The aim of this book is to stimulate debate by offering a critique of discourse about African music. Who writes about African music, how, and why? What assumptions and prejudices influence the presentation of ethnographic data? To what orders of authority do scholars appeal? What ethical considerations motivate individual scholars? Even the term "African music" suggests there is an agreed-upon meaning, but African music signifies differently to different people. This book also poses the question then, "What is African music?" Agawu offers a new and provocative look at the history of African music scholarship that will resonate with students of ethnomusicology and post-colonial studies. He offers an alternative "Afro-centric" means of understanding African music, and in doing so, illuminates a different mode of creativity beyond the usual provenance of Western criticism. This book will undoubtedly inspire heated debate - and new thinking - among musicologists, cultural theorists, and post-colonial thinkers.

The aim of this book is to stimulate debate by offering a critique of discourse about African music. Who writes about African music, how, and why? What assumptions and prejudices influence the presentation of ethnographic data? To what orders of authority do scholars appeal? What ethical considerations motivate individual scholars? Even the term "African music" suggests there is an agreed-upon meaning, but African music signifies differently to different people. This book also poses the question then, "What is African music?" Agawu offers a new and provocative look at the history of African music scholarship that will resonate with students of ethnomusicology and post-colonial studies. He offers an alternative "Afro-centric" means of understanding African music, and in doing so, illuminates a different mode of creativity beyond the usual provenance of Western criticism. This book will undoubtedly inspire heated debate - and new thinking - among musicologists, cultural theorists, and post-colonial thinkers.

The world of Sub-Saharan African music is immensely rich and diverse, containing a plethora of repertoires and traditions. In The African Imagination in Music, renowned music scholar Kofi Agawu offers an introduction to the major dimensions of this music and the values upon which it rests. Agawu leads his readers through an exploration of the traditions, structural elements, instruments, and performative techniques that characterize the music. In sections that focus upon rhythm, melody, form, and harmony, the essential parts of African music come into relief. While traditional music, the backbone of Africa's musical thinking, receives the most attention, Agawu also supplies insights into popular and art music in order to demonstrate the breadth of the African musical imagination. Close readings of a variety of songs, including an Ewe dirge, an Aka children's song, and Fela's 'Suffering and Smiling' supplement the broader discussion. The African Imagination in Music foregrounds a hitherto under-reported legacy of recordings and insists on the necessity of experiencing music as sound in order to appreciate and understand it fully. Accordingly, a Companion Website features important examples of the music discussed in detail in the book. Accessibly and engagingly written for a general audience, The African Imagination in Music is poised to renew interest in Black African music and to engender discussion of its creative underpinnings by Africanists, ethnomusicologists, music theorists and musicologists.

Showcases the energy and diversity of the young field of music semiology, appealing to readers who want to explore the meaning of music in our lives. The Dawn of Music Semiology showcases the work of nine leading musicologists, inspired by the work of Jean-Jacques Nattiez, the founding father of music semiology. Now entering its fifth decade as Nattiez enters his eighth,music semiology, or music semiotics, is still a young, vibrant field, and this book reflects its energy and diversity. It appeals to readers wanting to explore the meaning of music in our lives and to understand the ways of appreciating the complexities that lie behind its simple beauty and direct impact on us. Following a preface by Pierre Boulez and an introduction by the editors, nine chapters discuss the latest thinking about general considerations such as music and gesture, the psychology of music, and the role of ethnotheory. The volume offers new research on topics as diverse as modeling folk polyphony, spatialization in the Darmstadt repertoire, Schenker's theory of musical content, compositional modernism from Wagner to Boulez, current music theory terminology, and Maderna's use of folk music in serial composition. CONTRIBUTORS: Kofi Agawu, Simha Arom, Rossana Dalmonte, Irene Deliege, Jonathan Dunsby, Jonathan Goldman, Nicolas Meeus, Jean Molino, Arnold Whittall Jonathan Dunsby is Professor of Music Theory at the Eastman School of Music, University of Rochester. Jonathan Goldman is Professor of Musicology at the University of Montreal.

Written by one of the best-known academic writers on African music, On African Music is a collection of seven essays addressing various techniques, influences, and scholarly approaches to African music. After a concise introduction spelling out the rationale for the book, successive chapters develop answers to questions such as: How does a "minimalist impulse" animate creativity in Africa, and does "Western minimalism" differ from "African minimalism"? How do we explain the prevalence of iconic effects in African expressive forms? How has (European) tonality functioned as a "colonizing force" in African music? Why is the (written) art music of the continent talked about so little when it has been in existence since the middle of the nineteenth century? How might the discipline of music theory be rejuvenated by "aid" from Africa? What are the strengths and limitations of ethnotheory as a methodology? Who is who in theorizations of African rhythm, and how might we explain the shape of the existing archive? This book thus deals with analytical and interpretive issues, the politics of scholarship, and salient features of African music. Laced with provocative viewpoints on each page, On African Music should appeal not only to readers curious about the structural underpinnings of African music but also to those who wish to reflect critically and philosophically on how we study and write about the music of the continent, how we might approach its global status with a firm understanding from the inside, and what our priorities might be in promoting an empowering cosmopolitan discourse.

Of all the repertories of Western Art music, none is as explicitly listener-oriented as that of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Yet few attempts to analyze the so-called Classic Style have embraced the semiotic implications of this condition. Playing with Signs proposes a listener-oriented theory of Classic instrumental music that encompasses its two most fundamental communicative dimensions: expression and structure. Units of expression, defined in reference to topoi, are shown here to interact with, confront, and merge into units of structure, defined in terms of the rhetorical conventions of beginning, continuing, and ending. The book draws on examples from works by Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven to show that the explicitly referential, even theatrical, surface of Classic music derives from a play with signs. Although addressed primarily to readers interested in musical analysis, the book opens up fruitful avenues for further research into musical semiotics, aesthetics, and Classicism. Originally published in 1991. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Of all the repertories of Western Art music, none is as explicitly listener-oriented as that of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Yet few attempts to analyze the so-called Classic Style have embraced the semiotic implications of this condition. Playing with Signs proposes a listener-oriented theory of Classic instrumental music that encompasses its two most fundamental communicative dimensions: expression and structure. Units of expression, defined in reference to topoi, are shown here to interact with, confront, and merge into units of structure, defined in terms of the rhetorical conventions of beginning, continuing, and ending. The book draws on examples from works by Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven to show that the explicitly referential, even theatrical, surface of Classic music derives from a play with signs. Although addressed primarily to readers interested in musical analysis, the book opens up fruitful avenues for further research into musical semiotics, aesthetics, and Classicism.

Originally published in 1991.

The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

'Musical arts in Africa: theory, practice and education' is the collabrative result of 31 African music scholars who draw on the multidisciplinary perspectives of musicology, compositions, performing practice, ethnomusicology and education.

Written by ten leading scholars, this 2008 volume assembles studies of eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century music under the broad rubric of communication. That such an impulse motivates musical composition and performance in this period of European musical history is often acknowledged but seldom examined in depth. The book explores a broad set of issues, ranging from the exigencies of the market for books and music in the eighteenth century through to the deployment of dance topoi in musical composition. A number of close readings of individual works by Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven draw on a sophisticated body of historically-appropriate technical resources to illuminate theories of form, metre, bass lines and dance topoi. Students and scholars of music history, theory and analysis will find in this volume a set of challenging, state-of-the-art essays that will stimulate debate about musical meaning and engender further study.

Written by ten leading scholars, this volume assembles studies of eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century music under the broad rubric of communication. That such an impulse motivates musical composition and performance in this period of European musical history is often acknowledged but seldom examined in depth. The book explores a broad set of issues, ranging from the exigencies of the market for books and music in the eighteenth century through to the deployment of dance topoi in musical composition. A number of close readings of individual works by Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven draw on a sophisticated body of historically-appropriate technical resources to illuminate theories of form, metre, bass lines and dance topoi. Students and scholars of music history, theory and analysis will find in this volume a set of challenging, state-of-the-art essays that will stimulate debate about musical meaning and engender further study.

The question of whether music has meaning has been the subject of sustained debate ever since music became a subject of academic inquiry. Is music a language? Does it communicate specific ideas and emotions? What does music mean, and how does this meaning occur? Kofi Agawu's Music as Discourse has become a standard and definitive work in musical semiotics. Working at the nexus of musicology, ethnomusicology, and music philosophy and aesthetics, Agawu presents a synthetic and innovative approach to musical meaning which argues deftly for the thinking of music as a discourse in itself-composed not only of sequences of gestures, phrases, or progressions, but rather also of the very philosophical and linguistic props that enable the analytical formulations made about music as an object of study. The book provides extensive demonstration of the pertinence of a semiological approach to understanding the fully-freighted language of romantic music, stresses the importance of a generative approach to tonal understanding, and provides further insight into the analogy between music and language. Music as Discourse is an essential read for all who are interested in the theory, analysis and semiotics of music of the romantic period.