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Books > Arts & Architecture > Music > Contemporary popular music > Rock & pop > World music
In 1997 the rap group Racionais MCs (the 'Rational' MCs) recorded
the album Sobrevivendo no Inferno (Surviving in Hell), subsequently
changing the hip-hop scene in Sao Paulo and firmly establishing
itself as the point of reference for youth across Brazil. In an era
when rappers needed to defend the very idea that their work was
indeed music and a time when neighborhoods such as Capao Redondo,
from where Racionais frontman Mano Brown hailed, often topped
homicide statistics, Sobrevivendo empowered as it provoked. As one
journalist noted, "the underworld of Sao Paulo's working-class
suburbs is dominated by cheap thrills and provides little space for
representation." Sobrevivendo changed all of that; a brutal but
invigorating imagination was born. The lure of Sobrevivendo is the
particular combination of word and sound that powerfully involves
listeners, especially those millions of young Brazilians who live
in the neighborhoods on the periphery of Brazil's megacities. This
book celebrates the 25-year anniversary of Sobrevivendo by
representing the album's power not only within the hip-hop
community but also in other cultural domains such as cinema and
literature. The author also provides his own narrative spins on the
sentiment of Sobrevivendo, thus making the book a creative mix of
cultural analysis and inspired testimony.
Based upon Cantometrics: An Approach to the Anthropology of Music
(1976), by Alan Lomax, Songs of Earth: Aesthetic and Social Codes
in Music is a contemporary guide to understanding and exploring
Cantometrics, the system developed by Lomax and Victor Grauer for
analyzing the formal elements of music related to human geography
and sociocultural patterning. This carefully constructed
cross-cultural study of world music revealed deep-rooted
performance patterns and aesthetic preferences and their links with
environmental factors and ancient socioeconomic practices. This new
and updated edition is for anyone wishing to understand and more
deeply appreciate the forms and sociocultural contexts of the
musics of the world's peoples, and it is designed to be used by
both scholars and laypeople. Part One of the book consists of a
practical guide to using the Cantometrics system, a course with
musical examples to test one's understanding of the material, a
theoretical framework to put the methodology in context, and an
illustration of the method used to explore the roots of popular
music. Part Two includes guides to four other analytical systems
that Lomax developed, which focus on orchestration, phrasing and
breath management, vowel articulation, instrumentation, and
American popular music. Part Three provides resources for educators
who wish to use the Cantometrics system in their classrooms, a
summary of the findings and hypotheses of Lomax's original
research, and a discussion of Cantometrics' criticisms,
applications, and new approaches, and it includes excerpts of
Lomax's original writings about world song style and cultural
equity.
Music in Egypt is one of several case-study volumes that can be
used along with Thinking Musically, the core book in the Global
Music Series. Thinking Musically incorporates music from many
diverse cultures and establishes the framework for exploring the
practice of music around the world. It sets the stage for an array
of case-study volumes, each of which focuses on a single area of
the world. Each case study uses the contemporary musical situation
as a point of departure, covering historical information and
traditions as they relate to the present. Visit
www.oup.com/us/globalmusic for a list of case studies in the Global
Music Series. The website also includes instructional materials to
accompany each study.
Music in Egypt provides an overview of the country's rich and
dynamic contemporary musical landscape. It offers an in-depth look
at specific Egyptian musical traditions, paying special attention
to performers and the variety of contexts in which performances
occur. The book acknowledges the pervasive presence of Islam by
focusing on two Muslim performance genres and by considering the
age-old issue of the compatibility of music and Islam. It
accomplishes the latter by incorporating the voices of many of the
performers featured on the accompanying CD. The volume features a
variety of musics that reflect and help to create a number of
distinct regional, national, and community identities co-existing
in Egypt today.
Drawing on more than twenty years of extensive fieldwork, Scott L.
Marcus offers detailed ethnographic documentation of seven
performance traditions found in Egypt today: the call to prayer;
madh, a genre of Sufi religious music; southern Egyptian mizmar
folkmusic; early twentieth-century takht-based art music; music by
the acclaimed singer Umm Kulthum, which dominated the mid-twentieth
century; wedding procession music; and music by the current
superstar pop singer Hakim. The book is packaged with an 80-minute
audio CD containing excellent examples of each tradition. All of
the examples are based in a single melodic mode--maqam rast--to
best engage students with the musical form, structure, and practice
of the traditions. Separate educational tracks on the CD introduce
maqam rast and the variety of rhythms found in the CD examples. In
addition, the CD features a special solo improvisation (taqasim) in
maqam rast by UCLA professor Ali Jihad Racy, to help students
better understand this particular melodic mode.
Enhanced by eyewitness accounts of performances, interviews with
performers, listening examples, and song lyrics that enable
students to interact with the text, Music in Egypt provides a
unique and hands-on introduction to the country's diverse and
captivating music.
More than simply a paragon of Brazilian samba, Dona (Lady) Ivone
Lara's 1981 Sorriso Negro (translated to Black Smile) is an album
deeply embedded in the political and social tensions of its time.
Released less than two years after the Brazilian military
dictatorship approved the Lei de Anistia (the "Opening" that put
Brazil on a path toward democratic governance), Sorriso Negro
reflects the seminal shifts occurring within Brazilian society as
former exiles reinforced notions of civil rights and feminist
thought in a nation under the iron hand of a military dictatorship
that had been in place since 1964. By looking at one of the most
important samba albums ever recorded (and one that also happened to
be authored by a black woman), Mila Burns explores the pathbreaking
career of Dona Ivone Lara, tracing the ways in which she navigated
the tense gender and race relations of the samba universe to
ultimately conquer the masculine world of samba composers. 33 1/3
Global, a series related to but independent from 33 1/3, takes the
format of the original series of short, music-basedbooks and brings
the focus to music throughout the world. With initial volumes
focusing on Japanese and Brazilian music, the series will also
include volumes on the popular music of Australia/Oceania, Europe,
Africa, the Middle East, and more.
Darkthrone's A Blaze in the Northern Sky (1992) is a foundational
keystone of the musical and aesthetic vision of the notorious
Norwegian black metal scene and one of the most beloved albums of
the genre. Its mysterious artwork and raw sound continue to
captivate and inspire black metal fans and musicians worldwide.
This book explores the album in the context of exoticism and
musical geography, examining how black metal music has come to
conjure images of untamed Nordic wildernesses for fans worldwide.
In doing so, it analyzes aspects of musical style and production
that created the distinctly "grim" sound of Darkthrone and
Norwegian black metal.
Dundee Street Songs,Rhymes and Games: The William Montgomerie
Collection, 1952 - In 1952 when these songs and rhymes were
recorded in Hilltown, Dundee there may not have been a street or
playground anywhere where the sound of children singing and playing
was part of everyday life. Although there had been Scottish
collectors of 'bairn sangs' since the 1820s, it was not until the
1940s that anyone in Scotland audio-recorded the actual sound of
playground voices. These recordings of school children captured the
vitality of the local dialect, the spontaneity of their
language-use outside the classroom, their repertoire of songs,
rhymes and games, their musicality , as well as the sounds that
echo the speed and accuracy of their hand-eye co-ordination. (Audio
links included in the notes).
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.
Antonio Carlos Jobim has been called the greatest of all
contemporary Brazilian songwriters. He wrote both popular and
serious music and was a gifted piano, guitar and flute player. One
of the key figures in the creation of the bossa nova style, Jobim's
music made a lasting impression worldwide, and many of his songs
are now standards of the popular music repertoire. In The Music of
Antonio Carlos Jobim, one of the first extensive musicological
analyses of the Brazilian composer, Peter Freeman examines the
music, philosophy and circumstances surrounding the creation of
Jobim's popular songs, instrumental compositions and symphonic
works. Freeman attempts to elucidate not only the many musical
influences that formed Jobim's musical output, but also the
stylistic peculiarities that were as much the product of a gifted
composer as the rich musical environment and heritage that
surrounded him.
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