Good Music

Good Music PDF Author: John J. Sheinbaum
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022659338X
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
Over the past two centuries Western culture has largely valorized a particular kind of “good” music—highly serious, wondrously deep, stylistically authentic, heroically created, and strikingly original—and, at the same time, has marginalized music that does not live up to those ideals. In Good Music, John J. Sheinbaum explores these traditional models for valuing music. By engaging examples such as Handel oratorios, Beethoven and Mahler symphonies, jazz improvisations, Bruce Springsteen, and prog rock, he argues that metaphors of perfection do justice to neither the perceived strengths nor the assumed weaknesses of the music in question. Instead, he proposes an alternative model of appreciation where abstract notions of virtue need not dictate our understanding. Good music can, with pride, be playful rather than serious, diverse rather than unified, engaging to both body and mind, in dialogue with manifold styles and genres, and collaborative to the core. We can widen the scope of what music we value and reconsider the conventional rituals surrounding it, while retaining the joys of making music, listening closely, and caring passionately.

Good Music

Good Music PDF Author: John J. Sheinbaum
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022659338X
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 305

Get Book

Book Description
Over the past two centuries Western culture has largely valorized a particular kind of “good” music—highly serious, wondrously deep, stylistically authentic, heroically created, and strikingly original—and, at the same time, has marginalized music that does not live up to those ideals. In Good Music, John J. Sheinbaum explores these traditional models for valuing music. By engaging examples such as Handel oratorios, Beethoven and Mahler symphonies, jazz improvisations, Bruce Springsteen, and prog rock, he argues that metaphors of perfection do justice to neither the perceived strengths nor the assumed weaknesses of the music in question. Instead, he proposes an alternative model of appreciation where abstract notions of virtue need not dictate our understanding. Good music can, with pride, be playful rather than serious, diverse rather than unified, engaging to both body and mind, in dialogue with manifold styles and genres, and collaborative to the core. We can widen the scope of what music we value and reconsider the conventional rituals surrounding it, while retaining the joys of making music, listening closely, and caring passionately.

Good Music

Good Music PDF Author: John J. Sheinbaum
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022659341X
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 305

Get Book

Book Description
Over the past two centuries Western culture has largely valorized a particular kind of “good” music—highly serious, wondrously deep, stylistically authentic, heroically created, and strikingly original—and, at the same time, has marginalized music that does not live up to those ideals. In Good Music, John J. Sheinbaum explores these traditional models for valuing music. By engaging examples such as Handel oratorios, Beethoven and Mahler symphonies, jazz improvisations, Bruce Springsteen, and prog rock, he argues that metaphors of perfection do justice to neither the perceived strengths nor the assumed weaknesses of the music in question. Instead, he proposes an alternative model of appreciation where abstract notions of virtue need not dictate our understanding. Good music can, with pride, be playful rather than serious, diverse rather than unified, engaging to both body and mind, in dialogue with manifold styles and genres, and collaborative to the core. We can widen the scope of what music we value and reconsider the conventional rituals surrounding it, while retaining the joys of making music, listening closely, and caring passionately.

What Constitutes Good Music?

What Constitutes Good Music? PDF Author: Martin August Gemünder
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 120

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Book Description


Listen to This If You Love Great Music

Listen to This If You Love Great Music PDF Author: Robin Murray
Publisher: Ivy Press
ISBN: 071125608X
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 226

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Book Description
Listen To This If You Love Great Music is a must read for anyone with even a passing interest in music. Featuring 100 of the best albums from the last four decades, clashmusic.com​ editor Robin Murray shares his passion for exceptional music and offers insightful takes on what elevates these records above the competition. Robin steers clear of the usual classics – The Beatles and The Clash, for example – and instead goes deep into his record collection to pull out the albums he considers the greatest ever. For each, a solid case is made for why it represents a watershed moment in music history, outlining the story behind the record and critiquing what constitutes a classic. Uniquely curated to offer a fresh perspective on the last 40-plus years of music, find politically charged rock brushing shoulders with dub-infused electronica, progressive pop and dreamy shoegaze shaken awake by ear-drum rattling grime and house music. Whether it’s bass-heavy hip-hop from Nas that inspired a thousand MCs to pick up a mic or experimental indie dance from LCD Soundsystem that blurred genres and tempted musicians to trade in their guitars for synthesizers, this is an essential rundown of the albums that really matter. You need to play them loud.

What to Listen For in Music

What to Listen For in Music PDF Author: Aaron Copland
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101513144
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 243

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Book Description
Now in trade paperback: “The definitive guide to musical enjoyment” (Forum). In this fascinating analysis of how to listen to both contemporary and classical music analytically, eminent American composer Aaron Copland offers provocative suggestions that will bring readers a deeper appreciation of the most viscerally rewarding of all art forms.

Good Music Brighter Children

Good Music Brighter Children PDF Author: Sharlene Habermeyer
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN: 9781484157312
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
"This is a magnificent book--one of the most original and stunning in the field of modern Chinese literature. The eight studies that comprise the book unfold a vast canvas of twentieth-century China, one that is filled with terror, violence, phantasmagoria, and death. This is indeed the dark, ghostly side of the 'Chinese Modern.' Wang's prodigious command of primary Chinese texts from the entire literary legacy of twentieth century China is nothing short of stunning. No other study in the field in any language is remotely comparable to the richness and density of materials and insights packed into the book."--Leo Ou-fan Lee, Professor of Chinese Literature, Harvard University "This is a revolutionary book, a series of connected essays that lay bare 20th-century China's history of violence. The range and quality of investigation into literary and historical representations of pain are stunning; the material is as fresh as the scholarly ends to which it contributes. An absolute must read."--Howard Goldblatt, co-editor of "The Columbia Anthology of Modern Chinese Literature" "David Wang is in his element. In this monumental work on the mutual implication of Chinese modernity and the representation of violence, Wang is at once historical, critical, and mythopoetic. The haunting metaphor of tauwu as monster and history gives this book both a theoretical backbone and a contemplative richness that goes beyond the genre of literary criticism. It is a masterpiece of the finest caliber."--Jing Wang, S.C. Fang Professor of Chinese Cultural Studies, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Sweet Anticipation

Sweet Anticipation PDF Author: David Huron
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262303302
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 477

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Book Description
The psychological theory of expectation that David Huron proposes in Sweet Anticipation grew out of the author's experimental efforts to understand how music evokes emotions. These efforts evolved into a general theory of expectation that will prove informative to readers interested in cognitive science and evolutionary psychology as well as those interested in music. The book describes a set of psychological mechanisms and illustrates how these mechanisms work in the case of music. All examples of notated music can be heard on the Web. Huron proposes that emotions evoked by expectation involve five functionally distinct response systems: reaction responses (which engage defensive reflexes); tension responses (where uncertainty leads to stress); prediction responses (which reward accurate prediction); imagination responses (which facilitate deferred gratification); and appraisal responses (which occur after conscious thought is engaged). For real-world events, these five response systems typically produce a complex mixture of feelings. The book identifies some of the aesthetic possibilities afforded by expectation, and shows how common musical devices (such as syncopation, cadence, meter, tonality, and climax) exploit the psychological opportunities. The theory also provides new insights into the physiological psychology of awe, laughter, and spine-tingling chills. Huron traces the psychology of expectations from the patterns of the physical/cultural world through imperfectly learned heuristics used to predict that world to the phenomenal qualia we experienced as we apprehend the world.

Music, Money and Success

Music, Money and Success PDF Author: Jeffrey Brabec
Publisher: Schirmer Trade Books
ISBN: 0857126466
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 839

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Book Description
The Insider's Guide to Making Money in the Music Industry. Millions dream of attaining glamour and wealth through music. This book reveals the secrets of the music business that have made fortunes for the superstars. A must-have for every songwriter, performer and musician.

Genre in Popular Music

Genre in Popular Music PDF Author: Fabian Holt
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226350401
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
The popularity of the motion picture soundtrack O Brother, Where Art Thou? brought an extraordinary amount of attention to bluegrass, but it also drew its share of criticism from some aficionados who felt the album’s inclusion of more modern tracks misrepresented the genre. This soundtrack, these purists argued, wasn’t bluegrass, but “roots music,” a new and, indeed, more overarching category concocted by journalists and marketers. Why is it that popular music genres like these and others are so passionately contested? And how is it that these genres emerge, coalesce, change, and die out? In Genre in Popular Music, Fabian Holt provides new understanding as to why we debate music categories, and why those terms are unstable and always shifting. To tackle the full complexity of genres in popular music, Holt embarks on a wide-ranging and ambitious collection of case studies. Here he examines not only the different reactions to O Brother, but also the impact of rock and roll’s explosion in the 1950s and 1960s on country music and jazz, and how the jazz and indie music scenes in Chicago have intermingled to expand the borders of their respective genres. Throughout, Holt finds that genres are an integral part of musical culture—fundamental both to musical practice and experience and to the social organization of musical life.

Breaking the Sound Barrier

Breaking the Sound Barrier PDF Author: John Winsor
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 0595249981
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
Arguments about musical aesthetics often degenerate into "shouting matchesy that end in stalemate. In Breaking the Sound Barrier, John Winsor clears the air by presenting evidence that some works are, in fact, objectively better than others. This is a particularly timely issue because a great deal of bad music is being performed in American concert halls right now and a great deal of good music isn't. If you believe that qualitative judgment in the arts is purely subjective, this book should persuade you to rethink your position. If, on the other hand, you think there is a genuine qualitative difference between one musical work and another, this book will provide you with relevant ammunition. Winsor defines music, presents some empirical evidence from the field of music psychology, relates that evidence to events in Western music history, and explains what works and what doesn'tyand why. He demonstrates that from the advent of notation to the present, music has, in fact, progressed and not merely changed. He then exposes some major errors in modernist and postmodernist writing that have disrupted music's progress and recommends remedial action for restoring the mainstream literary tradition. "This is a challenging and thought-provoking book." yDiana Deutsch, Professor of Psychology, University of California, San Diego. "John Winsor tackles big questions about music and our perceptions, coming at them head-on. He anticipates our reactions and goes a long way toward resolving nagging issues of modern music. A clear, honest book." yKile Smith, Curator, Fleisher Collection of Orchestral Music, Free Library of Philadelphia.