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Books > Music > Theory of music & musicology
This book studies George Crumb's Winds of Destiny (2004) and Black Angels (1970) as artefacts of collective memory and cultural trauma. It situates these two pieces in Crumb's output and unpacks the complex methodologies needed to understand these pieces as contributions and challenges to traditional narratives of the Civil War and the Vietnam War. This book shows how this association began and how it endures through connections to iconic Vietnam War media, including films and books. Together these analyses show the legacy of trauma in American collective memory, which is in a continuous crisis. \This book will be of interest to students of contemporary American music, American studies, and memory studies. It benefits readers by newly situating Crumb's music within these three fields of study.
This book explores the interactions between science and music in the late nineteenth- and early twentieth century. It examines and evaluates the work of Hermann von Helmholtz, Max Planck, Shohe Tanaka, and Adriaan Fokker, leading physicists and physiologists who were committed to understanding crucial aesthetic components of the art of music, including the standardization of pitch and the implementation of various types of intonations. With a mixture of physics, physiology, and aesthetics, author Erwin Hiebert addresses throughout the book how just intonation came to intersect with the history of keyboard instruments and exert an influence on the development of Western music. He begins with the work of Hermann von Helmholtz, a leading nineteenth-century physicist and physiologist who not only made important contributions in vision, optics, electrodynamics and thermodynamics, but also helped advanced the field of music theory as well. The author traces the Helmholtzian trends of thought that become inherently more complex by reaching beyond the sciences to perform a bridge with aesthetics and the diverse ways in which the human mind interprets or is taught, in different cultures, to interpret and understand music. Next, the author explores the works of other key physicists and physiologists who were influenced by Helmholtz and added to his legacy. He examines Japanese music theory student Shohe Tanaka, who sought to design a harmonium that was not based on equal temperament but rather on just intonation. Dutch physicist Adriaan Daniel Fokker, who arranged for organs to be built based on 31-tones per octave, orchestrated concerts for these new instruments and even attempted to compose microtonal music, or music whose tonality is based on intervals smaller than the typical twelve semitones of Western music."
Listen to Pop! discusses the evolution of pop music in America from the 1950s to the present, diving into its impact on American culture, particularly through its association with television, and its enduring legacy. Listen to Pop!: Exploring a Musical Genre provides readers with an overview and a history of the pop music genre. The bulk of the book is devoted to analysis of 50 must-hear musical examples, which include artists, songs, and albums. Additionally, the book contains chapters that analyze the impact of pop music on American popular culture and the legacy of pop music, including how the music is used today in film and television soundtracks and in television commercials. The book deals with all of the various subgenres of pop music from the 1950s to the present. The selection of material discussed reflects the artists, songs, and albums topping the pop music charts of the period, and while the volume examines these items individually, it also discusses how our definition of pop music has evolved over the decades. This combination of detailed examination of specific songs, albums, and artists and discussion of background, legacy, and impact distinguishes it from other books on the subject and make it a vital reference and interesting read for all readers and music aficionados. Analyzes a diversity, stylistically and otherwise, of must-hear examples Traces the evolution of pop music from the end of World War II to the present Extensively discusses the interplay between popular music and television Identifies certain formulas for success, such as the "oldies" chord progression through the 20th century to the present
Aimed at lay, student, and academic readers alike, this book concerns the imagination and, specifically, imagination in music. It opens with a discussion of the invalidity of the idea of the creative genius and the connected view that ideas originate just in the individual mind. An alternative view of the imaginative process is then presented, that ideas spring from a subconscious dialogue activated by engagement in the world around. Ideas are therefore never just of our own making. This view is supported by evidence from many studies and corresponds with descriptions by artists of their experience of imagining. The third subject is how imaginations can be shared when musicians work with other artists, and the way the constraints imposed by trying to share subconscious imagining result in clearly distinct forms of joint working. The final chapter covers the use of the musical imagination in making meanings from music. The evidence is that music does not communicate meanings directly, and so composers or performers cannot be looked to as authorities on its meaning. Instead, music is commonly heard as analogous to human experience, and listeners who perceive such analogies may then imagine their own meanings from the music.
This book is designed for composers, orchestral musicians, conductors, orchestral managers and programmers as well as for music students and their instructors/supervisors who want to investigate contemporary Australian concert music for orchestra and are interested in the nature of contemporary symphonism. It is also intended for musically informed concert-goers and music lovers eager to explore an unfamiliar but rich repertory of fine symphonies.
Punk rock may have started in the United Kingdom and United States but it certainly didn't stay in either country. The genre flew around the globe like a contagion, touching off simultaneous movements in nearly every market imaginable: Japan, Yugoslavia, the Philippines, South Africa, New Zealand, Chile, Mexico, Poland, Burma, Singapore, and Turkey, among countless others. Performing punk rock in many of these places wasn't just rebellious, it was legitimately dangerous, thanks to regimes far more oppressive and brutal than what existed in the West. Brave Punk World immerses readers in these foreign scenes, describing the lifestyles and art of passionate, hard-charging groups who remain secret to the punk majority but who are just as crucial as the Ramones or the Sex Pistols. James Greene, Jr. explores Brazilian bands like Ulster who angrily protested and openly mocked their region's cruel dictatorship, Germans such as Slime who see many of their songs still banned to this day, the Algerian-by-way-of-France performers Carte de Sejour who had an alleged hand in inspiring the landmark Clash hit "Rock The Casbah," and a galaxy of other punk groups from more exotic locales. Punk diehards and travel enthusiasts with a taste for chaos will enjoy the country-by-country cultural explorations and wild stories offered within these pages.
Concerto Grosso no. 1 is one of Alfred Schnittke's best-known and most compelling works, sounding the surface of late Soviet life while resonating with contemporary compositional currents around the world such as postmodernism. It marked a decisive point in Schnittke's development of the approach he called polystylism, which aimed to contain in a single composition the wide range of contemporary musical styles, including "jazz, pop, rock, or serial music." Thanks to it and his other similar compositions, Schnittke became one of the most-performed and most-recorded living composers at the end of the twentieth century. Peter J. Schmelz's Alfred Schnittke's Concerto Grosso no. 1 represents the first accessible and comprehensive study of this composition. The novel structure of the book engages with the piece conceptually, historically, musically, and phenomenologically, with the six movements of the composition framing the six chapters. Augmenting and complicating the insights of existing English, Russian, and German publications on the Concerto Grosso no. 1, the book adds new information from underused primary sources, including Schnittke's unpublished correspondence and his many published interviews. It engages further with his sketches for the piece, and with contemporary Soviet musical criticism, resulting in a more objective, historical account of this rich, multifaceted composition, its influences, and its impact on music making in the USSR and worldwide.
Kramer was one of the most visionary musical thinkers of the second half of the 20th century. In his The Time of Music, he approached the idea of the many different ways that time itself is articulated musically. This book has become influential among composers, theorists, and aestheticians. Now, in his almost completed text written before his untimely death in 2004, he examines the concept of postmodernism in music. Kramer created a series of markers by which we can identify postmodern works. He suggests that the postmodern project actually creates a radically different relationship between the composer and listener. Written with wit, precision, and at times playfully subverting traditional tropes to make a very serious point about this difference, Postmodern Music, Postmodern Listening leads us to a strongly grounded intellectual basis for stylistic description and an intuitive sensibility of what postmodernism in music entails. Postmodern Music, Postmodern Listening is an examination of how musical postmodernism is not just a style or movement, but a fundamental shift in the relationship between composer and listener. The result is a multifaceted and provocative look at a critical turning point in music history, one whose implications we are only just beginning to understand.
Just as music has the power to inspire, it has the power to irritate and enrage. Why does certain music annoy us? Why does it force us to leave rooms, invade our personal space and affect us on a visceral level? Based on more than 70 interviews, this book discusses the everyday challenges of living together with unwanted music. It examines issues of taste, individual rights, private and public spaces, violence and the law. The interviews explore various relationships with forced listening and the behaviors that result. Interviewees talk about emotions and reactions to the nuisance caused by music, highlighting matters of otherness, individualism and rights. They discuss experiences with neighbors, at stores, on the street, while commuting and even in their homes - and reveal the complex social interactions mediated by music and sounds in our day-to-day lives.
Race and Gender in the Western Music History Survey: A Teacher's Guide provides concrete information and approaches that will help instructors include women and people of color in the typical music history survey course and the foundational music theory classes. This book provides a reconceptualization of the principles that shape the decisions instructors should make when crafting the syllabus. It offers new perspectives on canonical composers and pieces that take into account musical, cultural, and social contexts where women and people of color are present. Secondly, it suggests new topics of study and pieces by composers whose work fits into a more inclusive narrative of music history. A thematic approach parallels the traditional chronological sequencing in Western music history classes. Three themes include people and communities that suffer from various kinds of exclusion: Locales & Locations; Forms & Factions; Responses & Reception. Each theme is designed to uncover a different cultural facet that is often minimized in traditional music history classrooms but which, if explored, lead to topics in which other perspectives and people can be included organically in the curriculum, while not excluding canonical composers.
Introduction to Digital Music with Python Programming provides a foundation in music and code for the beginner. It shows how coding empowers new forms of creative expression while simplifying and automating many of the tedious aspects of production and composition. With the help of online, interactive examples, this book covers the fundamentals of rhythm, chord structure, and melodic composition alongside the basics of digital production. Each new concept is anchored in a real-world musical example that will have you making beats in a matter of minutes. Music is also a great way to learn core programming concepts such as loops, variables, lists, and functions, Introduction to Digital Music with Python Programming is designed for beginners of all backgrounds, including high school students, undergraduates, and aspiring professionals, and requires no previous experience with music or code.
Though The Velvet Underground were critically and commercially unsuccessful in their time, in ensuing decades they have become a constant touchstone in art rock, punk, post-punk, indie, avant pop and alternative rock. In the 1970s and 80s Lou Reed, John Cale and Nico produced a number of works that traveled a path between art and pop. In 1993 the original band members of Reed, Cale, Morrison and Tucker briefly reunited for live appearances, and afterwards Reed, Cale and briefly Tucker, continued to produce music that travelled the idiosyncratic path begun in New York in the mid-1960s. The influence of the band and band members, mediated and promoted through famous fans such as David Bowie and Brian Eno, seems only to have expanded since the late 1960s. In 1996 the Velvet Underground were in inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, demonstrating how far the band had traveled in 30 years from an avant-garde cult to the mainstream recognition of their key contributions to popular music. In these collected essays, Pattie and Albiez present the first academic book-length collection on The Velvet Underground. The book covers a range of topics including the band's relationship to US literature, to youth and cultural movements of the 1960s and beyond and to European culture - and examines these contexts from the 1960s through to the present day.
The 1970s saw a wave of singer-songwriters flood the airwaves and concert halls across the United States. This book organizes the stories of approximately 150 artists whose songs created the soundtrack to people's lives during the decade that forever shaped musical composition. Some well-known, others less known, these artists were the song-poets and storytellers who wrote their own music and lyrics. Featuring biographical information and discography overviews for each artist, this is the only one-volume encyclopedic overview of this topic. Featured artists include Carole King and James Taylor, Joni Mitchell and Jackson Browne, Bob Dylan and Paul Simon, Bruce Springsteen, Gordon Lightfoot, Elvis Costello and dozens of other song-poets of the seventies.
The five volumes provide a comprehensive and detailed documentation of all music -- published and unpublished, from Shakespeare's day to our own -- in any way related to Shakespeare's life and work.
The music of Tchaikovsky remains as much loved in the twenty-first century as it was a hundred years ago. But it has so much more to offer than luscious orchestration and tuneful melodies. In Experiencing Tchaikovsky: A Listener's Companion, historian and scholar David Schroeder looks beyond traditional views of Tchaikovsky to explore the dramatic impact of his music by walking readers through the remarkable range of works by this great Russian composer. Drawing on a select, but highly representative, group of compositions from Tchaikovsky's vast output, from his groundbreaking ballet Swan Lake to his great opera Eugene Onegin, Experiencing Tchaikovsky: A Listener's Companion offers in-depth explorations without technical jargon. In addition to looking at his ballets and some of his operas, Schroeder probes the many other genres in which Tchaikovsky worked, from his chamber music pieces and symphonies to his other orchestral works and concertos. Throughout, Schroeder draws connections among the works, painting a fuller, more coherent picture of Tchaikovsky through his thematic interests, musical techniques, sonic signatures, and literary and cultural focuses. For context, Schroeder describes the works of personal significance for the composer through such contemporary literature as Tchaikovsky's letters to Nadezhda von Meck, the wealthy patroness whom he never met. Experiencing Tchaikovsky: A Listener's Companion is for anyone who left a ballet performance whistling themes from Swan Lake or humming melodies from The Nutcracker. It is the ideal work for concertgoers, music students, opera buffs, ballet enthusiasts, and anyone who appreciates this musical master.
In 1972, a group of creative Brazilian musicians and poets informally led by singer-songwriter Milton Nascimento recorded a landmark double-LP titled Clube da Esquina (Corner Club). The album saw highly original songs by Milton, already an award-winning international star, sharing vinyl with those of Lo Borges, an unknown eighteen-year-old from Belo Horizonte, the capital of the state of Minas Gerais. There, where the street "corner" still exists, grew their collective also known as the Corner Club, as the artists collaborated on many subsequent albums boasting innovative blends of pop, jazz, rock, folk, classical influences, and, before Brazil's return to civilian rule in 1985, poignant protest songs aimed at a cruel dictatorship. Drawing on a thirty-year relationship with Minas Gerais that includes interviews with Corner Club members and extensive research of Portuguese language sources, Jonathon Grasse presents an analysis of the artists, songs, and ideas comprising the LP that helps define this Brazilian generation. 33 1/3 Global, a series related to but independent from 33 1/3, takes the format of the original series of short, music-based books 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.
Beethoven Symphonies Revisited guides the reader -- music student, concert goer, or general music lover -- through the movements in a way that renews the novelty and excitement that listeners must have felt at the first performances. Stylistic discussion concentrates on the unusual features of each symphony, placing each individual work in the context of Beethovens musical advancement and circumstances. His musical innovations are explored, and his contribution to the genre assessed. Thirty author-annotated musical pages elaborate and exemplify. The essential building blocks of key, tonality, metre, rhythm and instrumentation are discussed in detail. The authors purpose is twofold: to bring together major research findings and at the same time offer detailed descriptive analyses of all nine symphonies. The approach is singular in its emphasis on the symphonies in the context of performance practice of the time, especially musical direction; the importance of the wind instruments (especially horns) and kettle drums; how counterpoint features in various passages in all the symphonies except the Sixth and Eighth, and how this was influenced by Beethovens strict training in species counterpoint. New evaluations are offered, especially for the Second, Eighth and Ninth symphonies. The books multi-faceted approach will be invaluable not only for conductors and music students at all levels, but for all concert goers and music lovers who wish to gain insight into the musical intricacies developed and enhanced by Beethovens symphonic journey. Illustrations: 30 annotated musical score pages comprising 99 examples linked to text explanations; autographed manuscripts; performance venues; and instruments of the period. Illustrations: 30 annotated musical score pages comprising 99 examples linked to text explanations; autographed manuscripts; performance venues; and instruments of the period.
Tyranny and Music is an edited collection of essays that explore how musical artists respond to cruel or oppressive governments and ruling regimes. Its primary strength and unique quality lies in its diversity, presenting a postmodern collage of scholarship that reaches across the divides of classical, popular and traditional musics just as it connects musical resistance of the past with the present and the near (Western) with the far (non-Western). Contemporary topics include Chosan's analysis of blood diamonds in the Sierra Leonean Civil War, and collective memory in the Persian Gulf War songs. Historical topics include the image of John Wilkes Booth in the popular imagination, censorship in the Soviet Union, Victor Ullman's song setting at Terezin, artistic restrictions in Maoist China, anti-inquisition propaganda in the outbreak of the Dutch revolt, Revolutionary Era Anthems in the United States and much more. These essays, while remarkable in their scholarly erudition, also provide intimate glimpses of the resiliency of the individual artist. From Cherine Amr's Heavy Metal resistance to the Muslim Brotherhood to Hanns Eisler's battle with the United States House on Un-American Activities Committee, stories of human struggle and perseverance arise from each of these narratives.
- Offers a diverse snapshot of current studies of music notation as material culture, encompassing a wide range of methodological approaches - Broad historical and regional/stylistic scope, covering material from the middle ages to the present
Rock Criticism from the Beginning is a wide-ranging exploration of the rise and development of rock criticism in Britain and the United States from the 1960s to the present. It chronicles the evolution of a new form of journalism, and the course by which writing on rock was transformed into a respected field of cultural production. The authors explore the establishment of magazines from Crawdaddy! and Rolling Stone to The Source, and from Melody Maker and New Musical Express to The Wire, while investigating the careers of well-known music critics like Robert Christgau, Greil Marcus, and Lester Bangs in the U.S., and Nik Cohn, Paul Morley, and Jon Savage in the U.K., to name just a few. While much has been written on the history of rock, this Bourdieu-inspired book is the first to offer a look at the coming of age of rock journalism, and the critics that opened up a whole new kind of discourse on popular music.
Throughout the history of slavery, enslaved people organized resistance, escape, and rebellion. Sustaining them in this struggle was their music, some examples of which are sung to this day. While the existence of slave songs, especially spirituals, is well known, their character is often misunderstood. Slave songs were not only lamentations of suffering or distractions from a life of misery. Some songs openly called for liberty and revolution, celebrating such heroes as Gabriel Prosser and Nat Turner, and, especially, celebrating the Haitian Revolution. The fight for freedom also included fugitive slaves, free Black people, and their white allies who brought forth a set of songs that were once widely disseminated but are now largely forgotten, the songs of the abolitionists. Often composed by fugitive slaves and free Black people, and first appearing in the eighteenth century, these songs continued to be written and sung until the Civil War. As the movement expanded, abolitionists even published song books used at public meetings. Mat Callahan presents recently discovered songs composed by enslaved people explicitly calling for resistance to slavery, some originating as early as 1784 and others as late as the Civil War. He also presents long-lost songs of the abolitionist movement, some written by fugitive slaves and free Black people, challenging common misconceptions of abolitionism. Songs of Slavery and Emancipation features the lyrics of fifteen slave songs and fifteen abolitionist songs, placing them in proper historical context and making them available again to the general public. These songs not only express outrage at slavery but call for militant resistance and destruction of the slave system. There can be no doubt as to their purpose: the abolition of slavery, the emancipation of African American people, and a clear and undeniable demand for equality and justice for all humanity.
Discover music that dared to be different, risked reputations and put careers in jeopardy - causing fascination and intrigue in some and rejection and scorn in others. This is what happens when people take tradition and rip it up. MusicQuake tells the stories of 50 pivotal albums and performances that shook the world of modern music - chronicling the fascinating tales of their creation, reception and legacy. Tracing enigmatic composers, risque performers and radical songwriters - this books introduces the history of 20th century music in a new light. From George Gershwin and John Cage to Os Mutantes and Fela Kuti; from Patti Smith and The Slits to Public Enemy and Missy Elliott - by discussing each entry within the context of its creation, the book will give readers true insight into why each moment was so pivotal and tell the stories surrounding the most exciting music ever produced. Some were shocking, others confusing, beautiful and surreal; some were scorned on release, others were chart toppers; and yet more inspired entire movements and generations of new musicians. These cutting-edge works, which celebrate novelty, technology and innovation, help define what music is today - acting as prime examples of how powerful songs can be. This book is from the Culture Quake series, which looks into iconic moments of culture which truly created paradigm shifts in their respective fields. Also available are ArtQuake, FilmQuake and FashionQuake.
In this book, perspectives in psychology, aesthetics, history and philosophy are drawn upon to survey the value given to sad music by human societies throughout history and today. Why do we love listening to music that makes us cry? This mystery has puzzled philosophers for centuries and tends to defy traditional models of emotions. Sandra Garrido presents empirical research that illuminates the psychological and contextual variables that influence our experience of sad music, its impact on our mood and mental health, and its usefulness in coping with heartbreak and grief. By means of real-life examples, this book uses applied music psychology to demonstrate the implications of recent research for the use of music in health-care and for wellbeing in everyday life.
Activism through Music during the Apartheid Era and Beyond documents the grassroots activism of Sharon Katz and the Peace Train against the backdrop of enormous diversity and the volatile social and political climate in South Africa in the early 1990s. Among the intersections of race, healing and the "soft power" of music, Katz offers a vision of the possibilities of national identity and belonging as South Africans grappled with the transition from apartheid to democracy. Through extensive fieldwork across two countries (South Africa and the United States) and drawing on personal experiences as a South African of color, Ambigay Yudkoff reveals a compelling narrative of multigenerational collaboration. This experience creates a sense of community fostering relationships that develop through music, travel, performances, and socialization. In South Africa and the United States, and recently in Cuba and Mexico, the Peace Train's journey in musical activism provides a vehicle for racial integration and intercultural understanding.
"Fraser discusses the aesthetics and system of ideal musical styles employed by talempong players, the history of the talempong, and, most compellingly, the newer styles of practice, including repertoires that incorporate popular music genres from around the world. The author's discussion of institutionalization, professionalization, and monetization of Minangkau arts in general and talempong styles specifically gives this book broader relevance...SUMMING UP: Recommended." -CHOICE Scholarship on the musical traditions of Indonesia has long focused on practices from Java and Bali, including famed gamelan traditions, at the expense of the wide diversity of other musical forms within the archipelago. Jennifer A. Fraser counters this tendency by exploring a little-known gong tradition from Sumatra called talempong, long associated with people who identify themselves as Minangkabau. Grounded in rich ethnographic data and supplemented with online audiovisual materials, Gongs and Pop Songs is the first study to chronicle the history and variety of talempong styles. It reveals the continued vitality of older modes in rural communities in the twenty-first century, while tracing the emergence of newer ones with radically different aesthetic frames and values. Each talempong style discussed incorporates into its repertoire Minangkabau pop or indigenous songs, both of which have strong associations with the place and people. These contemporary developments in talempong have taken place against a shifting political, social, and economic backdrop: the institutionalization of indigenous arts, a failed regional rebellion, and the pressures of a free-market economy. Fraser adopts a cognitive approach to ethnicity, asking how people understand themselves as Minangkabau through talempong and how different styles of the genre help create and articulate ethnic sentiments - that is, how they help people sound Minangkabau. |
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