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Dangerous Rhythm: Why Movie Musicals Matter
by Richard BarriosSingin' in the Rain, The Sound of Music, Camelot--love them or love to hate them, movie musicals have been a major part of all our lives. They're so glitzy and catchy that it seems impossible that they could have ever gone any other way. But the ease in which they unfold on the screen is deceptive. Dorothy's dream of finding a land "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" was nearly cut, and even a film as great as The Band Wagon was, at the time, a major flop. In Dangerous Rhythm: Why Movie Musicals Matter, award winning historian Richard Barrios explores movie musicals from those first hits, The Jazz Singer and Broadway Melody, to present-day Oscar winners Chicago and Les Misérables. History, film analysis, and a touch of backstage gossip combine to make Dangerous Rhythm a compelling look at musicals and the powerful, complex bond they forge with their audiences. Going behind the scenes, Barrios uncovers the rocky relationship between Broadway and Hollywood, the unpublicized off-camera struggles of directors, stars, and producers, and all the various ways by which some films became our most indelible cultural touchstones -- and others ended up as train wrecks. Not content to leave any format untouched, Barrios examines animated musicals and popular music with insight and enthusiasm. Cartoons have been intimately connected with musicals since Steamboat Willie. Disney's short Silly Symphonies grew into the instant classic Snow White, which paved the way for that modern masterpiece, South Park: Bigger, Longer, & Uncut. Without movie musicals, Barrios argues, MTV would have never existed. On the flip side, without MTV we might have been spared Evita. Informed, energetic, and humorous, Dangerous Rhythm is both an impressive piece of scholarship and a joy to read.
Dangerous Rhythm: Why Movie Musicals Matter
by Richard BarriosSingin' in the Rain, The Sound of Music, Camelot--love them or love to hate them, movie musicals have been a major part of all our lives. They're so glitzy and catchy that it seems impossible that they could have ever gone any other way. But the ease in which they unfold on the screen is deceptive. Dorothy's dream of finding a land "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" was nearly cut, and even a film as great as The Band Wagon was, at the time, a major flop. In Dangerous Rhythm: Why Movie Musicals Matter, award winning historian Richard Barrios explores movie musicals from those first hits, The Jazz Singer and Broadway Melody, to present-day Oscar winners Chicago and Les Misérables. History, film analysis, and a touch of backstage gossip combine to make Dangerous Rhythm a compelling look at musicals and the powerful, complex bond they forge with their audiences. Going behind the scenes, Barrios uncovers the rocky relationship between Broadway and Hollywood, the unpublicized off-camera struggles of directors, stars, and producers, and all the various ways by which some films became our most indelible cultural touchstones -- and others ended up as train wrecks. Not content to leave any format untouched, Barrios examines animated musicals and popular music with insight and enthusiasm. Cartoons have been intimately connected with musicals since Steamboat Willie. Disney's short Silly Symphonies grew into the instant classic Snow White, which paved the way for that modern masterpiece, South Park: Bigger, Longer, & Uncut. Without movie musicals, Barrios argues, MTV would have never existed. On the flip side, without MTV we might have been spared Evita. Informed, energetic, and humorous, Dangerous Rhythm is both an impressive piece of scholarship and a joy to read.
Interactive Composition: Strategies Using Ableton Live and Max for Live
by V.J. Manzo Will KuhnInteractive Composition empowers readers with all of the practical skills and insights they need to compose and perform electronic popular music in a variety of popular styles. The book begins by introducing all of the tools involved in creating interactive compositions through the software Ableton Live and Max for Live. The following chapters then put the tools to use by both describing particular musical styles and also teaching readers how to compose and perform within these styles using the software. As readers progresses through the book, they will learn to use the software to facilitate their own unique compositional objectives. This book takes readers through all of the steps in designing interactive music compositions. It is geared toward both beginners as well as intermediate and advanced readers, and so readers with even little experience working with digital audio software will quickly learn how to design powerful systems that facilitate their unique compositional ideas. A particular feature of this book is that it discusses the historical context of several electronic music styles used by DJs, electronic musicians, and other artists, and then describes, using software, the technical process used in the composition and performance of these styles. Each chapter leads readers to create an original composition in a given style and also discusses the techniques that can be used to perform the piece in an idiomatic fashion.
Interactive Composition: Strategies Using Ableton Live and Max for Live
by Will Kuhn V.J. ManzoInteractive Composition empowers readers with all of the practical skills and insights they need to compose and perform electronic popular music in a variety of popular styles. The book begins by introducing all of the tools involved in creating interactive compositions through the software Ableton Live and Max for Live. The following chapters then put the tools to use by both describing particular musical styles and also teaching readers how to compose and perform within these styles using the software. As readers progresses through the book, they will learn to use the software to facilitate their own unique compositional objectives. This book takes readers through all of the steps in designing interactive music compositions. It is geared toward both beginners as well as intermediate and advanced readers, and so readers with even little experience working with digital audio software will quickly learn how to design powerful systems that facilitate their unique compositional ideas. A particular feature of this book is that it discusses the historical context of several electronic music styles used by DJs, electronic musicians, and other artists, and then describes, using software, the technical process used in the composition and performance of these styles. Each chapter leads readers to create an original composition in a given style and also discusses the techniques that can be used to perform the piece in an idiomatic fashion.
Agustin Lara: A Cultural Biography (Currents in Latin American and Iberian Music)
by Andrew Grant WoodFew Mexican musicians in the twentieth century achieved as much notoriety or had such an international impact as the popular singer and songwriter Agustín Lara (1897-1970). Widely known as "el flaco de oro" ("the Golden Skinny"), this remarkably thin fellow was prolific across the genres of bolero, ballad, and folk. His most beloved "Granada", a song so enduring that it has been covered by the likes of Mario Lanza, Frank Sinatra, and Placido Domingo, is today a standard in the vocal repertory. However, there exists very little biographical literature on Lara in English. In Agustín Lara: A Cultural Biography, author Andrew Wood's informed and informative placement of Lara's work in a broader cultural context presents a rich and comprehensive reading of the life of this significant musical figure. Lara's career as a media celebrity as well as musician provides an excellent window on Mexican society in the mid-twentieth century and on popular culture in Latin America. Wood also delves into Lara's music itself, bringing to light how the composer's work unites a number of important currents in Latin music of his day, particularly the bolero. With close musicological focus and in-depth cultural analysis riding alongside the biographical narrative, Agustin Lara: A Cultural Biography is a welcome read to aficionados and performers of Latin American musics, as well as a valuable addition to the study of modern Mexican music and Latin American popular culture as a whole.
Henry Cowell: A Man Made of Music
by Joel SachsJoel Sachs offers the first complete biography of one of the most influential figures in twentieth-century American music. Henry Cowell, a major musical innovator of the first half of the century, left a rich body of compositions spanning a wide range of styles. But as Sachs shows, Cowell's legacy extends far beyond his music. He worked tirelessly to create organizations such as the highly influential New Music Quarterly, New Music Recordings, and the Pan-American Association of Composers, through which great talents like Ruth Crawford Seeger and Charles Ives first became known in the US and abroad. As one of the first Western advocates for World Music, he used lectures, articles, and recordings to bring other musical cultures to myriad listeners and students including John Cage and Lou Harrison, who attributed their life work to Cowell's influence. Finally, Sachs describes the tragedy of Cowell's life, being sentenced to fifteen years in San Quentin -- of which he served four -- after pleading guilty to a morals charge that even the prosecutor felt was trivial. Providing a wealth of insight into Cowell's ideas and philosophy, Joel Sachs lays out a much-needed perspective on one of the giants of twentieth-century American music.
Marc Blitzstein: His Life, His Work, His World
by Howard PollackA composer and lyricist of enormous innovation and influence, Marc Blitzstein remains one of the most versatile and fascinating figures in the history of American music, his creative output running the gamut from films scores and Broadway operas to art songs and chamber pieces. A prominent leftist and social maverick, Blitzstein constantly pushed the boundaries of convention in mid-century America in both his work and his life. Award-winning music historian Howard Pollack's new biography covers Blitzstein's life in full, from his childhood in Philadelphia to his violent death in Martinique at age 58. The author describes how this student of contemporary luminaries Nadia Boulanger and Arnold Schoenberg became swept up in the stormy political atmosphere of the 1920s and 1930s and throughout his career walked the fine line between his formal training and his populist principles. Indeed, Blitzstein developed a unique sound that drew on everything contemporary, from the high modernism of Stravinsky and Hindemith to jazz and Broadway show tunes. Pollack captures the astonishing breadth of Blitzstein's work--from provocative operas like The Cradle Will Rock, No for an Answer, and Regina, to the wartime Airborne Symphony composed during his years in service, to lesser known ballets, film scores, and stage works. A courageous artist, Blitzstein translated Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill's The Threepenny Opera during the heyday of McCarthyism and the red scare, and turned it into an off-Broadway sensation, its "Mack the Knife" becoming one of the era's biggest hits. Beautifully written, drawing on new interviews with friends and family of the composer, and making extensive use of new archival and secondary sources, Marc Blitzstein presents the most complete biography of this important American artist.
Off the Record: Performing Practices in Romantic Piano Playing
by Neal Peres da CostaOff the Record is a revealing exploration of piano performing practices of the high Romantic era. Author and well-known keyboard player Neal Peres Da Costa bases his investigation on a range of early sound recordings (acoustic, piano roll and electric) that capture a generation of highly-esteemed pianists trained as far back as the mid-nineteenth-century. Placing general practices of late nineteenth-century piano performance alongside evidence of the stylistic idiosyncrasies of legendary pianists such as Carl Reinecke (1824-1910), Theodor Leschetizky (1830-1915), Camille Saint-Saëns (1838-1921) and Johannes Brahms (1833-1897), he examines prevalent techniques of the time--dislocation, unnotated arpeggiation, rhythmic alteration, tempo fluctuation--and unfolds the background and lineage of significant performer/pedagogues. Throughout, Peres Da Costa demonstrates that these early recordings do not simply capture the idiosyncrasies of aging musicians as has been commonly asserted, but in fact represent a range of established expressive practices of a lost age. An extensive collection of these fascinating and sometimes rare professional recordings of the Romantic age masters are available on a companion web site, and in addition, Peres Da Costa, himself a renowned period keyboardist, illustrates points made throughout the book with his own playing. Of essential value to student and professional pianists, historical musicologists of 19th and early 20th century performance practice, and also to the general music aficionado audience, Off the Record is an indispensable resource for scholarly research, performance inspiration, and listening enjoyment.
Arranging Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue and the Creation of an American Icon
by Ryan BañagaleIn Arranging Gershwin, author Ryan Bañagale approaches George Gershwin's iconic piece Rhapsody in Blue not as a composition but as an arrangement -- a status it has in many ways held since its inception in 1924, yet one unconsidered until now. Shifting emphasis away from the notion of the Rhapsody as a static work by a single composer, Bañagale posits a broad vision of the piece that acknowledges the efforts of a variety of collaborators who shaped the Rhapsody as we know it today. Arranging Gershwin sheds new light on familiar musicians such as Leonard Bernstein and Duke Ellington, introduces lesser-known figures such as Ferde Grofé and Larry Adler, and remaps the terrain of this emblematic piece of American music. At the same time, it expands on existing approaches to the study of arrangements -- an emerging and insightful realm of American music studies -- as well as challenges existing and entrenched definitions of composer and composition. Based on a host of newly discovered manuscripts, the book significantly alters existing historical and cultural conceptions of the Rhapsody. With additional forays into visual media, including the commercial advertising of United Airlines and Woody Allen's Manhattan, it moreover exemplifies how arrangements have contributed not only to the iconicity of Gershwin and Rhapsody in Blue, but also to music-making in America -- its people, their pursuits, and their processes.
Arranging Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue and the Creation of an American Icon
by Ryan BañagaleIn Arranging Gershwin, author Ryan Bañagale approaches George Gershwin's iconic piece Rhapsody in Blue not as a composition but as an arrangement -- a status it has in many ways held since its inception in 1924, yet one unconsidered until now. Shifting emphasis away from the notion of the Rhapsody as a static work by a single composer, Bañagale posits a broad vision of the piece that acknowledges the efforts of a variety of collaborators who shaped the Rhapsody as we know it today. Arranging Gershwin sheds new light on familiar musicians such as Leonard Bernstein and Duke Ellington, introduces lesser-known figures such as Ferde Grofé and Larry Adler, and remaps the terrain of this emblematic piece of American music. At the same time, it expands on existing approaches to the study of arrangements -- an emerging and insightful realm of American music studies -- as well as challenges existing and entrenched definitions of composer and composition. Based on a host of newly discovered manuscripts, the book significantly alters existing historical and cultural conceptions of the Rhapsody. With additional forays into visual media, including the commercial advertising of United Airlines and Woody Allen's Manhattan, it moreover exemplifies how arrangements have contributed not only to the iconicity of Gershwin and Rhapsody in Blue, but also to music-making in America -- its people, their pursuits, and their processes.
Sounding the Gallery: Video and the Rise of Art-Music (Oxford Music / Media)
by Holly RogersBecoming commercially available in the mid 1960s, video quickly became integral to the intense experimentalism of New York City's music and art scenes. The medium was able to record image and sound at the same time, which allowed composers to visualize their music and artists to sound their images. But as well as creating unprecedented forms of audiovisuality, video work also producedinteractive spaces that questioned conventional habits of music and art consumption. This book explores the first decade of creative video work, focusing on the ways in which video technology was used to dissolve the boundaries between art and music.
The Orchestra: Orchestra (Very Short Introductions)
by D. Kern HolomanThe Orchestra: A Very Short Introduction considers the structure, roots, and day-to-day functioning of the modern philharmonic society. Far from an anachronistic organization that cannot long survive, it is shown to be powerful political and social force, occupying critical positions in cultural diplomacy, national identity, and civic pride.
The Orchestra: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions)
by D. Kern HolomanThe Orchestra: A Very Short Introduction considers the structure, roots, and day-to-day functioning of the modern philharmonic society. Far from an anachronistic organization that cannot long survive, it is shown to be powerful political and social force, occupying critical positions in cultural diplomacy, national identity, and civic pride.
Composing Dissent: Avant-garde Music in 1960s Amsterdam
by Robert AdlingtonThe 1960s saw the emergence in the Netherlands of a generation of avant-garde musicians (including figures such as Louis Andriessen, Willem Breuker, Reinbert de Leeuw and Misha Mengelberg) who were to gain international standing and influence as composers, performers and teachers, and who had a defining impact upon Dutch musical life. Fundamental to their activities in the sixties was a pronounced commitment to social and political engagement. The lively culture of activism and dissent on the streets of Amsterdam prompted an array of vigorous responses from these musicians, including collaborations with countercultural and protest groups, campaigns and direct action against established musical institutions, new grassroots performing associations, political concerts, polemicising within musical works, and the advocacy of new, more 'democratic' relationships with both performers and audiences. These activities laid the basis for the unique new music scene that emerged in the Netherlands in the 1970s and which has been influential upon performers and composers worldwide. This book is the first sustained scholarly examination of this subject. It presents the Dutch experience as an exemplary case study in the complex and conflictual encounter of the musical avant-garde with the decade's currents of social change. The narrative is structured around a number of the decade's defining topoi: modernisation and 'the new'; anarchy; participation; politics; self-management; and popular music. Dutch avant-garde musicians engaged actively with each of these themes, but in so doing they found themselves faced with distinct and sometimes intractable challenges, caused by the chafing of their political and aesthetic commitments. In charting a broad chronological progress from the commencement of work on Peter Schat's Labyrint in 1961 to the premiere of Louis Andriessen's Volkslied in 1971, this book traces the successive attempts of Dutch avant-garde musicians to reconcile the era's evolving social agendas with their own adventurous musical practice.
Federico Moreno Torroba: A Musical Life in Three Acts (Currents in Latin American and Iberian Music)
by Walter Aaron Clark William Craig KrauseThe last of the Spanish Romantics, composer, conductor, and impresario Federico Moreno Torroba (1891-1982) left his mark on virtually every aspect of Spanish musical culture during a career that spanned six decades and saw tremendous political and cultural upheavals. After Falla, he was the most important and influential musician: in addition to his creative activities, he was President of the General Society of Authors and Editors and director of the Academy of Fine Arts. His enduring contributions as a composer include dozens of guitar works composed for Andrés Segovia and several highly successful zarzuelas, which remain in the repertoire today. Written by two leading experts in the field, Federico Moreno Torroba: A Musical Life in Three Acts explores not only his life and work, but also the relationship of his music to the cultural milieu in which he moved. It sheds particular light on the relationship of Torroba's music and the cultural politics of Francisco Franco's dictatorship (1939-75). Torroba came of age during a cultural renaissance that sought to reassert Spain's position as a unique cultural entity, and authors Walter A. Clark and William Krause demonstrate how his work can be understood as a personal, musical response to these aspirations. Clark and Krause argue that Torroba's decision to remain in Spain even during the years of Franco's dictatorship was based primarily not on political ideology but rather on an unwillingness to leave his native soil. Rather than abandon Spain to participate in the dynamic musical life abroad, he continued to compose music that reflected his conservative view of his national and personal heritage. The authors contend that this pursuit did not necessitate allegiance to a particular regime, but rather to the non-political exaltation of Spain's so-called "eternal tradition," or the culture and spirit that had endured throughout Spain's turbulent history. Following Franco's death in 1975, there was ambivalence towards figures like Torroba who had made their peace with the dictatorship and paid a heavy price in terms of their reputation among expatriates. Moreover, his very conservative musical style made him a target for the post-war avant-garde, which disdained his highly tonal and melodic españolismo. With the demise of high modernism, however, the time has come for this new, more distanced assessment of Torroba's contributions. Richly illustrated with photographs and musical examples, and with a helpful chronology and works list for reference, this biography brings a fresh perspective on this influential composer to Latin American and Iberian music scholars, performers, and lovers of Spanish music alike.
The Oxford Handbook of Screendance Studies (Oxford Handbooks)
The Oxford Handbook of Screendance Studies offers a full overview of the histories, practices, and critical and theoretical foundations of the rapidly changing landscape of screendance. Drawing on their practices, technologies, theories, and philosophies, scholars from the fields of dance, performance, visual art, cinema and media arts articulate the practice of screendance as an interdisciplinary, hybrid form that has yet to be correctly sited as an academic field worthy of critical investigation. Each chapter discusses and reframe current issues, as a means of promoting and enriching dialogue within the wider community of dance and the moving image. Topics addressed embrace politics of the body; agency, race, and gender in screendance; the relationship of choreography to image; constructs of space and time; representation and effacement; production and curatorial practice; and other areas of intersecting disciplines. The Oxford Handbook of Screendance Studies features newly-commissioned and original scholarship that will be essential reading for all those interested in the intersection of dance and the moving image, including film and video-makers, dance artists, screendance artists, academics and writers, producers, composers, as well as the wider interested public. It will become an invaluable resource for researchers and professionals in the field.
The Oxford Handbook of Screendance Studies (Oxford Handbooks)
by Douglas RosenbergThe Oxford Handbook of Screendance Studies offers a full overview of the histories, practices, and critical and theoretical foundations of the rapidly changing landscape of screendance. Drawing on their practices, technologies, theories, and philosophies, scholars from the fields of dance, performance, visual art, cinema and media arts articulate the practice of screendance as an interdisciplinary, hybrid form that has yet to be correctly sited as an academic field worthy of critical investigation. Each chapter discusses and reframe current issues, as a means of promoting and enriching dialogue within the wider community of dance and the moving image. Topics addressed embrace politics of the body; agency, race, and gender in screendance; the relationship of choreography to image; constructs of space and time; representation and effacement; production and curatorial practice; and other areas of intersecting disciplines. The Oxford Handbook of Screendance Studies features newly-commissioned and original scholarship that will be essential reading for all those interested in the intersection of dance and the moving image, including film and video-makers, dance artists, screendance artists, academics and writers, producers, composers, as well as the wider interested public. It will become an invaluable resource for researchers and professionals in the field.
Four-Handed Monsters: Four-Hand Piano Playing and Nineteenth-Century Culture
by Adrian DaubIn the course of the nineteenth century, four-hand piano playing emerged across Europe as a popular pastime of the well-heeled classes and of those looking to join them. Nary a canonic work of classical music that was not set for piano duo, nary a house that could afford not to invest in them. Duets echoed from the student bedsit to Buckingham Palace, resounded in schools and in hundreds of thousands of bourgeois parlors. Like no other musical phenomenon, it could cross national, social, and economic boundaries, bringing together poor students with the daughters of the bourgeoisie, crowned heads with penniless virtuosi, and the nineteenth century often regarded it with extreme suspicion for that very reason. Four-hand piano playing was often understood as a socially acceptable way of flirting, a flurry of hands that made touching, often of men and women, not just acceptable but necessary. But it also became something far more serious than that, a central institution of the home, mediating between inside and outside, family and society, labor and leisure, nature and nurture. And writers, composers, musicians, philosophers, journalists, pamphleteers and painters took note: in the art, literature, and philosophy of the age, four-hand playing emerged as a common motif, something that allowed them to interrogate the very nature of the self, the family, the community and the state. In the four hands rushing up and down the same keyboard the nineteenth century espied, or thought to espy, an astonishing array of things. Four-Handed Monsters tells not only the story of that practice, but also the story of the astonishing array of things the nineteenth century read into it.
Four-Handed Monsters: Four-Hand Piano Playing and Nineteenth-Century Culture
by Adrian DaubIn the course of the nineteenth century, four-hand piano playing emerged across Europe as a popular pastime of the well-heeled classes and of those looking to join them. Nary a canonic work of classical music that was not set for piano duo, nary a house that could afford not to invest in them. Duets echoed from the student bedsit to Buckingham Palace, resounded in schools and in hundreds of thousands of bourgeois parlors. Like no other musical phenomenon, it could cross national, social, and economic boundaries, bringing together poor students with the daughters of the bourgeoisie, crowned heads with penniless virtuosi, and the nineteenth century often regarded it with extreme suspicion for that very reason. Four-hand piano playing was often understood as a socially acceptable way of flirting, a flurry of hands that made touching, often of men and women, not just acceptable but necessary. But it also became something far more serious than that, a central institution of the home, mediating between inside and outside, family and society, labor and leisure, nature and nurture. And writers, composers, musicians, philosophers, journalists, pamphleteers and painters took note: in the art, literature, and philosophy of the age, four-hand playing emerged as a common motif, something that allowed them to interrogate the very nature of the self, the family, the community and the state. In the four hands rushing up and down the same keyboard the nineteenth century espied, or thought to espy, an astonishing array of things. Four-Handed Monsters tells not only the story of that practice, but also the story of the astonishing array of things the nineteenth century read into it.
The Musician's Journey: Crafting Your Career Vision and Plan
by Dr. Jill TimmonsThe Musician's Journey escorts musicians, performing artists, music teachers, and advanced music students along the road toward a successful career, offering a vast array of resources to guide them from envisioning the process to achieving the practical details. Jill Timmons provides key tools throughout the journey, from sources as diverse as the world of myth to current brain research, which illuminate compelling real-world examples of music entrepreneurs who forged their own paths to success. Included are chapters on careers in higher education; guidance in how to develop a business plan; general tips on grant writing and financial development; a separate section exploring the stories of other successful musicians; and personal narrative taken from the author's work as a professional musician and consultant. The book includes an extensive bibliography of additional resources, and the companion website offers downloadable worksheets and questionnaires to help readers along their way.
The Oxford Handbook of Voice Studies (Oxford Handbooks)
More than 200 years after the first speaking machine, we are accustomed to voices that speak from any- and everywhere. We interact daily with voices that emit from house alarm systems, cars, telephones, and digital assistants, such as Alexa and Google Home. However, vocal events still have the capacity to raise age-old questions about the human, the animal, the machine, and the spiritual-or in non-metaphysical terms-questions about identity and authenticity. In The Oxford Handbook of Voice Studies, contributors look to the metaphorical voice as well as the clinical understanding of the vocal apparatus to answer the seemingly innocuous question: What is voice? From a range of disciplines including the humanities, biology, culture, and technology studies, contributors draw on the unique methodologies and values each has at hand to address the uses, meanings, practices, theories, methods, and sounds of the voice. Together, they assess the ways that discipline-specific, ontological, and epistemological assumptions of voice need to shift in order to take the findings of other fields into account. This Handbook thus enables a lively discussion as multifaceted and complex as the voice itself has proven to be.
The Oxford Handbook of Voice Studies (Oxford Handbooks)
by Nina Eidsheim Katherine MeizelMore than 200 years after the first speaking machine, we are accustomed to voices that speak from any- and everywhere. We interact daily with voices that emit from house alarm systems, cars, telephones, and digital assistants, such as Alexa and Google Home. However, vocal events still have the capacity to raise age-old questions about the human, the animal, the machine, and the spiritual-or in non-metaphysical terms-questions about identity and authenticity. In The Oxford Handbook of Voice Studies, contributors look to the metaphorical voice as well as the clinical understanding of the vocal apparatus to answer the seemingly innocuous question: What is voice? From a range of disciplines including the humanities, biology, culture, and technology studies, contributors draw on the unique methodologies and values each has at hand to address the uses, meanings, practices, theories, methods, and sounds of the voice. Together, they assess the ways that discipline-specific, ontological, and epistemological assumptions of voice need to shift in order to take the findings of other fields into account. This Handbook thus enables a lively discussion as multifaceted and complex as the voice itself has proven to be.
Brahms Among Friends: Listening, Performance, and the Rhetoric of Allusion (AMS Studies in Music)
by Paul BerryBrahms Among Friends identifies patterns of listening, performance, and composition among close friends of Johannes Brahms and explores how those patterns informed the creation and reception of his music in the intimate genres of song, sonata, trio, and piano miniature. Among the tangled threads of counterpoint and circumstance that bound Brahms to his acquaintances was the technique of allusive musical borrowing, whereby a brief passage from a familiar work was drawn into the fabric of a new composition. For the specific listeners whose habits of mind and musicianship he knew best, allusive borrowings could become rhetorically charged gestures, persuasively revising the meanings his music conveyed and the interpretive strategies it invited. Primary documents, original manuscripts, music-analytic comparison, and kinesthetic parameters experienced in the act of performance all work in tandem to support ten case studies in the interplay between Brahms's small-scale works and the women and men who encountered them before publication. Central characters include violinist Joseph Joachim, singers Amalie Joachim, Julius Stockhausen, and Agathe von Siebold, composers Heinrich and Elisabeth von Herzogenberg, and pianists Emma Engelmann and Clara Schumann. For these musicians and for the composer himself, Brahms's allusive music served a broad variety of emotional needs and interpersonal ends. Yet across diverse repertoire and interdisciplinary correlates ranging from ethnography to psychoanalysis, each case study furthers a single, underlying aim: to reconstruct the mutually dependent perspectives of historically situated agents and restore forgotten features of their communicative landscapes as bases for both musical and historical scrutiny.
Playing Beyond the Notes: A Pianist's Guide to Musical Interpretation
by Deborah Rambo SinnPlaying Beyond the Notes: A Pianist's Guide to Musical Interpretation demystifies the complex concepts of musical interpretation in Western tonal piano music by boiling it down to basic principles in an accessible writing style. Author and veteran piano instructor Deborah Rambo Sinn tackles a different interpretive principle, explaining clearly, for example, how to play effective ornaments and rubatos. As a whole, the book helps pianists understand concrete ways to apply interpretive concepts to their own playing and gives teachers practical ways to teach interpretation to their students. The book is illustrated with over 200 repertoire excerpts and supplemented by a companion website with over 100 audio recordings. Playing Beyond the Notes is essential reading for all performing pianists, independent piano teachers, and piano pedagogy students.