Rameau
New Edition, revised and updated, with colour illustrations. The previous edition was consulted by Donald Macleod and referenced during his episodes on Rameau for BBC Radio 3's Composer of the Week in 2022. Graham Sadler, Shirley Thompson and Jonathan Williams, editors of The Operas of Rameau, published by Routledge in 2022, cited it as a 'substantial biography'.Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683-1764) was both the greatest French composer and the most influential scientist of music of the 18th century. His personality was as complex and as singular as his music and his ideas. When he finally achieved fame as an opera composer he polarised Parisian society like no other artistic figure of his time.Simon Trowbridge's book is the first general study of Rameau's life and work to be published in English in over half a century. It is both an elegant introduction to Rameau and an exploration of his significance as a major figure in the cultural and intellectual life of Paris during the middle decades of the 18th century. Rameau emerges as a musician who was politically as well as artistically radical, an often paradoxical figure who worked within the official realms of the Op矇ra and the court but who remained his own man.
Robert Schumann and Richard Wagner as Music Critics
The music reviews of Robert Schumann and Richard Wagner are central documents of 19th-century German musical culture. This book takes a closer look at the way these texts were written and explores the significant contributions Schumann and Wagner made to the discourse of musical appraisal. To that effect, the author raises fundamental questions that have thus far remained unaddressed: What textual features characterize the critical writings? How do Schumann and Wagner understand their roles as critics of music? And in what way do they reach out to the reader? Rather than understanding these critical writings exclusively as a gateway to the compositions and musical aesthetics of Schumann and Wagner, this book analyzes the texts through the lens of pragmatics, narratology and discourse analysis. Using this interdisciplinary perspective, the author proposes to understand Schumann and Wagner within the broader medial and discursive context of German 'Kritik'. He challenges the dominant narrative that brands Schumann and Wagner as elitist Romantic critics, demonstrating instead that they actively encourage their readers to form their own judgements. This volume is an indispensable resource for scholars of German literature, periodicals and music alike.
Music in Medieval Rituals for the End of Life
For centuries of European history, singing for a person at the moment of death was considered to be the ideal accompaniment to a life's ending. In Music in Medieval Rituals for the End of Life, author Elaine Stratton Hild examines and recovers the chants sung for the dying during the Middle Ages, beginning in the late eighth century. Along with the first editions of these melodies, she offers considerations of the functions that music played within the deathbed rituals, arguing that the chants served as vehicles with which communities offered comfort to a dying person. The book presents close readings of rituals from diverse communities, each as they appear in a single source. The rituals' chants are transcribed into modern notation and analyzed, both for their text-music relationships and for their functions within the rituals. Hild shows that within the widespread practice, local versions of the liturgies--along with their chant repertories--remained unstandardized throughout the Middle Ages. Yet some commonalities are evident among these varied local practices. One is the use of song. Beginning in the ninth century, sources most often prescribe chant, not the Eucharist, for the final moments of life. Another commonality is the positive depiction of the afterlife conveyed by the chants. Created for the powerful and the poor, the educated and the uneducated, women and men, monastics, clerics, and laity, these manuscripts offer a glimpse into the religious practices that distinguished communities from one another and also bound them together within a single tradition.
21st-century's Most Inspirational Songs
What matters is how music affects you; it doesn't matter what kind of music inspires you. Your eyes may open and your mind may become more deeply engaged when listening to music. You can be energised, kept company, and otherwise void moments filled by music.Maybe you're entangled in tangles in your life. You can use music to get through the day, decompress, find solutions to your problems, and simply clear your mind. You might be motivated to confront it again one day.Maybe music can heal. The proper music has the power to transport you to a place of awe and devotion, to take you beyond reality and send you gliding with the angels. It might inspire optimism, spark your creativity, and enable you to change your
The Creation of Beethoven's Nine Symphonies
Offers a unique investigation of the composition of the entire corpus of Beethoven's symphonies, reconstructing their creation through the most extensive study of Beethoven's sketches yet. Beethoven's nine symphonies are a cornerstone of Western classical music and have revolutionised it. Composers succeeding Beethoven found their output measured against this master's work. But how did his symphonies come into being and how did they reach their final form? These are the questions this book seeks to answer. Barry Cooper has been one of the leading advocates of the need for extensive studies of Beethoven's sketches, and we see him here applying his usual investigative rigour to the study of the symphonies. For most of the symphonies the sketches have not previously been fully examined. In contrast, Cooper's book provides a much deeper exploration of these sketches, along with autograph scores, corrected copies and first editions, while the Beethoven correspondence offers additional information on the first publication and performances of the symphonies. The result is a clear overview of the creation of each symphony in turn, placed within the context of musical life in Beethoven's Vienna. Another strand of the investigation covers Beethoven's unfinished symphonies and how they helped to provide the fertile soil from which the finished ones grew. Most of those did not progress beyond a few bars, but two, known as No. 0 and No. 10, were sketched extensively. This book therefore offers a unique investigation of the composition of the entire corpus of Beethoven's symphonies, reconstructing their creation from Beethoven's rather than posterity's viewpoint.
Dylan, Lennon, Marx and God
Bob Dylan and John Lennon are two of the most iconic names in popular music. Dylan is arguably the twentieth century's most important singer-songwriter. Lennon was founder and leader of the Beatles who remain, by some margin, the most covered songwriters in history. While Dylan erased the boundaries between pop and poetry, Lennon and his band transformed the genre's creative potential. The parallels between the two men are striking but underexplored. This book addresses that lack. Jon Stewart discusses Dylan's and Lennon's relationship; their politics; their understanding of history; and their deeply held spiritual beliefs. In revealing how each artist challenged the restrictive social norms of their day, the author shows how his subjects asked profound moral questions about what it means to be human and how we should live. His book is a potent meditation and exploration of two emblematic figures whose brilliance changed Western music for a generation.
Liszt in Context
Liszt in Context explores the political, social, philosophical and professional currents that surrounded Franz Liszt and illuminates the competing forces that influenced his music. Liszt was immersed in the religious, political and cultural debates of his day, and moved between institutions, places, and social circles with ease. All of this makes for a rich contextual tapestry against which Liszt composed some of the most iconic, popular, and also contentious music of the nineteenth century. His significance and astonishing reach cannot be over-stated, and his presence in nineteenth-century European culture, and his continuing influence into the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, are overwhelming. The focus on context, reception, and legacy that this volume provides reveals the multifaceted nature of Liszt's impact during his lifetime and beyond.
Rock Guitar Virtuosos
The guitar has been an integral part of popular music and mainstream culture for many decades and in many places of the world. This Element examines the development and current state of virtuosic rock guitar in terms of playing, technology, and culture. Supported by technological advances such as extended-range guitars, virtuosos in the twenty-first century are exploring ways to expand standard playing techniques in a climate where ever-higher levels of perfection are expected. As musician-entrepreneurs, contemporary rock guitar virtuosos record, produce, and market their music themselves; operate equipment companies; and sell merchandise, tablature, and lessons online. For their social media channels, they regularly create videos and interact with their followers while having to balance building their tribe and finding the time to develop their craft to stay competitive. For a virtuoso, working situations have changed considerably since the last century; the aloof rock star has been replaced by the approachable virtuoso-guitarist-composerinnovator-producer-promoter-YouTuber-teacher-entrepreneur.
Unspooled
Well into the new millennium, the analog cassette tape continues to claw its way back from obsolescence. New cassette labels emerge from hipster enclaves while the cassette's likeness pops up on T-shirts, coffee mugs, belt buckles, and cell phone cases. In Unspooled, Rob Drew traces how a lowly, hissy format that began life in office dictation machines and cheap portable players came to be regarded as a token of intimate expression through music and a source of cultural capital. Drawing on sources ranging from obscure music zines to transcripts of Congressional hearings, Drew examines a moment in the early 1980s when music industry representatives argued that the cassette encouraged piracy. At the same time, 1980s indie rock culture used the cassette as a symbol to define itself as an outsider community. Indie's love affair with the cassette culminated in the mixtape, which advanced indie's image as a gift economy. By telling the cassette's long and winding history, Drew demonstrates that sharing cassettes became an acceptable and meaningful mode of communication that initiated rituals of independent music recording, re-recording, and gifting.
Unspooled
Well into the new millennium, the analog cassette tape continues to claw its way back from obsolescence. New cassette labels emerge from hipster enclaves while the cassette's likeness pops up on T-shirts, coffee mugs, belt buckles, and cell phone cases. In Unspooled, Rob Drew traces how a lowly, hissy format that began life in office dictation machines and cheap portable players came to be regarded as a token of intimate expression through music and a source of cultural capital. Drawing on sources ranging from obscure music zines to transcripts of Congressional hearings, Drew examines a moment in the early 1980s when music industry representatives argued that the cassette encouraged piracy. At the same time, 1980s indie rock culture used the cassette as a symbol to define itself as an outsider community. Indie's love affair with the cassette culminated in the mixtape, which advanced indie's image as a gift economy. By telling the cassette's long and winding history, Drew demonstrates that sharing cassettes became an acceptable and meaningful mode of communication that initiated rituals of independent music recording, re-recording, and gifting.
Clara Schumann Studies
Since the 1980s, when she re-emerged from the peripheries into a more central position in music studies, Clara Schumann (1819-1896) has exerted an enduring fascination over the scholarly and popular imagination. Revisionist biographies, the uncovering of primary sources (diaries, letters, memorabilia), and filmic and literary depictions of Schumann have all brought into sharper focus the details and reception of her life, while simultaneously drawing attention to how much there is still to learn about her creativity. This book brings together a team of leading scholars to reappraise Clara Schumann in three particular respects: first, by delving deeper into her social and musical contexts; secondly, by offering fresh analytical perspectives on her songs and instrumental music; and thirdly, by reconsidering her legacy as a pianist and teacher. In doing so, the volume not only contributes to a rounded picture of Schumann's creative vision, but also opens up new pathways in the wider study of women in music.
Music and Astronomy
This book explores the profound and ancient relationship between music and astronomy. Throughout history, Music has occupied a significant place among the disciplines of the Quadrivium, which also include Geometry, Arithmetic, and Astronomy. The captivating bond between these two realms has not only inspired eminent scientists like Kepler, Newton, and Einstein, but has also captured the imagination of NASA and astronauts in modern times. The author delves into various aspects of the intersection between music and astronomy, encompassing everything from ancient cosmological beliefs to groundbreaking discoveries such as the cosmic background radiation and gravitational waves. This enthralling theme has not only stimulated renowned artists like David Bowie and Elton John, but has also served as a muse for movies like Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Within the book, readers will find an extensive photo gallery and a specially curated soundtrack that enhances the reading experience. It caters to a broad audience, appealing to those with a general interest in both music and astronomy, as well as to specialized individuals in either field of study.
How To Play The Guitar Properly In 12 Weeks
Michael Macdonald is a classically trained musician who has studied and taught the guitar for more than 30 years. He has developed this programme to teach complete beginners how to play the guitar properly.At the end of the 12 weeks, having worked through the lessons and accompanying video tutorials, you will be able to confidently perform 4 pieces of music from start to finish: a 12-bar blues song, a rock song, a piece of traditional flamenco music and a classical guitar composition.Each piece has been chosen to teach the essential techniques and knowledge required for your continued learning: You will play with and without a plectrum, play basic chords fluently, learn the names of the notes and chords on the guitar and how to tune it.You will strum various different rhythms as well as pick melodies.You will learn the theory and style behind each piece with the guitar in your hand, and you will build a solid foundation on which to continue learning and spend the rest of your life proudly calling yourself a guitarist.
Wiley-Blackwell Handbook of Adulthood and Aging
In a recording, what sounds count as music? Sounds made by a musician's body--including inhales, finger taps, and grunts--have for decades been dismissed as extraneous noises. In Sounds as They Are: The unwritten music in classical recordings, author Richard Beaudoin pioneers a field of inquiry into non-notated sounds in recordings of classical music, recognizing often-overlooked sounds made by the bodies of performers and their recording equipment as music. Beaudoin classifies such sounds via inclusive track analysis (ITA), a bold new theory based on a comprehensive census of audible events on a given recording, and then codifies their musical function. He builds a typology across four large categories: sounds of breath (inhaling and exhaling), sounds of touch (guitar squeaks, piano pedals), sounds of effort (grunting and moaning), and surface noise (on early recording formats). Breaths are shown to be as complex and diverse as chords. Touch sounds create empathy with listeners. Effortful vocalizations reveal connections between music-making and sex. The measurement of surface noise reveals moments of synchronization with the meter of the recorded piece. He draws analogies between unwritten music and painting, photography, poetry, psychology, and government. The book's methodology is intertwined with the aesthetics and ethics of non-notated sounds: who is allowed to make them, and how they are received by listeners, critics, and scholars. Beaudoin uncovers insidious inequalities across music studies and the recording industry, including the silencing of body and breath sounds along lines of gender and race. Sounds as They Are demonstrates the expressive, interpretive, and embodied possibilities that emerge when all sounds are valued coequally and asks music theory to face a simple truth: that all sounds deserve recognition.
Autobiographical Recollections of Charles-Marie Widor (1844-1937)
The last of the Romantics, Widor narrated his recollections in 1936, bringing to life his diverse experiences from the time of Louis Philippe to the cusp of World War II. Widor's Toccata is the most famous organ piece composed in the past three hundred years--since Bach's ubiquitous Toccata in D Minor. Linked inseparably with the organ through his ten seminal organ symphonies and legendary sixty-four years as organist at Saint-Sulpice, Widor drew crowds of doting admirers from all walks of life around himself and Cavaill矇-Coll's great organ of one hundred stops. It is apparent throughout these "Autobiographical Recollections" that Widor was well-connected, moving with ease among the intelligentsia, presidents, politicians, royalty, nobility, patrons, and artists. A keen observer and a man of sophistication and extraordinary erudition, Widor was an all-embracing musician and notable historical figure who led an active life beyond his famous organ gallery. As permanent secretary of the Academy of Fine-Arts, he was the cultural ambassador of France for more than twenty years. Few musicians of any era have had a broader experience, wider sphere of influence, and greater number of significant and varied accomplishments. Preceded by a comprehensive Preface, these "Autobiographical Recollections," narrated in the last months of Widor's life, are translated into English for the first time, meticulously edited, and profusely annotated. The persons, political details, and historical events that Widor spoke of with great fluency are identified in notes that give the reader a full understanding of the narrative. Several appendixes and a trove of hitherto unpublished photos illuminate the text.
The Guidebook to Self-Releasing Your Music
The Guidebook to Self-Releasing Your Music is a must-have resource for anyone looking to release their music-equally valuable for first timers as well as for seasoned experts who want the latest information on technology and industry developments. Matthew Whiteside focuses on the areas that musicians can manage themselves, and highlights-with humour and encouragement-the potential benefits and pitfalls along the way.
Melody of Elements
Welcome to the extraordinary sheet music collection "Melody of Elements". Whether you are a passionate musician or a simple music lover, you will embark on a enchanting sonic journey where every note and chord evoke the spirits of the elements: air, earth, fire, water, metal, wood, ether, light, darkness, and quintessence. Music becomes the spell that connects man to the earth, the fire that ignites passion, the water that soothes the soul, the metal that brings strength, the wood that symbolizes growth, and the ether that envelops everything in a harmonious embrace. Experience the essence of each element as you play and listen to this extraordinary collection of piano sheet music.
You Get Bigger as You Go
WINNER: Bronze Medal for Best Book in Performing Arts from the Independent Publisher Book Awards (The IPPYs)! Bruce Cockburn has enthralled audiences with his insightful lyrics and innovative guitar playing for over half a century. Hit songs like "Wondering Where the Lions Are," "If I Had a Rocket Launcher," and "Lovers in a Dangerous Time" are just part of the story. In You Get Bigger as You Go: Bruce Cockburn's Influence and Evolution, musician and writer M.D. Dunn takes the reader on a humorous and obsessive quest to track Cockburn's significant cultural footprint. Interviews with producers, musicians, activists, fans, as well as Bruce's career-long manager, the legendary Bernie Finkelstein, and with the enigmatic Mr. Cockburn himself form the core of this critical assessment and appreciation. In these conversations, Cockburn and friends celebrate a life of music and social engagement.You Get Bigger as You Go: Bruce Cockburn's Influence and Evolution is the perfect beginner's guide to the music and the artist, and a fun addition to any fan's library. Photographs from archivist Daniel Keebler span decades and show Cockburn in his natural habitat, on stage and in studio.
Melody of Nature
Welcome to the enchanting sheet music collection "Melody of Nature". Whether you're a passionate musician or a simple music lover, you'll embark on a captivating sonic journey where every note and chord evoke the sounds of nature. Whether you want to express your connection with nature through the piano or simply seek a relaxing listening experience, this collection of sheet music is the ideal choice. Take a seat, place your hands on the keys, and let your soul merge with the magic of the notes of "Melody of Nature".
Melody of Colors
Welcome to the enchanting sheet music collection "Melody of Colors". Whether you're a passionate musician or a simple music lover, "Melody of Colors" will take you on a unique and immersive musical journey. Get ready to dive into a melodic universe where every note and chord are painted with shades of colors. Whether you're seeking to express your emotions through the piano or simply wish to immerse yourself in an evocative listening experience, this sheet music collection is the ideal choice. Take a seat, place your hands on the keys, and let your soul express itself through the magic of the notes from "Melody of Colors".
Sounding Human
An expansive analysis of the relationship between human and machine in music. From the mid-eighteenth century on, there was a logic at work in musical discourse and practice: human or machine. That discourse defined a boundary of absolute difference between human and machine, with a recurrent practice of parsing "human" musicality from its "merely mechanical" simulations. In Sounding Human, Deirdre Loughridge tests and traverses these boundaries, unmaking the "human or machine" logic and seeking out others, better characterized by conjunctions such as and or with. Sounding Human enters the debate on posthumanism and human-machine relationships in music, exploring how categories of human and machine have been continually renegotiated over the centuries. Loughridge expertly traces this debate from the 1737 invention of what became the first musical android to the creation of a "sound wave instrument" by a British electronic music composer in the 1960s, and the chopped and pitched vocals produced by sampling singers' voices in modern pop music. From music-generating computer programs to older musical instruments and music notation, Sounding Human shows how machines have always actively shaped the act of music composition. In doing so, Loughridge reveals how musical artifacts have been--or can be--used to help explain and contest what it is to be human.
Let It Be Told in a Single Breath
"More than any living poet I know, Russell Thorburn invites us into the company of recurring characters inhabiting a fully-formed world of the imagination. His work reads, collectively, like a vast, ongoing novel in which we join personalities from John Keats to John Lennon to Marilyn Monroe and get to discover what they are up to these days. In this new book, for example, I was delighted to learn that Keats and his gal Fanny are hiding out in the cold north, safe in an old hotel overlooking Lake Superior. And Thorburn and his readers get to play too, as he has the generosity and talent to write himself and us into this irresistible poetic Elysium (and sometimes Underworld) of his."-Jonathan Johnson, author of May Is an Island
Think you can't sing? Think again!
Are you a terrible singer?Have you been told that you're tone-deaf? Were you asked to mime in the school choir?Do you avoid singing carols at Christmas because you don't want to be laughed at? Would you love to join a choir, but you don't think you could ever be good enough to do so? If you've answered yes to any of those questions, this book is aimed specifically at you.Here is a fact; if you can recognise melodies, you're highly unlikely to be tone-deaf, and therefore you have the potential to learn to sing. It doesn't matter how many people have told you that you can't sing, the truth is that you probably can be taught how to do so. This is a massively misunderstood area, even in musical circles. In reality, only a very small percentage of people are truly "tone-deaf" - they have a condition called amusia, akin to colour-blindness but for music. Richard Swan, director of the large UK-based choir London City Voices, explains the reasons why people needlessly opt-out of singing from an early age, and shows you how to go about gaining control over your voice. With over 40 supporting videos on the accompanying website, this book is entirely unique and completely groundbreaking in its approach. Richard's gentle method will rewire your understanding of your own voice. You will listen to music in a different way, and you will start to appreciate how singing in tune in the near future is a very real possibility for you. PRAISE FOR THE BOOK'Singing is one of the most deeply rewarding and uplifting life experiences anyone can have. Anyone who feels that this has been denied to them should read this book.' ANNIE LENNOX 'Richard's insightful explanations and targeted exercises are sure to help you discover your voice! 'I wish I'd read this years ago! What a difference it would have made.' 'This book is uncanny. It feels like it's talking directly to me. It focuses in on all my insecurities about my voice which stop mefrom trying to sing, and it's made me believe I really can overcome them' 'This is a wonderful book for anyone who has ever been put off singing' 'The "can't sing" myth banished for good' 'An encouraging, no-nonsense and achievable approach to the art of singing' 'Joyous and kind, a singing handbook like no other' 'This is like a conversation with your favourite teacher - insightful, challenging and encouraging' 'This is a must-read for anyone wanting to find their voice, gain confidence and, most importantly, enjoy singing' 'Give this book a go if you are even a little curious about your voice' 'This book is like a chat with a friend. Lots of friendly encouragement to help you find your singing voice'
Rap Music and the Youth in Malawi
Rap Music and the Youth in Malawi is one of the first book-length studies of Malawian hip hop. It studies the language and content of contemporary Malawian hip hop as a window onto the country's youth culture as Malawian young people negotiate what scholar Alcinda Honwana calls 'waithood, ' or the condition, common among Malawian youth, of lacking opportunities to advance from a situation of dependence and being stuck in a state of relative childhood. The book argues that rap music made by Malawian youth music speaks of - and represents, through its very agency - their need to break out of this stagnant state. After situating Malawian hip hop with respect to both other musical genres in the country and to the nation's language in culture, Rap Music and the Youth in Malawi shows how Malawian youth use rap music to create a sense of community, which then becomes a foothold from which they can do activities that get them out of waithood and into the adult world, such as getting involved in the music industry, realizing electoral power, or participating in activism about issues such as violence against people with albinism and the COVID-19 pandemic. Hip hop has been a crucial tool for Malawian youth to build the skills, identity, and agency necessary to exercise their economic, cultural, and civic independence.
Melody of Emotions
Welcome to the wonderful sheet music collection "Melody of Emotions". Whether you are a passionate musician or a simple music lover, "Melody of Emotions" will accompany you on a unique and engaging sound journey. Prepare yourself to immerse in a melodic universe where every note and chord resonates with the human soul. Whether you're looking for a way to express your emotions through the piano or just want to immerse yourself in a moving listening experience, this sheet music collection is the perfect choice. Take a seat, place your hands on the keys and let your soul free itself through the magic of the notes of "Melody of Emotions".
Robert Schumann
Offering a concise introduction to one of the most important and influential piano concertos in the history of Western music, this handbook provides an example of the productive interaction of music history, music theory and music analysis. It combines an account of the work's genesis, Schumann's earlier, unsuccessful attempts to compose in the genre and the evolving conception of the piano concerto evident in his critical writing with a detailed yet accessible analysis of each movement, which draws on the latest research into the theory and analysis of nineteenth-century instrumental forms. This handbook also reconstructs the Concerto's critical reception, performance history in centres including London, Vienna, Leipzig and New York, and its discography, before surveying piano concertos composed under its influence in the century after its completion, including well-known concertos by Brahms, Grieg, Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov, as well as lesser-known music by Scharwenka, Rubinstein, Beach, Macdowell and Stanford.
Hensel: String Quartet in E Flat
The String Quartet in E flat major (1834) by Fanny Hensel, n矇e Mendelssohn, is one of the most important works by a female composer written in the nineteenth century. Composed at a turning point in her life (as Hensel was not only grappling with her own creative voice but also coming to terms with her identity as a married woman, and the role her family expected of her), the quartet is significant in showing a woman composing in a genre that was then almost exclusively the domain of male artists. Benedict Taylor's illuminating book situates itself within developing scholarly discourse on the music of women composers, going beyond apologetics - or condemnation of those who hindered their development - to examine the strength and qualities of the music and how it responded to the most progressive works of the period.
Music and Sound in the Films of Dennis Hopper
Across his directorial films, American filmmaker Dennis Hopper used music and sound to propel the narrative, signpost the era in which the films were made, and delineate the characters' place within American culture. This book explores five of Hopper's films to show how this deep engagement with music to build character and setting continued throughout his career, as Hopper used folk, punk, hip-hop, and jazz to shape the worlds of his films in ways that influenced other filmmakers and foreshadowed the advent of the music video format.The author traces Hopper's distinctive approach to the use of music through films from 1969 to 1990, including his innovative use of popular rock, pop, and folk in Easy Rider, his blending of diegetic performances of folk and Peruvian indigenous music in The Last Movie, his use of punk rock in Out of the Blue, incorporation of hip-hop and rap in Colors, and commissioning of a jazz/blues soundtrack by Miles Davis and John Lee Hooker for The Hot Spot. Uncovering the film soundtrack as a vital piece of the narrative, this concise and accessible book offers insights for academic readers in music and film studies, as well as all those interested in Hopper's work.
Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951) is often portrayed as a composer who began as a heart-on-sleeve late Romantic only to evolve during the First World War into an austere, mathematically-obsessed deviser of musical puzzles. Yet to claim that in his music he replaced tonality with its absolute opposite, atonality, as the twelve-tone method swept away all trace of traditional harmonic and thematic processes, is as misleading as to argue that romantic warmth and humanity morphed into the purest and most austerely modernistic spirituality. This handbook refocuses the wealth of recent research into two of Schoenberg's major compositions; the expressive character of those relatively early works which centre on nocturnal images of darkness and despair is at its most original and powerful in Verkl瓣rte Nacht and Erwartung, where the dramatic interplay between stabilising continuities and disorientating fragmentations reveals the elements of a modernist aesthetics that remained fundamental to Schoenberg's musical thought.
Berlioz: Symphonie Fantastique
Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique is a key work in the understanding of romanticism, programme music, and the development of the orchestra, post-Beethoven. It is noted for having a title and a detailed programme, and for its connection with the composer's personal life and loves. This handbook situates the symphony within its time, and considers influences, literary as well as musical, that shaped its conception. Providing a close analysis of the symphony, its formal properties and melodic and textural elements (including harmony and counterpoint), it is a rich but accessible study which will appeal to music lovers, scholars, and students. It contains a translation of the programme, which sheds light on the form and character of each movement, and the unusual use of a melodic id矇e fixe representing a beloved woman. The unusual five-movement design permits a range of musical topics to be discussed and related to traditional symphonic elements: sonata form, a long Adagio, dance-type movements, and thematic development.
Theory and Practice of Piano Construction With a Detailed, Practical Method for Tuning
Theory and Practice of Piano Construction With a Detailed, Practical Method for Tuning, is a classical and a rare book, that has been considered important throughout the human history, and so that this work is never forgotten we at Alpha Editions have made efforts in its preservation by republishing this book in a modern format for present and future generations. This whole book has been reformatted, retyped and redesigned. These books are not made of scanned copies of their original work, and hence their text is clear and readable. This remarkable volume falls within the genres of Music Literature of music
A Short History of English Music
A Short History of English Music, is a classical and a rare book, that has been considered important throughout the human history, and so that this work is never forgotten we at Alpha Editions have made efforts in its preservation by republishing this book in a modern format for present and future generations. This whole book has been reformatted, retyped and redesigned. These books are not made of scanned copies of their original work, and hence their text is clear and readable. This remarkable volume falls within the genres of Music Literature of music
Seeing Opera Anew
What people ultimately want from opera, audience research suggests, is to be absorbed in a story that engages their feelings, even moves them deeply, and that may lead them to insights about life and, perhaps, themselves.How and why can this combination of music and drama do that? What causes people to be moved by opera? How is it that people may become more informed about living and their own lives? Seeing Opera Anew addresses these fundamental questions.Most approaches to opera present information solely from the humanities, providing musical, literary, and historical interpretations, but this book offers a "stereo" perspective, adding insights from the sciences closely related to human life, including evolutionary biology, psychology, anthropology, and neuroscience. It can be hoped that academic specialists less familiar with the science will find points of interest in this book's novel approach, and that open-minded students and inquisitive opera-goers will be stimulated by its "cultural and biological perspective."
Ukulele Christmas Classics
Play Beautiful Ukulele Christmas Songs in this Feel-Good Holiday Songbook and Progressive Fingerpicking Method!Learn 12 beautiful fingerpicking accompaniments as you pluck, strum and sing your way through 12 heartwarming holiday songs. With clear notation and an easy-to-follow format, it makes the perfect ukulele gift for beginner to intermediate players. You'll also find FREE play-along tutorials on the Pierre Hache Music YouTube Channel to complement the book!Ukulele Christmas Classics includes: The basics of reading tabs and fingerpicking12 familiar holiday songs with musical notation and tabsClear chord diagramsFingerpicking exercisesA full fingerpicking accompaniment for each songComprehensive song lyricsFREE online videos!Practice tips & MORE!Bring the JOY of music into your home this holiday season with Ukulele Christmas Classics!
Music and Identity in Venezuela
Venezuelan music has remained largely unnoticed in the academic English literature. Boasting a tremendous wealth of traditions, it displays influences from the Spanish, indigenous, and enslaved African communities that populated the territory from the "conquest" on and offers a tremendous diversity of genres and styles that vary by region, occasion, time, and sometimes ethnic influences. This book presents critical discussions of some of these traditions in connection with the issue of identity. The discussions capture country and city life, illustrate foundational myths, bring secular traditions closer to Christianity, explore surviving cultural strategies, et cetera. They also analyze the interface between Venezuelan identity and European classical music. The book displays diversity of perspectives in terms of (a) subject matter, as it includes traditional and concert musics; (b) disciplines on which the inquiries are grounded, as it includes essays by scholars and artists from musicology, performance, composition, history, cultural history, and education; and (c) epistemological approaches, as it includes critical, historical, and ethnographic research.
Mick Rock. the Rise of David Bowie. 1972-1973
A unique tribute from David Bowie's official photographer and creative partner, Mick Rock, compiled in 2015, with Bowie's blessing.In 1972, David Bowie released his groundbreaking album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. With it landed Bowie's Stardust alter ego: a glitter-clad, mascara-eyed, sexually ambiguous persona who kicked down the boundaries between male and female, straight and gay, fact and fiction into one shifting and sparkling phenomenon of '70s self-expression. Together, Ziggy the album and Ziggy the stage spectacular propelled the softly spoken Londoner into one of the world's biggest stars.A key passenger on this glam trip into the stratosphere was fellow Londoner and photographer Mick Rock. Rock bonded with Bowie artistically and personally, immersed himself in the singer's inner circle, and, between 1972 and 1973, worked as the singer's photographer and videographer.This collection brings together spectacular stage shots, iconic photo shoots, as well as intimate backstage portraits. It celebrates Bowie's fearless experimentation and reinvention, while offering privileged access to the many facets of his personality and fame. Through the aloof and approachable, the playful and serious, the candid and the contrived, the result is a passionate tribute to a brilliant and inspirational artist whose creative vision will never be forgotten.
The Music Producer's Guide To EQ
Effective music production can be a challenge.This is where The Music Producer's Guide comes in. Each book is designed to demystify a music production concept, bringing professional results to your tracks.Within The Music Producer's Guide to EQ, you will embark on a transformative journey, discovering: ⦁ How to harness the power of EQ to improve and balance your mix.⦁ The fundamental theories that underpin all EQ modules.⦁ Expert tips and tricks for working with commonly-used instruments.⦁ How to use the frequency spectrum and harmonic series to make excellent mixing decisions.Prepare yourself for better production and mixing sessions as The Music Producer's Guide to EQ arms you with the indispensable theory and practice necessary to elevate your music to new heights.
Hensel: String Quartet in E Flat
The String Quartet in E flat major (1834) by Fanny Hensel, n矇e Mendelssohn, is one of the most important works by a female composer written in the nineteenth century. Composed at a turning point in her life (as Hensel was not only grappling with her own creative voice but also coming to terms with her identity as a married woman, and the role her family expected of her), the quartet is significant in showing a woman composing in a genre that was then almost exclusively the domain of male artists. Benedict Taylor's illuminating book situates itself within developing scholarly discourse on the music of women composers, going beyond apologetics - or condemnation of those who hindered their development - to examine the strength and qualities of the music and how it responded to the most progressive works of the period.
Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951) is often portrayed as a composer who began as a heart-on-sleeve late Romantic only to evolve during the First World War into an austere, mathematically-obsessed deviser of musical puzzles. Yet to claim that in his music he replaced tonality with its absolute opposite, atonality, as the twelve-tone method swept away all trace of traditional harmonic and thematic processes, is as misleading as to argue that romantic warmth and humanity morphed into the purest and most austerely modernistic spirituality. This handbook refocuses the wealth of recent research into two of Schoenberg's major compositions; the expressive character of those relatively early works which centre on nocturnal images of darkness and despair is at its most original and powerful in Verkl瓣rte Nacht and Erwartung, where the dramatic interplay between stabilising continuities and disorientating fragmentations reveals the elements of a modernist aesthetics that remained fundamental to Schoenberg's musical thought.
Aural Experience and Soundscape Management
Since technological progress is characterized by the dual effects, positive and negative, it is precisely by sustaining the balance between such binaries that ecologically responsible resource management is restored as a solution for excessive human impact on the environment. Sound and music became relevant from the perspective of management, within the meaning of controlling their negative effects on human beings and their environment as well as utilizing them for meeting human needs. This book integrates the fields of technology, humanities, and social sciences and defines the challenges of noise control from the perspective of acoustic ecology. It discusses the concept of acoustic ecology applied to evoke sound and music management and design solutions for well-being. It will be equally useful for students of electrical engineering, music, and economics; equally challenging to those with a particular prior knowledge and practice; and as much as comprehensive and stimulative for those who are barely embarking upon a new adventure.
Moses And The Impossible Piano
This book is about first camping attended by the author when he was ten years old back in Kenya. He was intrigued by sweet melody played in a piano making him wonder about "what is a piano?" This changed his life making him ask everyone in his village and school if they had a piano in their home.
Love on the Beat
Discover the life and genius of Serge Gainsbourg through this collection of 79 carefully annotated song translations. For the first time ever, Serge's greatest hits are lovingly translated into English for his legions of non-francophone fans. Finally, the nuance and subtlety of his lyrics can be enjoyed by a broader audience. Feel free to approach this tome as a reference book or as a condensed history of Serge's life. Enjoy the ride and provocation - Jane Birkin, Boris Vian, Juliette Gr矇co, Verlaine, Rimbaud, Brigitte Bardot, Ray Charles, Anna Karina, Major Lance, Beethoven, Henry Miller, Vladimir Nabokov, Jean-Luc Godard, Richard Feynman, Catherine Deneuve and many more await!
Sounding Human
An expansive analysis of the relationship between human and machine in music. From the mid-eighteenth century on, there was a logic at work in musical discourse and practice: human or machine. That discourse defined a boundary of absolute difference between human and machine, with a recurrent practice of parsing "human" musicality from its "merely mechanical" simulations. In Sounding Human, Deirdre Loughridge tests and traverses these boundaries, unmaking the "human or machine" logic and seeking out others, better characterized by conjunctions such as and or with. Sounding Human enters the debate on posthumanism and human-machine relationships in music, exploring how categories of human and machine have been continually renegotiated over the centuries. Loughridge expertly traces this debate from the 1737 invention of what became the first musical android to the creation of a "sound wave instrument" by a British electronic music composer in the 1960s, and the chopped and pitched vocals produced by sampling singers' voices in modern pop music. From music-generating computer programs to older musical instruments and music notation, Sounding Human shows how machines have always actively shaped the act of music composition. In doing so, Loughridge reveals how musical artifacts have been-or can be-used to help explain and contest what it is to be human.
Robert Schumann: Piano Concerto
Offering a concise introduction to one of the most important and influential piano concertos in the history of Western music, this handbook provides an example of the productive interaction of music history, music theory and music analysis. It combines an account of the work's genesis, Schumann's earlier, unsuccessful attempts to compose in the genre and the evolving conception of the piano concerto evident in his critical writing with a detailed yet accessible analysis of each movement, which draws on the latest research into the theory and analysis of nineteenth-century instrumental forms. This handbook also reconstructs the Concerto's critical reception, performance history in centres including London, Vienna, Leipzig and New York, and its discography, before surveying piano concertos composed under its influence in the century after its completion, including well-known concertos by Brahms, Grieg, Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov, as well as lesser-known music by Scharwenka, Rubinstein, Beach, Macdowell and Stanford.
Berlioz: Symphonie Fantastique
Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique is a key work in the understanding of romanticism, programme music, and the development of the orchestra, post-Beethoven. It is noted for having a title and a detailed programme, and for its connection with the composer's personal life and loves. This handbook situates the symphony within its time, and considers influences, literary as well as musical, that shaped its conception. Providing a close analysis of the symphony, its formal properties and melodic and textural elements (including harmony and counterpoint), it is a rich but accessible study which will appeal to music lovers, scholars, and students. It contains a translation of the programme, which sheds light on the form and character of each movement, and the unusual use of a melodic id矇e fixe representing a beloved woman. The unusual five-movement design permits a range of musical topics to be discussed and related to traditional symphonic elements: sonata form, a long Adagio, dance-type movements, and thematic development.
Margaret Bonds: The Montgomery Variations and Du Bois Credo
In her lifetime, African American composer Margaret Bonds was classical music's most intrepid social-justice activist. Furthermore, her Montgomery Variations (1964) and setting of W.E.B. Du Bois's iconic Civil Rights Credo (1965-67) were the musical summits of her activism. These works fell into obscurity after Bonds's death, but were recovered and published in 2020. Since widely performed, they are finally gaining a recognition long denied. This incisive book situates The Montgomery Variations and Credo in their political and biographical contexts, providing an interdisciplinary exploration that brings notables including Harry Burleigh, W.E.B. and Shirley Graham Du Bois, Martin Luther King, Jr., Abbie Mitchell, Ned Rorem, and - especially - Langston Hughes into the works' collective ambit. The resulting brief, but instructive, appraisal introduces readers to two masterworks whose recovery is a modern musical milestone - and reveals their message to be one that, though born in the mid-twentieth century, speaks directly to our own time.
Margaret Bonds: The Montgomery Variations and Du Bois Credo
In her lifetime, African American composer Margaret Bonds was classical music's most intrepid social-justice activist. Furthermore, her Montgomery Variations (1964) and setting of W.E.B. Du Bois's iconic Civil Rights Credo (1965-67) were the musical summits of her activism. These works fell into obscurity after Bonds's death, but were recovered and published in 2020. Since widely performed, they are finally gaining a recognition long denied. This incisive book situates The Montgomery Variations and Credo in their political and biographical contexts, providing an interdisciplinary exploration that brings notables including Harry Burleigh, W.E.B. and Shirley Graham Du Bois, Martin Luther King, Jr., Abbie Mitchell, Ned Rorem, and - especially - Langston Hughes into the works' collective ambit. The resulting brief, but instructive, appraisal introduces readers to two masterworks whose recovery is a modern musical milestone - and reveals their message to be one that, though born in the mid-twentieth century, speaks directly to our own time.
Music and Musicians in Late Mughal India
Based on a vast, virtually unstudied archive of Indian writings alongside visual sources, this book presents the first history of music and musicians in late Mughal India c.1748-1858 and takes the lives of nine musicians as entry points into six prominent types of writing on music in Persian, Brajbhasha, Urdu and English, moving from Delhi to Lucknow, Hyderabad, Jaipur and among the British. It shows how a key Mughal cultural field responded to the political, economic and social upheaval of the transition to British rule, while addressing a central philosophical question: can we ever recapture the ephemeral experience of music once the performance is over? These rich, diverse sources shine new light on the wider historical processes of this pivotal transitional period, and provide a new history of music, musicians and their audiences during the precise period in which North Indian classical music coalesced in its modern form.
