Music

Taking a new, fresh approach to the study of American music, [this book] is divided into three parts. In the first part, historical, social, and cultural issues are discussed, including how music history is studied; issues of musical and social identity; and institutions and processes affecting music in the U.S. The heart of the book is devoted to American musical cultures: American Indian; European; African American; Latin American; and Asian American. Each cultural section has a basic introductory article, followed by case studies of specific musical cultures. Finally, global musics are addressed, including Classical Musics and Popular Musics, as they have been performed in the U.S.

In essays that offer an eclectic survey of current music scholarship, the contributors go beyond repertory and biography to explore four critical yet overlooked areas: the impact of performance; patronage's role in creating music and finding a place to play it; personal identity; and the ways cultural and ethnographic circumstances determine the music that emerges from the creative process. Many of the articles also look at how a piece of music becomes initially popular and then exerts a lasting influence in the larger global culture. The result is an insightful state-of-the-field examination that doubles as an engaging short course on our complex, multifaceted musical heritage.

In the wake of World War II, the cultural life of the United States underwent a massive transformation. At the heart of these changes during the early Cold War were the rise of the concept of identity and a reformulation of the country's political life. A revolution in music was taking place at the same time-a tumult of new musical styles and institutions that would lead to everything from the birth of rock'n'roll to the new downtown experimental music scene. Together, these new cultural and musical trends came to define the era. In the search for new social affinities and modes of self-fashioning, music provided just the right tool.

Composers like Charles Ives, Duke Ellington, Aaron Copland, and Ellen Taaffe Zwilich created works that indelibly commemorated American places. Denise Von Glahn analyzes the soundscapes of fourteen figures whose 'place pieces' tell us much about the nation's search for its own voice and about its ever-changing sense of self. She connects each composer's feelings about the United States and their reasons for creating a piece to the music, while analyzing their compositional techniques, tunes, and styles. Approaching the compositions in chronological order, Von Glahn reveals how works that celebrated the wilderness gave way to music engaged with humanity's influence--benign and otherwise--on the landscape, before environmentalism inspired a return to nature themes in the late twentieth century. Wide-ranging and astute, The Sounds of Place explores high art music's role in the making of national myth and memory.

How can the future of classical music escape the darker shadows of its past? [This book] addresses the crisis provoked by such questions in two complementary ways. Several of the chapters show how the classical music world is already grappling with the crisis, and finding vital signs beyond the borders of the music's traditional European strongholds. Other chapters identify areas that still need improvement, especially on behalf of female and LGBTQ+ musicians, and suggest how advances can be made both on concert stages and in schools.

This book explores the contribution of the symbolic aspects of musical forms and structures to rhetoric and argumentation during the Romantic period. While there are several studies on this topic dedicated to the Baroque era, there are much fewer contributions on the Romantic period. This book shows that the aesthetics of Romantic music are very strong, persuasive and expressive, and are paramount for communicating in our everyday life.Investigating the impact of musical structures on our cognitive and psychological attitudes is the central issue of this book. Within a cognitive science perspective, it introduces the different elements of meaning conveyed by music through an analysis of several major works of composers of the Romantic era. As such, the book is an accessible introduction to anyone with a basic background in music, and will be of interest to teachers and researchers in music, psychology, cognition, linguistics and computer science.

A comprehensive social history of jazz, this book provides an intimate and compelling look at the many forces that shaped this most American of art forms and the many influences that gave rise to jazz's post-war styles. Rich with the voices of musicians, producers, promoters, and others on the scene during the decades following World War II, this book views jazz's evolution through the prism of technological advances, social transformations, changes in the law, economic trends, and much more.

A collection of original and fascinating stories about the DC jazz scene throughout its history, including a portrait of the cultural hotbed of Seventh and U Streets, the role of jazz in desegregating the city, a portrait of the great Edward'Duke'Ellington's time in DC, notable women in DC jazz, and the seminal contributions of the University of District of Columbia and Howard University to the scene.

There are over a million jazz recordings, but only a few hundred tunes have been recorded repeatedly. Why did a minority of songs become jazz standards? Why do some songs--and not others--get rerecorded by many musicians? Shaping Jazz answers this question and more, exploring the underappreciated yet crucial roles played by initial production and markets--in particular, organizations and geography--in the development of early twentieth-century jazz.

Learning to read and write music is very similar to learning a new language. Music theory is the study of the fundamental elements of music and how it is written. Whether your goal is to gain a cursory understanding of music, become fluent in reading music, or start composing your own music, this text will provide everything you need for a solid foundation in music theory.

One of the twentieth century's most important musical thinkers, James Tenney did pioneering work in multiple fields, including computer music, tuning theory, and algorithmic and computer-assisted composition. Selections focus on his fundamental concerns—'what the ear hears'—and include thoughts and ideas on perception and form, tuning systems and especially just intonation, information theory, theories of harmonic space, and stochastic (chance) procedures of composition.

Unlike previous versions of rock 'n' roll history, this book omits almost every iconic performer and ignores the storied events and turning points everyone knows. Instead, in a daring stroke, Greil Marcus selects ten songs and dramatizes how each embodies rock 'n' roll as a thing in itself, in the story it tells, inhabits, and acts out--a new language, something new under the sun.

Transformation of Christianity's view of rock'n'roll as "demonic" to the embrace of the genre with Christian rock.

Feedback: The Who and Their Generation begins with the roots of rock music, setting the stage for The Who when its four band members came together in 1964 to produce their most successful work over the next decade. Throughout, Harison looks at the musical and social cross-Atlantic feedback that characterized The Who's reception and impact.

The essays in this volume use harmonic, melodic, rhythmic, formal, and textual approaches in order to show how and why rock music works as music. Topics of discussion include the adaptation of blues and other styles to rock; the craft of songwriting; techniques and strategies of improvisation; the reinterpretation of older songs; and the use of the recording studio as a compositional tool. A broad range of styles and groups is covered, including Yes, the Beach Boys, Cream, k.d. lang, Paul Simon, Jimi Hendrix, and the Grateful Dead.

The grand narratives of European music history are informed by the dichotomy of placements and displacements. Yet musicology has thus far largely ignored the phenomenon of displacement and underestimated its significance for musical landscapes and music history. [This book] constitutes a pioneering volume that aims to fill this gap as it explores the interactions between music and displacement in theoretical and practical terms.

This collection investigates the concept of modernity in music and its multiple interpretations in Europe and East Asia. The essays connect local, global and transnational history with sociological theories of modernity and modernization, making the volume an important contribution to overcoming the Eurocentric dichotomy between western music and world music within the field of historical musicology.