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The Dears: Lost in the Plot (Bibliophonic #1)
By Lorraine Carpenter. 2011
Over a decade after the release of their first album, The Dears have weathered the indie fringes, the collapse of…
the music industry as we knew it and the near implosion of the band itself, with their creative vision and gang dynamic intact. The Dears: Lost in the Plot looks at how The Dears survived the fallout, and helped launch the acclaimed mid-aughts music scene in their hometown of Montréal. The Dears: Lost in the Plot is the first book in Invisible Publishing’s new Bibliophonic series. The Bibliophonic Series is a catalogue of the ongoing history of contemporary music. Each book is a time capsule, capturing artists and their work as we see them, providing a unique look at some of today’s most exciting musicians.This book examines the performance strategies used by contemporary Iranian artists and activists to reimagine “Iranian-ness” in the context of…
Iran’s local, regional, and global position. This study identifies the important social and political interventions made by theatrical and performance pieces, visual art, and electronic music that articulate and reformulate Iranian-ness by breaking away from fixed and constructed stereotypes projected on them by both the Islamic regime and Western power. This book explores the reception and context within which artworks become meaningful performative acts. Looking closely at the works of a notable female Iranian photographer, Shadi Ghadirian, in conjunction with the new generation of Iranian nonconformist artists/activists such as Tahmineh Monzavi and Hedieh Ahmadi; the visionary theatre productions of Ali Akbar Alizad; and radically untraditional sound/noise of the electronic music movement in Tehran, this book calls attention to the Iran-based artists who are tirelessly trying to raise awareness regarding the political violence imposed on Iranian identity at the legal (top-down) and everyday (bottom-up) levels. This volume will be of great interest to student and scholars in theatre and performance, photography, art, music, sociology, and politics.Music and Identity in Twenty-First-Century Monasticism (Routledge Research in Music)
By Amanda J. Haste. 2023
Twenty-first-century monastic communities represent unique social environments in which music plays an integral part. This book examines the role of…
music in Catholic, Anglican/Episcopalian and neo-monastic communities in Britain and North America, engaging closely with communities of practice to provide a penetrating insight into the role of music in self-care and as a vector for identity construction on both individual and community levels. The author explores the essential role of music in community dynamics, the rationale for using instruments, the implications of both chant-based and freestyle composition, gender-related differences in musical activity, the role of dance (‘music made visible’) in community life, the commodification of monastic music, the ‘Singing Nun’ phenomenon and the role of music in established and emerging neo-monastic communities. The result is a comprehensive and compelling study of the agency of music in the construction and expression of personal and community identity.Sticking It Out: From Juilliard to the Orchestra Pit: A Percussionists's Memoir
By Patti Niemi. 2016
&“By turns reflective and dramatic, poignant and hilarious, Sticking It Out offers an irresistible portrait of the artist as a…
young percussionist&” (San Francisco Chronicle). When Patti Niemi was ten years old, all the children in her school music class lined up to choose their instruments. Boy after boy chose drums, and girl after girl chose flute—that is, until it was Patti&’s turn. From that point onward, Patti devoted her life to mastering the percussive arts. Cymbals, snare drum, marimba, timpani, chimes: she practiced them all, and in 1983, she entered Juilliard, the most prestigious music conservatory in in the world. Set against the backdrop of a rapidly changing New York City in the 1980s, Sticking It Out recounts Patti&’s years mastering her craft and struggling to make it in a cutthroat race to a coveted job in an orchestra. Along the way, she has to compete with friends, face her own crippling anxiety, and confront the delicate, and sometimes perilous, balance of power between teachers and their students. Bringing us inside a world that most of us never get to see, Patti&’s vivid memoir is &“an eye-opening tale of demanding teachers, grueling practice schedules, severe performance anxiety and bias against &‘girl drummers&’—a funny, poignant first-person account of the fierce commitment it takes to succeed in classical music&” (San Jose Mercury News). &“One of the funniest-ever classical-music books . . . and certainly among the best written.&” —The Philadelphia Inquirer &“A shattered-mirror insight into the bizarre world of hitting things with sticks.&” —Neil Peart, bestselling author, lyricist, and drummer for RushWarum Musik in unseren Genen liegt
By Jörn Bullerdiek, Christine Süßmuth. 2023
Wussten Sie, warum Johann Sebastian Bach ganz legal lange Finger machte? Und was Sie alles mit einer Haarlocke Mozarts anfangen…
könnten, wenn Sie sie besäßen? Beides könnte Sie auf die Spur eines uralten Geheimnisses bringen, nämlich warum Menschen Freude am „Hervorbringen musikalischer Töne“ haben, wie Darwin es formulierte. Liegt das wortwörtlich in unserer DNA und was hat es dort zu suchen? Die Autoren sind in gefährlicher Nähe am Felsen der Sirenen vorbei gesegelt und haben Orpheus in die Unterwelt begleitet. Sie haben den Weg von Schallwellen von ihrer Quelle bis zum Gehirn der Hörenden verfolgt und ebenso den Stammbaum der Familie Bach wie den Gesang von Zebrafinken analysiert. Schließlich sind sie nicht nur in den Sonderzug nach Pankow gestiegen, sondern haben auch noch die Caprifischer in ihrer Heimat aufgesucht. Alles in allem ist eine unterhaltsame und informative Analyse dessen entstanden, was vom alten Ägypten bis in heutige Zeit die Faszination von Musik im Spiegel unserer Gene ausmacht.The Rigor of Angels: Borges, Heisenberg, Kant, and the Ultimate Nature of Reality
By William Egginton. 2023
The New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice • A poet, a physicist, and a philosopher explored the greatest enigmas in…
the universe—the nature of free will, the strange fabric of the cosmos, the true limits of the mind—and each in their own way uncovered a revelatory truth about our place in the world&“[A] mind-expanding book. . . . Elegantly written.&” —The New York Times Argentine poet Jorge Luis Borges was madly in love when his life was shattered by painful heartbreak. But the breakdown that followed illuminated an incontrovertible truth—that love is necessarily imbued with loss, that the one doesn&’t exist without the other. German physicist Werner Heisenberg was fighting with the scientific establishment on the meaning of the quantum realm&’s absurdity when he had his own epiphany—that there is no such thing as a complete, perfect description of reality. Prussian philosopher Immanuel Kant pushed the assumptions of human reason to their mind-bending conclusions, but emerged with an idea that crowned a towering philosophical system—that the human mind has fundamental limits, and those limits undergird both our greatest achievements as well as our missteps.Through fiction, science, and philosophy, the work of these three thinkers coalesced around the powerful, haunting fact that there is an irreconcilable difference between reality &“out there&” and reality as we experience it. Out of this profound truth comes a multitude of galvanizing ideas: the notion of selfhood, free will, and purpose in human life; the roots of morality, aesthetics, and reason; and the origins and nature of the cosmos itself. As each of these thinkers shows, every one of us has a fundamentally incomplete picture of the world. But this is to be expected. Only as mortal, finite beings are we able to experience the world in all its richness and breathtaking majesty. We are stranded in a gulf of vast extremes, between the astronomical and the quantum, an abyss of freedom and absolute determinism, and it is in that center where we must make our home. A soaring and lucid reflection on the lives and work of Borges, Heisenberg, and Kant, The Rigor of Angels movingly demonstrates that the mysteries of our place in the world may always loom over us—not as a threat, but as a reminder of our humble humanity.Pieces of Tradition: An Analysis of Contemporary Tonal Music
By Daniel Harrison. 2016
This book is about how music "in a key" is composed. Further, it is about how such music was composed…
when it was no longer compulsory to do so, starting a few years before the First World War. In an eclectic journey through the history of compositional technique, Daniel Harrison contends that the tonal system did not simply die out with the dawn of the twentieth century, but continued to supplement newer techniques as a compelling means of musical organization, even into current times. Well-known art music composers such as Bartok, Hindemith, Prokofiev, and Messiaen are represented alongside composers whose work moves outside the standard boundaries of art music: Leonard Bernstein, Murice Durufle, Frank Martin, Xiaoyong Chen. Along the way, the book attends to military bugle calls, a trailer before a movie feature, a recomposition of a famous piece by Arnold Schoenberg, and the music of Neil Diamond, David Shire, and Brian Wilson. A celebration of the awesome variety of musical expressions encompassed in what is called tonal music, Pieces of Tradition is a book for composers seeking ideas and effects, music theorists interested in its innovations, and all those who practice the analysis of composition in all its modern and traditional variations.Masters of Tonewood: The Hidden Art of Fine Stringed-Instrument Making
By Jeffrey Greene. 2022
The wood used by master craftsmen to create many of the world’s legendary stringed instruments—violins and cellos, mandolins and guitars—comes…
from seven near-mythic European forests. In his latest book, Jeffrey Greene takes the reader into those woodlands and into luthiers’ workshops to show us how the world’s finest instruments not only contribute to great musical art but are prized works of art in themselves.Masters of Tonewood describes the "hidden life" of stringed instruments, beginning with the unique wood, expertly chosen and sometimes cured for decades, that gives them voices that rivet audiences. Greene takes us to forests in Italy, France, Switzerland, Austria, Romania, Poland, and the Czech Republic. We are introduced to the acoustical and aesthetic properties of the spruce that Stradivari treasured, and the mystery of why just one in a thousand maple trees contains decorative figuring worthy of the highest-quality instruments. Greene visits the greatest traditional centers of this craft, from Spain to the United States. He recounts the ideas and experiences of tonewood millers, luthiers, and musicians and discusses their concerns about environmental issues associated with a tradition dependent on ancient woodlands in a modern world.Fifty Sides of the Beach Boys: The Songs That Tell Their Story
By Mark Dillon. 2012
&“A vivid account . . . Young and old fans alike will enjoy&” (Publishers Weekly). This book offer a unique journey through…
The Beach Boys&’ long, fascinating history by telling the stories behind fifty of the band&’s greatest songs from the perspective of group members, collaborators, fellow musicians, and notable fans. Filled with new interviews with music legends such as Brian Wilson, Mike Love, Alan Jardine, Bruce Johnston, David Marks, Blondie Chaplin, Randy Bachman, Roger McGuinn, John Sebastian, Lyle Lovett, Alice Cooper, and Al Kooper, and commentary from a younger generation such as Matthew Sweet, Carnie Wilson, Daniel Lanois, Cameron Crowe, and Zooey Deschanel, this story of pop culture history both explores the darkness and difficulties with which the band struggled, and reminds us how their songs could make life feel like an endless summer.Beatrix Potter: Her Inner World
By Andrew Norman. 2014
An insightful biography of the pioneering conservationist, illustrator, prolific author, and creator of Peter Rabbit and other legendary tales. …
Beatrix Potter was born curious, with an imagination and a love of natural science and animals that would serve her well. When her self-published and self-illustrated first book, The Tale of Peter Rabbit, was picked up by an enterprising publisher, Beatrix&’s modest &“bunny book&” would become a phenomenon. After more than a century, Beatrix Potter endures as one of the most cherished children&’s book authors in literary history. But what were the sources of inspiration that gave birth to her beloved anthropomorphic characters and enduring cautionary tales? Through extensive research, personal letters, and photographs, this concise and intimate biography reveals Beatrix&’s privileged yet restrictive Victorian childhood; her volatile relationship with her mother; a tragic love affair with her editor; her sometimes debilitating depression and illnesses; her life and career beyond Peter Rabbit; and her liberation as a passionate, driven, trailblazing, and simply original creative spirit.Waiting to Be Arrested at Night: A Uyghur Poet's Memoir of China's Genocide
By Tahir Hamut Izgil. 2023
A poet's account of one of the world's most urgent humanitarian crises, and a harrowing tale of a family's escape…
from genocideOne by one, Tahir Hamut Izgil's friends disappeared. The Chinese government's brutal persecution of the Uyghur people had continued for years, but in 2017 it assumed a terrifying new scale. The Uyghurs, a predominantly Muslim minority group in western China, were experiencing an echo of the worst horrors of the twentieth century, amplified by China's establishment of an all-seeing high-tech surveillance state. Over a million people have vanished into China&’s internment camps for Muslim minorities.Tahir, a prominent poet and intellectual, had been no stranger to persecution. After he attempted to travel abroad in 1996, police tortured him until he confessed to fabricated charges and sent him to a re-education through labor camp. But even having endured three years in the camp, he could never have predicted the Chinese government&’s radical solution to the Uyghur question two decades later. Was the first sign when Tahir was interrogated for hours after a phone call with a fellow poet in the Netherlands? Or when his old friend was sentenced to life in prison simply for calling for Uyghurs' legal rights to be enforced? Perhaps it was when the police seized Uyghurs&’ radios and installed jamming equipment to cut them off from the outside world.Once Tahir noticed that the park near his home was nearly empty because so many neighbors had been arrested, he knew the police would be coming for him any day. One night, after Tahir&’s daughters were asleep, he placed by his door a sturdy pair of shoes, a sweater, and a coat so that he could stay warm if the police came for him in the middle of the night. It was clear to Tahir and his wife that fleeing the country was the family's only hope. Waiting to Be Arrested at Night is the story of the political, social, and cultural destruction of Tahir Hamut Izgil's homeland. Among leading Uyghur intellectuals and writers, he is the only one known to have escaped China since the mass internments began. His book is a call for the world to awaken to the unfolding catastrophe, and a tribute to his friends and fellow Uyghurs whose voices have been silenced.Deadlines on the Front Line: Travels with a Veteran War Correspondent
By Paul Moorcraft. 2018
The author of this gritty memoir has lived life to the full and fortunately has the ability to recall his…
experiences in a graphic and entertaining manner.As a war correspondent and paramilitary policeman, Moorcraft was a magnet for drama and action. His descriptions of sometimes tragic and often hilarious escapades in war torn countries literally from A (Afghanistan) to Z (Zimbabwe) are self-effacingly entertaining. His light-hearted approach disguises a thoroughly perceptive and analytical mind. The reader will never be bored while accompanying Moorcraft reporting on wars in over thirty combat zones in Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Europe. This is his book of hazardous travels to strange, often little-known places meeting even stranger people who were often all too keen to lock him up or try and kill him.Deadlines on the Frontline is a delightful and invigorating read which offers an intelligent insight into the turbulent world of the late 20th and early 21st centuriesDiscovering Classical Music: Mozart (Discovering Classical Music)
By Ian Christians. 1943
"I recommend this book wholeheartedly to new music lovers" Sir Charles Groves CBE Thanks to Nigel Kennedy and Pavarotti, millions…
of people have recently discovered that classical music is a highly enjoyable experience, perhaps contrary to their expectations. But the world of classical music can be highly intimidating and confusing. Ian Christians, for many years a passionate believer in broadening the interest in classical music, has developed a unique approach, designed to make it as easy as possible for both newcomers to classical music and those who have started down the path to explore with confidence. Discovering Classical Music concentrates on the greatest composers. The author takes you step-by-step into their most approachable music and, in some cases, boldly into some of the greatest works traditionally considered too difficult for newcomers. Rarely does a book offer such potential for continued enjoyment.This volume concentrates on the life, personality and music of Edward William Elgar.A Farewell to Arms, Legs & Jockstraps: A Sportswriter's Memoir
By Diane K. Shah. 2020
“Diane Shah was a boots-on-the-ground female sports reporter in the Cro-Magnon 1970s and brings it all back in this hilarious,…
well-crafted book.” —Dan Shaughnessy, Boston Globe sports columnist and New York Times bestselling authorStrike fast, strike hard—whether it’s scoring a homerun or front-page news, Diane K. Shah, former sports columnist, knows how to grab the best story.In her memoir A Farewell to Arms, Legs, and Jockstraps, follow Diane’s escapades, from interviews with a tipsy Mickey Mantle, to sneaking into off-limits Republican galas, dining with Frank Sinatra, flying a plane with Dennis Quaid, and countless other adventures where she wields her tape recorder and a tireless drive for more.From skirting KGB agents while covering the Cold War Olympics to hunting down the three mechanical sharks starring in Jaws, Diane’s experiences are filled with real heart and a tongue-in-cheek attitude. An insightful look into the difficulties of navigating a male-dominated profession, A Farewell to Arms, Legs, and Jockstraps offers rich retellings and behind-the-scenes details of stories of a trailblazing career and the prejudices facing female sportswriters during the sixties and seventies.“Impossibly elegant, and the most fun ever. The only thing better than reading Diane K. Shah’s memoir was, I suppose, living it.” —Sally Jenkins, columnist and feature writer, Washington Post“Diane’s memoir is just like her columns—smart, funny, enlightening—just like her. Until reading it, I never really knew all the challenges she dealt with. She broke ground but never acted like it. I was lucky to work with the first female sports columnist in the country.” —Ken Gurnick, LA Dodgers correspondent for MLB.comPolitical and Religious Ideas in the Works of Arnold Schoenberg (Border Crossings #Vol. 5)
By Daniel Albright, Russell A. Berman, Charlotte M. Cross. 2000
The original essays in this collection chronicle the transformation of Arnold Schoenberg's works from music as pure art to music…
as a vehicle of religious and political ideas, during the first half of the twentieth century. This interdisciplinary volume includes contributions from musicologists, music theorists, and scholars of German literature and of Jewish studies.The Language of the Modes provides a study of modes in early music through eight essays, each dealing with a…
different aspects of modality. The volume codifies all known theoretical references to mode, all modally ordered musical sources, and all modally cyclic compositions. For many music students and listeners, the "language of the modes" is a deep mystery, accustomed as we are to centuries of modern harmony. Wiering demystifies the modal world, showing how composers and performers were able to use this structure to create compelling and beautiful works. This book will be an invaluable source to scholars of early music and music theory. in early music through eight essays, each dealing with a different aspects of modality. It codifies all known theoretical references to mode, all modally ordered musical sources, and all modally cyclic compositions. This book will be an invaluable source to scholars of early music.Adrian Willaert: A Guide to Research (Routledge Music Bibliographies)
By David Kidger. 2005
This key text will be the first full-length research tool on Adrian Willaert, the Renaissance composer of motets and madrigals…
who came to prominence in the first part of the sixteenth century, and should prove invaluable to researchers and students.Postmodern Music/Postmodern Thought (Studies In Contemporary Music And Culture Ser. #Vol. 4)
By Joseph Auner, Judy Lochhead. 2002
What is postmodern music and how does it differ from earlier styles, including modernist music? What roles have electronic technologies…
and sound production played in defining postmodern music? Has postmodern music blurred the lines between high and popular music? Addressing these and other questions, this ground-breaking collection gathers together for the first time essays on postmodernism and music written primarily by musicologists, covering a wide range of musical styles including concert music, jazz, film music, and popular music. Topics include: the importance of technology and marketing in postmodern music; the appropriation and reworking of Western music by non-Western bands; postmodern characteristics in the music of Górecki, Rochberg, Zorn, and Bolcom, as well as Björk and Wu Tang Clan; issues of music and race in such films as The Bridges of Madison County, Batman, Bullworth, and He Got Game; and comparisons of postmodern architecture to postmodern music. Also includes 20 musical examples.Mendelssohn Essays: Essays On Their Music And Its Context
By R. Larry Todd. 2008
When R. Larry Todd’s biography, Mendelssohn: A Life in Music, appeared in 2003, it won acclaim from several critics as…
a definitive biography. In researching Mendelssohn’s life over the last two and a half decades, Todd uncovered much new information about the composer and his music, his family and his peers, and his complex reception history. Now, as we approach the 2009 bicentenary of Mendelssohn’s birth, the author has chosen and compiled fifteen essays written between 1980 and 2005, including five previously unpublished, that examine several aspects of the composer whom Goethe and Heine likened to a second Mozart. Mendelssohn Essays explores Mendelssohn’s precocity, his musical impressions of British culture, the role of the visual in his music, his compositional response to Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, and incomplete drafts from his musical estate of three instrumental works. In addition, a group of three essays focuses on the music of Mendelssohn’s sister Fanny Hensel, perhaps the most gifted woman composer of the century, and a significant, complex figure in the formation of the Mendelssohnian style.