Author: Andrew Ford
Publisher: Black Inc.
ISBN: 1921870214
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 304
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Book Description
Listen. What do you hear? We are surrounded by sounds all the time, but we tend not to hear them; our brains are very good at editing what our ears pick up. If we stop for a moment to listen, there they are: the ticking clock, traffic noise, fragments of conversation, a passing plane. These are examples of what the American composer John Cage called “illegal harmony”. In response to the noisiest century in history, modern composers have consistently flown in the face of musical orthodoxy. As technology has changed at an unprecedented rate, so have musical styles – sometimes to the dismay of audiences and critics. In Illegal Harmonies, Andrew Ford charts the course of music in the concert hall and opera house over the last hundred years, linking it to developments in literature, theatre, cinema and the visual arts, and to popular music from Irving Berlin to the Beatles to rap. The result is a stimulating, provocative and informative cultural history. This revised third edition includes a new preface and extended epilogue, bringing the story into the twenty-first century. "Modern audiences need to learn how to listen and Andrew Ford might be just the man to do the teaching." - Australian Financial Review
Author: Eduardo De La Fuente
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004184341
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 324
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Book Description
This collection brings together philosophers, sociologists, musicologists and students of culture who theorize music through cultural practices as diverse as opera and classical music, jazz and pop, avant-garde and DIY musical cultures, music festivals and isolated listening through the iPod, rock in urban heritage and the piano in East Asia.
Author: Robert Simon
Publisher: GIA Publications
ISBN: 9780878752812
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 188
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Book Description
Author: Andrew Ford
Publisher: Black Inc.
ISBN: 1863959491
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 259
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Book Description
In this evocative and moving book, composer and broadcaster Andrew Ford shares the vivid musical experiences – good, bad and occasionally hilarious – that have shaped his life. Ford’s musical journey has traversed genres and continents, and his loves are broad and deep. The Memory of Music takes us from his childhood obsession with the Beatles to his passion for Beethoven, Brahms, Vaughan Williams, Stockhausen and Birtwistle, and to his work as a composer, choral conductor, concert promoter, critic, university teacher and radio presenter. The Memory of Music is more than a wonderful memoir – it also explores the nature and purpose of music: what it is, why it means so much to us and how it shapes our worlds. The result is a captivating work that will appeal to music lovers everywhere. ‘Andrew Ford’s wide-ranging musical autobiography is a pleasure to read. Accessible, informative and packed with anecdotes, it’s an excellent guide to the life of a composer: what it entails, what matters, and how and why it happened in the first place.’ —Steven Isserlis ‘I love discovering how people become who they are. Andrew Ford’s book took me into a new world: composition. His insight into how we talk about music and what it brings up for people is fascinating.’ —Julia Zemiro ‘Andrew Ford is one of the greatest music broadcasters around – and not just in Australia – yet The Memory of Music shows that he is much more than that. What is most striking is the extraordinary honesty in the way that he opens up how a composer really works and thinks, and the detail of a composer’s everyday concerns – the ways that real life impinges on the artistic process. Having spent a lifetime in music myself, this book rings more true than anything else I have read. It’s beautifully written, the prose flows effortlessly, and it’s from the heart.’ —Gavin Bryars
Author: Voichita Bucur
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030986500
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 1044
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Book Description
This book describes the properties of materials used for making percussion instruments for classical music played by a symphony orchestra in which the instruments could be played as a soloist instrument or as a group or several groups of instruments, as they are included into a musical work. A chapter is devoted to the bells. The scope of this book is primarily confined to percussion instruments of symphony orchestras taking into account the centuries of musical art and tradition. This book bridges the gap in the technical literature on describing the properties of materials for percussion instruments—timpani, other drums, marimba, xylophone, vibraphone, gong, cymbal, triangle, celesta, castanets.
Author: Sally Macarthur
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317009096
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 205
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Book Description
Towards a Twenty-First-Century Feminist Politics of Music opens up a new way of thinking about the absence of women's music. It does not aim to find 'a solution' in a liberal feminist sense, but to discover new potentialities, new possibilities for thought and action. Sally Macarthur encourages us, with the assistance of Deleuze, and feminist-Deleuzian work, to begin the important work of imagining what else might be possible, not in order to provide answers but to open up the as yet unknown. The power of thought - or what Deleuze calls the 'virtual' - opens up new possibilities. Macarthur suggests that the future for women's 'new' music is not tied to the predictable and known but to futures beyond the already-known. Previous research concludes that women's music is virtually absent from the concert hall, and yet fails to find a way of changing this situation. Macarthur finds that the flaw in the recommendations flowing from past research is that it envisages the future from the standpoint of the present, and it relies on a set of pre-determined goals. It thus replicates the present reality, so reinforcing rather than changing the status quo. Macarthur challenges this thinking, and argues that this repetitive way of thinking is stuck in the present, unable to move forward. Macarthur situates her argument in the context of current dominant neoliberal thought and practice. She argues that women have generally not thrived in the neoliberal model of the composer, which envisages the composer as an individual, autonomous creator and entrepreneur. Successful female composers must work with this dominant, modernist aesthetic and exploit the image of the neo-romantic, entrepreneurial creator. This book sets out in contrast to develop a new conception of subjectivity that sows the seeds of a twenty-first-century feminist politics of music.
Author: Margaret S. Barrett
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317164431
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 562
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Book Description
The notion of the individual creator, a product in part of the Western romantic ideal, is now troubled by accounts and explanations of creativity as a social construct. While in collectivist cultures the assimilation (but not the denial) of individual authorship into the complexities of group production and benefit has been a feature, the notion of the lone individual creator has been persistent. Systems theories acknowledge the role of others, yet at heart these are still individual views of creativity - focusing on the creative individual drawing upon the work of others rather than recognizing the mutually constitutive elements of social interactions across time and space. Focusing on the domain of music, the approach taken in this book falls into three sections: investigations of the people, processes, products, and places of collaborative creativity in compositional thought and practice; explorations of the ways in which creative collaboration provides a means of crossing boundaries between disciplines such as music performance and musicology; and studies of the emergence of creative thought and practice in educational contexts including that of the composer and the classroom. The volume concludes with an extended chapter that reflects on the ways in which the studies reported advance understandings of creative thought and practice. The book provides new perspectives to our understandings of the role of collaborative thought and processes in creative work across the domain of music including: composition, musicology, performance, music education and music psychology.
Author: Eduardo de la Fuente
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136927425
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 376
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Book Description
In the first decade of the twentieth-century, many composers rejected the principles of tonality and regular beat. This signaled a dramatic challenge to the rationalist and linear conceptions of music that had existed in the West since the Renaissance. The ‘break with tonality’, Neo-Classicism, serialism, chance, minimalism and the return of the ‘sacred’ in music, are explored in this book for what they tell us about the condition of modernity. Modernity is here treated as a complex social and cultural formation, in which mythology, narrative, and the desire for ‘re-enchantment’ have not completely disappeared. Through an analysis of Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Boulez and Cage, 'the author shows that the twentieth century composer often adopted an artistic personality akin to Max Weber’s religious types of the prophet and priest, ascetic and mystic. Twentieth Century Music and the Question of Modernity advances a cultural sociology of modernity and shows that twentieth century musical culture often involved the adoption of ‘apocalyptic’ temporal narratives, a commitment to ‘musical revolution’, a desire to explore the limits of noise and sound, and, finally, redemption through the rediscovery of tonality. This book is essential reading for those interested in cultural sociology, sociological theory, music history, and modernity/modernism studies.
Author: Stephen Pleskun
Publisher: Xlibris Corporation
ISBN: 1479757527
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 866
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Book Description
This book is volume 2 of a 4 volume series, the first 3 of which have been published by Xlibris and the 4th almost complete for imminent delivery. In its entirety this work is the most comprehensive and accurate account of Australian Classical Music making ever undertaken. Its scope is from 1901-2012 and includes more than 800 composers, famous and obscure, with more than 30,000 compositions including details of their premieres (where, when and by whom). Individual performers, ensembles, orchestras, opera and ballet companies, music educators, instrument makers, academics, entrepreneurs, philanthropists and critics are included as part of the story. The foundation and demise of music institutions, venues and festivals is recorded chronologically. Altogether an extensive picture of Australian Classical Music production and performance can be gleaned in any given year. This book is distinct insofar as it can be read conventionally (from cover to cover); or one may choose a composer/performer and follow his/her career year by year; or one may open the book at random and delight in the unusual and esoteric information therein. This book, and its companion volumes, are valuable and indispensable works for the serious music student, professional musician, performing amateur, cultural aficionado and inquisitive lay person.
Author: Voichita Bucur
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319320807
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 977
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Book Description
This book addresses core questions about the role of materials in general and of wood in particular in the construction of string instruments used in the modern symphony orchestra – violins, violas, cellos and basses. Further attention is given to materials for classical guitars, harps, harpsichords and pianos. While some of the approaches discussed are traditional, most of them depend upon new scientific approaches to the study of the structure of materials, such as for example wood cell structure, which is visible only using modern high resolution microscopic techniques. Many examples of modern and classical instruments are examined, together with the relevance of classical techniques for the treatment of wood. Composite materials, especially designed for soundboards could be a good substitute for some traditional wood species. The body and soundboard of the instrument are of major importance for their acoustical properties, but the study also examines traditional and new wood species used for items such as bows, the instrument neck, string pegs, etc. Wood species’ properties for musical instruments and growth origins of woods used by great makers such as Antonio Stradivari are examined and compared with more recently grown woods available to current makers. The role of varnish in the appearance and acoustics of the final instrument is also discussed, since it has often been proposed as a ‘secret ingredient’ used by great makers. Aspects related to strings are commented.As well as discussing these subjects, with many illustrations from classical and contemporary instruments, the book gives attention to conservation and restoration of old instruments and the physical results of these techniques. There is also discussion of the current value of old instruments both for modern performances and as works of art having great monetary value.The book will be of interest and value to researchers, advanced students, music historians, and contemporary string instrument makers. Musicians in general, particularly those playing string instruments, will also find its revelations fascinating. It will also attract the attention of those using wood for a variety of other purposes, for its use in musical instruments uncovers many of its fundamental features. Professor Neville H. FletcherAustralian National University, Canberra
