Sonic Mediations
Body, Sound, Technology
Sonic Mediations: Body, Sound, Technology is a collection of original essays that represents an invaluable contribution to the burgeoning field of sound studies. While sound is often posited as having a bridging function, as a passive in-between, this volume invites readers to rethink the concept of mediation by examining the relationships between the body, sound and technology. The chapters provide a series of focused case studies involving sound and music technologies, performances and installations, which address key issues for sound scholars: How are audio performances mediated by sound technologies as…
Sonic Mediations is a collection of essays that invites readers to rethink mediation by examining the relationships between the body, sound, and technology. It addresses key questions about performance, perception, and the role of the listener.
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From £34.99
Music is used to sell everything from cars to political candidates. How can words and melody so successfully manipulate us? This volume provides answers by examining the ways in which music of various genres, including folk, popular music, rock, and rap, is used to protest and to promote structures of political, commercial, and religious authority. Students, teachers, musicians, historians, policy makers, and fans of music and popular culture will find answers to questions such as: How does music help to build national identity, foster a sense of patriotism, and reflect…
How can words and melody so successfully manipulate us? This book examines how music—from folk and rock to rap—is used to protest and to promote political, commercial, and religious authority, fueling feminist movements, propaganda, and songs of resistance.
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Musicians, teachers and those who love music will find in this volume some answers to the question of how gender affects its practice, performance and reception. What was performing like for female rock singers in the 20th century? How did Bowie change our concept of performer identity? Just how sexist are the lyrics in glam metal songs? Is rap as homophobic as has been thought? Can female metal singers growl as well as men? Are LGBTQ+ issues reflected in 21st century music? Did Canadian New Wave groups tackle major social…
How does gender affect music? How did Bowie change performer identity? How sexist is glam metal? Are LGBTQ+ issues reflected in 21st century music? From French opera to metal and rap, these contributions challenge and inform, confirming that music shapes our gendered selves.
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Applied Ethnomusicology
Historical and Contemporary Approaches
Applied ethnomusicology is an approach guided by principles of social responsibility, which extends the usual academic goal of broadening and deepening knowledge and understanding toward solving concrete problems and toward working both inside and beyond typical academic contexts (International Council for Traditional Music 2007). This edited volume is based on the first symposium of the ICTM’s Study Group on Applied Ethnomusicology in Ljubljana, Slovenia in 2008 that brought together more than thirty specialists from sixteen countries worldwide. It contains a Preface, an extensive Introduction, and twelve selected peer-reviewed articles by…
Applied ethnomusicology is an approach guided by social responsibility toward solving concrete problems. This volume brings together diverse perspectives on its potential in contributing to sustainable music cultures and the use of music in conflict resolution.
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This volume brings together a number of perspectives on the musical landscape of Invercargill, a city at the bottom of Aotearoa/New Zealand. Invercargill is in many ways unique; it is relatively isolated, its access to liquor is controlled by a licensing trust, and it is home to the longest-serving mayor in Aotearoa. The musicking that occurs within Invercargill is surprisingly diverse and wide-ranging. This book acknowledges and explores many of the South’s musical communities, and in, doing so, illustrates the importance of music in local communities. It highlights the ways…
This book explores the surprisingly diverse musical landscape of Invercargill, a city at the bottom of Aotearoa/New Zealand. It illustrates the importance of music in local communities, enriching social connectedness, local identity, and the lives interwoven through them.
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Small Places, Operatic Issues
Opera and Its Peripheral Worlds
This book details original case studies that represent five different social positions or characterisations of opera: namely, opera as social showcase from Bayreuth (1748), social distinction from Ljubljana (1887), social conflict from Brno (1920), social status from Mantua (1999) and social manifest from Belgrade (2005). These positions, which indicate opera’s social diversity in local, regional, provincial, and peripheral terms, as well as its social mutuality in international, transnational, global, or metropolitan terms, generally promote the idea of opera as a social venue, cultural practice, theatrical scene, lyrical site, musical place,…
Through its analysis of five different social positions or characterisations of opera from 1748 to 2005, this book creates a fruitful interpretative encounter of the academic domains of opera studies, historical sociology, cultural sociology and social and cultural anthropology.
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Bruce Springsteen’s America
A Dream Deferred
Weaving from jargon-free critical analysis to a fan’s passionate participatory research, this book places work and class at the center of the work of Bruce Springsteen. It juxtaposes the “uninspiring” work of his characters (factory workers, carwash attendants, cashiers, waitresses, farmhands, and immigrants) with the work of Bruce Springsteen himself as an indefatigable musician and performer. Springsteen is the hunter of invisible game, the teller of second-hand lives of common folks who ride used cars, believe that being born in the USA entitles them to something better, and keep the…
Moving from jargon-free critical analysis to a fan’s passionate participatory research, this book places work and class at the centre of Bruce Springsteen’s oeuvre. It presents him as the bard of the downtrodden and is testament to the life-giving power of rock and roll.
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The Global Reach of the Fandango in Music, Song and Dance
Spaniards, Indians, Africans and Gypsies
The fandango, emerging in the early-eighteenth century Black Atlantic as a dance and music craze across Spain and the Americas, came to comprise genres as diverse as Mexican son jarocho, the salon and concert fandangos of Mozart and Scarlatti, and the Andalusian fandangos central to flamenco. From the celebrations of humble folk to the theaters of the European elite, with boisterous castanets, strumming strings, flirtatious sensuality, and dexterous footwork, the fandango became a conduit for the syncretism of music, dance, and people of diverse Spanish, Afro-Latin, Gitano, and…
This book lays the foundations for learning about the fandango, an 18th century dance and music craze across Spain and the Americas. It describes how the dance became a conduit for the syncretism of music, dance and people and how it signified freedom of movement and expression.
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Music as a Spandrel of Evolutionary Adaptation for Speech
The Doors of Imagination
Some forms of human behavior make no sense in the light of evolution. Music is one of them, and it is the main subject of this book. Here, it is interpreted from a holistic perspective; music is embedded in our nature, it is embodied in our organisms, and it is emergent, a language that opens the doors of imagination for us. The first half of the book is dedicated to cognitive aspects of acoustic signalization: of learned bird song, of automatic mammal calls, and of speech and music in humans.…
Music makes no sense in the light of evolution. This book reveals it as an innate language that unlocks our imagination, allowing us to transcend reality and create. Not bad for what began as a spandrel of speech.
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Popular Music, Ethnicity and Politics in the Kenya of the 1990s
Okatch Biggy Live at “The Junction”
Okatch Biggy was the single most dominant benga artiste of the 1990s. Over that decade, benga was the most important genre of popular music in Kenya. What is it about the music of Okatch Biggy that made it attractive to his target audience, the Luo of the 1990s? Is there something about the Luo of the 1990s that predisposed them to this music? In the course of answering these—and related—questions, this volume analyzes Okatch Biggy’s songs as works of art, that is, by identifying the aesthetic and…
Okatch Biggy was the single most dominant benga artiste of the 1990s. Mboya analyzes Biggy’s songs as works of art, identifying the aesthetic and rhetorical conventions that are deployed in the songs, and exploring the central messages of the music, and their significance.
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Musical vernaculars are a rare and challenging object of study. Their sound can include everything—from local folk and popular songs to random foreign hits and fragments of classic repertoire. It is an everchanging element—eclectic, whimsical, and resistant to regularity. Based on the author’s multicultural experience, proficiency in Russian and Jewish music history, and interest in anthropology, this book explores the essential features of vernaculars. They can have varying degrees of changeability; some are quite stable, and exist in closed rural or immigrant communities (phylo-vernacular), while others are dynamic, like those…
Musical vernaculars are an eclectic and everchanging object of study. This book defends urbanized folk music, challenging the traditional view that only rural songs are authentic, and examines unexpected interconnections between Russian and Jewish music.
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Opera as Anthropology
Anthropologists in Lyrical Settings
This book contemplates the relationship between opera and anthropology. It rests on the following central arguments: on the one hand, opera is quite a new and “exotic” topic for anthropologists, while, on the other, anthropology is still perceived as an unusual approach to opera. Both initial arguments are indicative of the current situation of the relationship between anthropological discipline and opera research. The book introduces the work of anthropologists and ethnographers whose personal and professional affinity for opera has been explicated in their academic and biographical accounts. Anthropological, ethnological, ethnographic,…
Kotnik considers the relationship between opera and anthropology. His study rests on the following central arguments: on the one hand, opera is a new and “exotic” topic for anthropologists, while, on the other, anthropology is still seen as an unusual approach to opera.
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Sound in Motion
Cinema, Videogames, Technology and Audiences
Sound in Motion: Cinema, Videogames, Technology and Audiences is a collective volume that sheds more light on the intimate relationship between music and audiovisual culture in contemporary society. This book brings together researchers from different parts of the world, from the USA to Brazil, through Spain, Georgia, France and Austria, to understand, from different perspectives, a global phenomenon. It includes indispensable studies on music and cinema (revisited from a multicultural perspective), as well as original research on music in videogames and television, and the study of the real impact of…
This collection sheds light on the intimate relationship between music and audiovisual culture in contemporary society. It includes indispensable studies on music and cinema, as well as original research on music in videogames and television.
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Diversity in Australia’s Music
Themes Past, Present, and for the Future
This volume showcases academic research into the rich diversity of music in Australia from colonial times to the present. Starting with an overview of developments during the past 50 years, the contributions discuss Western and non-western genres (opera, film, dance, choral, chamber); the history of music-making in particular cosmopolitan and regional centres (Canberra, Brisbane, the Hunter Valley, Alice Springs); old, new, and experimental compositions; and a variety of performers and ensembles active at particular points in time. In addition, cultural tropes and music as social practice are also explored, providing…
This volume showcases the rich diversity of music in Australia from colonial times to the present. Starting with an overview of developments during the past 50 years, the contributions discuss both Western and non-western genres and the history of music-making in the country.
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£58.99
This book originates from the 2017 edition of the multidisciplinary Modern Heavy Metal Conference, organised in Helsinki, Finland. This collection of seven scholarly essays explores local scenes and identities within heavy metal music from multiple angles, covering a variety of different countries and metal sub-genres from Finland to Indonesia, and from black metal to metalcore. The essays here lay various theoretical perspectives and incorporate vivid examples with metal bands and scenes from all over the world. By exploring themes and discourses that are central to both research and practice, this…
The seven scholarly essays gathered here explore local scenes and identities within heavy metal music from multiple angles, covering a variety of different countries and metal sub-genres from Finland to Indonesia, and from black metal to metalcore.
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Many Voices
Music and National Identity in Aotearoa/New Zealand
This collection of fourteen essays provides a starting point to re-think music and national identity in Aotearoa/New Zealand. The papers offer various perspectives on the interconnections between music and identity, while providing case-studies on diverse topics including performance, composition, and musical styles. Based on a conference held at the University of Otago, the book covers three broad themes: Cultural Diversity; Popular Culture; and, Education and High-Art. Within any nation, individuals might have a cultural identity that is related to notions of being or becoming, or they may live transcultural lives.…
This collection of essays re-thinks music and national identity in Aotearoa/New Zealand. The papers offer various perspectives on the interconnections between music and identity, aiming to open up critical discourse on the many sounds of a diverse nation.
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£52.99
This book provides an overview of the communicative processes that encompass the creation, interpretation, perception, and evaluation of the various phenomena constituting musical art. The numerous internal and external communicative links in the spheres of the composer, the performer, the listener and the musicologist-critic – links which constitute a complex system of the transmission of musical information – are considered from a socio-cultural perspective, which determines the high social role of the academic genres of music. The book will be of use to professional musicians and to all those interested…
Yakupov summarises the communicative processes encompassing the creation, interpretation, perception, and evaluation of the various phenomena of musical art. He considers the numerous communicative links in the spheres of the composer, performer, listener and musicologist-critic.
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Music and Minorities from Around the World
Research, Documentation and Interdisciplinary Study
The acceleration of mobility among the world’s peoples, the growth of populations resettling in places other than their homelands, and world events that have propelled these developments have brought minorities unprecedented attention. Their significance as subjects for study has grown correspondingly and the study of their music has become an important gateway into understanding the culture of minorities. The Study Group for Music and Minorities, part of the International Council for Traditional Music, has seen a steady increase in membership since its inception in 1998 – evidence of…
The study of music has become an important gateway into understanding the culture of minorities. This volume attends to Jewish themes, with authors from four continents. Its global scope and varied approaches represent the broad range of modern ethnomusicology.
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Philosophical Considerations on Contemporary Music
Sounding Constellations
The musical universe of the 20th and 21st centuries is a force-field in which styles, instruments, personalities and stories can be found that are ascribable to conceptual frameworks that may differ greatly one from another. Such complexity cannot be traced back to single theories or all-encompassing interpretations, but may be tackled, philosophically, starting from certain characteristics. This book identifies nine such characteristics: namely, Extremes, Noise, Silence, Technology, Audience, Listening, Freedom, Disintegration, and New Media. Each of these permits us to open up unforeseen philosophical-cultural paths and interpret, in its multifarious…
Fronzi describes how complexity in music of the 20th and 21st centuries can be tackled philosophically, starting from certain characteristics. He identifies nine characteristics that permit us to open up philosophical-cultural paths and interpret contemporary music developments.
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£52.99
For much of the mid-twentieth century, Roberto Gerhard found himself an outsider. He was airbrushed from much writing on contemporary music in Spain during the Franco regime, and was known in England more for his ‘commercial’ music for theatre, film and radio than his concert works. However, his significance as a musical innovator in developing serial technique and in the field of electro-acoustics is now being gradually recognised in both Spain and England, as well as further afield. The volume explores an extensive range of Gerhard’s work from the early…
This volume explores Roberto Gerhard’s work from the early Wind Quintet through to the late period Metamorphoses. It suggests evidence that situates his idiosyncratic experiments alongside, rather than after, the total serialist works of his European counterparts.
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