"Death and the Maiden" String Quartet and the finale of Brahms's
Symphony No 1 - that show this analytical method in action. These
illustrative analyses are supplemented with four updated
discussions of the foundational concepts behind the theory,
including dialogic form, expositional action zones, trajectories
toward generically normative cadences, rotation theory, and the
five sonata types. With its detailed examples and deep engagements
with recent developments in form theory, schema theory, and
cognitive research, this handbook updates and advances Sonata
Theory and confirms its status as a key lens for analyzing sonata
form.
If given another chance to write for the series, which albums would
33 1/3 authors focus on the second time around? This anthology
features compact essays from past 33 1/3 authors on albums that
consume them, but about which they did not write. It explores often
overlooked and underrated albums that may not have inspired their
33 1/3 books, but have played a large part in their own musical
cultivation. Questions central to the essays include: How has this
album influenced your worldview? How does this album intersect with
your other creative and critical pursuits? How does this album
index a particular moment in cultural history? In your own personal
history? Why is the album perhaps under-the-radar, or a buried
treasure? Why can't you stop listening to it? Bringing together 33
1/3's rich array of writers, critics, and scholars, this collection
probes our taste in albums, our longing for certain tunes, and our
desire to hit repeat--all while creating an expansive "must-listen"
list for readers in search of unexplored musical territories.
In Performing Racial Uplift: E. Azalia Hackley and African American
Activism in the Postbellum to Pre-Harlem Era, Juanita Karpf
rediscovers the career of Black activist E. Azalia Hackley
(1867-1922), a concert artist, nationally famous music teacher, and
charismatic lecturer. Growing up in Black Detroit, she began
touring as a pianist and soprano soloist while only in her teens.
By the late 1910s, she had toured coast-to-coast, earning glowing
reviews. Her concert repertoire consisted of an innovative blend of
spirituals, popular ballads, virtuosic showstoppers, and classical
pieces. She also taught music while on tour and visited several
hundred Black schools, churches, and communities during her career.
She traveled overseas and, in London and Paris, studied singing
with William Shakespeare and Jean de Reszke-two of the classical
music world's most renowned teachers. Her acceptance into these
famous studios confirmed her extraordinary musicianship, a "first"
for an African American singer. She founded the Normal Vocal
Institute in Chicago, the first music school founded by a Black
performer to offer teacher training to aspiring African American
musicians. Hackley's activist philosophy was unique. Unlike most
activists of her era, she did not align herself unequivocally with
either Booker T. Washington or W. E. B. Du Bois. Instead, she
created her own mediatory philosophical approach. To carry out her
agenda, she harnessed such strategies as giving music lessons to
large audiences and delivering lectures on the ecumenical religious
movement known as New Thought. In this book, Karpf reclaims
Hackley's legacy and details the talent, energy, determination, and
unprecedented worldview she brought to the cause of racial uplift.
Political campaigning affects numerous realms under the
communication umbrella with each channel seeking to influence as
many individuals as possible. In higher education, there is a
growing scholarly interest in communication issues and subjects,
especially on the role of music, in the political arena. Music and
Messaging in the African Political Arena provides innovative
insights into providing music and songs as an integral part of
sending political messages to a broader spectrum of audiences,
especially during political campaigns. The content within this
publication covers such topics as framing theory, national
identity, and ethnic politics, and is designed for politicians,
campaign managers, political communication scholars, researchers,
and students.
The field of Sound Studies has changed and developed dramatically
over the last two decades involving a vast and dizzying array of
work produced by those working in the arts, social sciences and
sciences. The study of sound is inherently interdisciplinary and is
undertaken both by those who specialize in sound and by others who
wish to include sound as an intrinsic and indispensable element in
their research. This is the first resource to provide a wide
ranging, cross-cultural and interdisciplinary investigation and
analysis of the ways in which researchers use a broad range of
methodologies in order to pursue their sonic investigations. It
brings together 49 specially commissioned chapters that ask a wide
range of questions including; how can sound be used in current
academic disciplines? Is sound as a methodological tool
indispensable for Sound Studies and what can sound artists
contribute to the discourse on methodology in Sound Studies? The
editors also present 3 original chapters that work as provocative
‘sonic methodological interventions’ prefacing the 3 sections
of the book.
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