This book examines the significance of music in the construction of identities and ethnicities, and suggests ways to understand music as social practice. The authors focus on the role of music in the
This study explores the ways in which topics of English history were central to conceptions of English identity, musical and otherwise, during the Victorian and Edwardian periods. Its focus is on the
This book explores the work of three significant American women composers of the twentieth century: Ruth Crawford, Marion Bauer and Miriam Gideon. It offers a unique approach to a rich body of music that deserves theoretical scrutiny and provides information on both the lives and music of these fascinating women, skilfully interweaving history and musical analysis in ways that both the specialist and the more general reader will find compelling. In this important study, Ellie Hisama has employed forms of analysis by which she links musical characteristics with aspects of the composers' identities. This is revealing both for questions of music and gender and the continuing search for meaning in music. The book thus draws attention to the value of the music of these three composers and contributes to the body of analytical work concerned with the explanation of musical language.
This is the first introductory survey of western twentieth-century music to address popular music, art music and jazz on equal terms. It treats those forms as inextricably intertwined, and sets them in a wide variety of social and critical contexts. The book comprises four sections – Histories, Techniques and Technologies, Mediation, Identities – with 16 thematic chapters. Each of these explores a musical or cultural topic as it developed over many years, and as it appeared across a diversity of musical practices. In this way, the text introduces both key musical repertoire and critical-musicological approaches to that work. It historicises music and musical thinking, opening up debate in the present rather than offering a new but closed narrative of the past. In each chapter, an overview of the topic's chronology and main issues is illustrated by two detailed case studies.
This is the first book to discuss in detail how rap music is put together musically and how it contributes to the formation of cultural identities for both artists and audiences. It also argues that current skeptical attitudes toward music analysis in popular music studies are misplaced and need to be reconsidered if cultural studies are to treat seriously the social force of rap music, popular musics, and music in general. Drawing extensively on recent scholarship in popular music studies, cultural theory, communications, critical theory, and musicology, Krims redefines 'music theory' as meaning simply 'theory about music', in which musical poetics (the study of how musical sound is deployed) may play a crucial role when its claims are contextualized and demystified. Theorizing local and global geographies of rap, Krims discusses at length the music of Ice Cube, the Goodie MoB, KRS-One, Dutch group the Spookrijders, and Canadian Cree rapper Bannock.
To what extent does research on musical development impact on educational practices in school and the community? Do musicians from classical and popular traditions develop their identities in differen
The Cambridge Companion to the American Modernist Novel offers a comprehensive analysis of US modernism as part of a wider, global literature. Both modernist and American literary studies have been reshaped by waves of scholarship that unsettled prior consensuses regarding America's relation to transnational, diasporic, and indigenous identities and aesthetics; the role of visual and musical arts in narrative experimentation; science and technology studies; and allegiances across racial, ethnic, gendered, and sexual social groups. Recent writing on US immigration, imperialism, and territorial expansion has generated fresh and exciting reasons to read or reread modernist novelists, both prominent and forgotten. Written by a host of leading scholars, this Companion provides unique interpretations and approaches to modernist themes, techniques, and texts.
The Cambridge Companion to the American Modernist Novel offers a comprehensive analysis of US modernism as part of a wider, global literature. Both modernist and American literary studies have been reshaped by waves of scholarship that unsettled prior consensuses regarding America's relation to transnational, diasporic, and indigenous identities and aesthetics; the role of visual and musical arts in narrative experimentation; science and technology studies; and allegiances across racial, ethnic, gendered, and sexual social groups. Recent writing on US immigration, imperialism, and territorial expansion has generated fresh and exciting reasons to read or reread modernist novelists, both prominent and forgotten. Written by a host of leading scholars, this Companion provides unique interpretations and approaches to modernist themes, techniques, and texts.
We are multiple, fragmented, and changing selves who, nevertheless, believe we have unique and consistent identities. What accounts for this illusion? Why has the problem of identity become so central in post-war scholarship, fiction, and the media? Following Hegel, Richard Ned Lebow contends that the defining psychological feature of modernity is the tension between our reflexive and social selves. To address this problem Westerners have developed four generic strategies of identity construction that are associated with four distinct political orientations. Lebow develops his arguments through comparative analysis of ancient and modern literary, philosophical, religious, and musical texts. He asks how we might come to terms with the fragmented and illusionary nature of our identities and explores some political and ethical implications of doing so.
This is the first introductory survey of western twentieth-century music to address popular music, art music and jazz on equal terms. It treats those forms as inextricably intertwined, and sets them in a wide variety of social and critical contexts. The book comprises four sections – Histories, Techniques and Technologies, Mediation, Identities – with 16 thematic chapters. Each of these explores a musical or cultural topic as it developed over many years, and as it appeared across a diversity of musical practices. In this way, the text introduces both key musical repertoire and critical-musicological approaches to that work. It historicises music and musical thinking, opening up debate in the present rather than offering a new but closed narrative of the past. In each chapter, an overview of the topic's chronology and main issues is illustrated by two detailed case studies.
To what extent does research on musical development impact on educational practices in school and the community? Do musicians from classical and popular traditions develop their identities in differen
Johannes Brahms was a consummate professional musician, and a successful pianist, conductor, music director, editor and composer. Yet he also faithfully championed the world of private music-making, creating many works and arrangements for enjoyment in the home by amateurs. This collection explores Brahms' public and private musical identities from various angles: the original works he wrote with amateurs in mind; his approach to creating piano arrangements of not only his own, but also other composers' works; his relationships with his arrangers; the deeper symbolism and lasting legacy of private music-making in his day; and a hitherto unpublished memoir which evokes his Viennese social world. Using Brahms as their focus point, the contributors trace the overlapping worlds of public and private music-making in the nineteenth century, discussing the boundaries between the composer's professional identity and his lifelong engagement with amateur music-making.
This collection presents numerous discoveries and fresh insights into music and musical practices that shaped distinctly localized individual and collective identities in pre-modern and early modern E
We are multiple, fragmented, and changing selves who, nevertheless, believe we have unique and consistent identities. What accounts for this illusion? Why has the problem of identity become so central in post-war scholarship, fiction, and the media? Following Hegel, Richard Ned Lebow contends that the defining psychological feature of modernity is the tension between our reflexive and social selves. To address this problem Westerners have developed four generic strategies of identity construction that are associated with four distinct political orientations. Lebow develops his arguments through comparative analysis of ancient and modern literary, philosophical, religious, and musical texts. He asks how we might come to terms with the fragmented and illusionary nature of our identities and explores some political and ethical implications of doing so.
Johannes Brahms was a consummate professional musician, and a successful pianist, conductor, music director, editor and composer. Yet he also faithfully championed the world of private music-making, creating many works and arrangements for enjoyment in the home by amateurs. This collection explores Brahms' public and private musical identities from various angles: the original works he wrote with amateurs in mind; his approach to creating piano arrangements of not only his own, but also other composers' works; his relationships with his arrangers; the deeper symbolism and lasting legacy of private music-making in his day; and a hitherto unpublished memoir which evokes his Viennese social world. Using Brahms as their focus point, the contributors trace the overlapping worlds of public and private music-making in the nineteenth century, discussing the boundaries between the composer's professional identity and his lifelong engagement with amateur music-making.
George Gershwin is often described as a quintessentially American composer. This Cambridge Companion explains why, engaging with the ways in which his music was shaped by American political, intellectual, cultural and business interests. As a composer and performer, Gershwin embraced technological advances and broke new ground in music business practices. In the decades preceding World War II, he captured the mechanistic pulse of modern life with his concert works and lay the groundwork for the Great American Songbook with his Broadway shows and film music. With his brother Ira, and his cousins Henry and B. A. Botkin, Gershwin explored various ethnic and cultural identities and contemplated their roles in US culture. His music confronted race during the Jim Crow era and continues to engage with issues of race today. This interdisciplinary exploration of Gershwin's life and music describes his avowed pursuit of an 'American' musical identity and its ongoing legacy.
George Gershwin is often described as a quintessentially American composer. This Cambridge Companion explains why, engaging with the ways in which his music was shaped by American political, intellectual, cultural and business interests. As a composer and performer, Gershwin embraced technological advances and broke new ground in music business practices. In the decades preceding World War II, he captured the mechanistic pulse of modern life with his concert works and lay the groundwork for the Great American Songbook with his Broadway shows and film music. With his brother Ira, and his cousins Henry and B. A. Botkin, Gershwin explored various ethnic and cultural identities and contemplated their roles in US culture. His music confronted race during the Jim Crow era and continues to engage with issues of race today. This interdisciplinary exploration of Gershwin's life and music describes his avowed pursuit of an 'American' musical identity and its ongoing legacy.
