Sean Williams and Lillis Ó Laoire
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- May 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195321180
- eISBN:
- 9780199893713
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195321180.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Ethnomusicology, World Music, History, American
This book explores the life and performance practices of the Irish sean-nós singer Joe Heaney (1919–1984). Born in Connemara, Ireland, as an autonomous state was about to be created, Heaney grew up ...
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This book explores the life and performance practices of the Irish sean-nós singer Joe Heaney (1919–1984). Born in Connemara, Ireland, as an autonomous state was about to be created, Heaney grew up speaking the Irish language on a windswept coastal landscape, where he absorbed a rich oral heritage in Irish and in his second language, English. Circumstances took him abroad, and eventually to the United States; he performed and sang his way through life, seeking to accomplish his quest of recognition for an art that was understood as such by only a few. His ability to enthrall and mesmerize his audiences in North America became legendary. That the songs and stories he presented in performance were rooted in a Gaelic culture strange to most of his audiences made his capacity all the more remarkable. This book traces the trajectory that led Heaney to present certain songs and stories to his audiences while excluding others. It offers song texts, translations, and musical transcriptions, together with a detailed discussion of their function and significance for the song man. The authors highlight issues of masculinity, language, religion, history, authenticity, and identity as part of their work in uncovering one Irishman's presentation of self, region, and nation. Many of the works can be heard on a web site constructed as an accompaniment to this book. The book makes for a rich feast of material, exposing the often-thorny decisions made by a stellar performer to forge a professional repertoire from material he had absorbed in his youth.Less
This book explores the life and performance practices of the Irish sean-nós singer Joe Heaney (1919–1984). Born in Connemara, Ireland, as an autonomous state was about to be created, Heaney grew up speaking the Irish language on a windswept coastal landscape, where he absorbed a rich oral heritage in Irish and in his second language, English. Circumstances took him abroad, and eventually to the United States; he performed and sang his way through life, seeking to accomplish his quest of recognition for an art that was understood as such by only a few. His ability to enthrall and mesmerize his audiences in North America became legendary. That the songs and stories he presented in performance were rooted in a Gaelic culture strange to most of his audiences made his capacity all the more remarkable. This book traces the trajectory that led Heaney to present certain songs and stories to his audiences while excluding others. It offers song texts, translations, and musical transcriptions, together with a detailed discussion of their function and significance for the song man. The authors highlight issues of masculinity, language, religion, history, authenticity, and identity as part of their work in uncovering one Irishman's presentation of self, region, and nation. Many of the works can be heard on a web site constructed as an accompaniment to this book. The book makes for a rich feast of material, exposing the often-thorny decisions made by a stellar performer to forge a professional repertoire from material he had absorbed in his youth.
Evan Rapport
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- December 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199379033
- eISBN:
- 9780199379064
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199379033.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Ethnomusicology, World Music, History, American
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, a wave of Bukharian Jews left their homes from across the predominantly Muslim cities of Central Asia, to reestablish their lives in the United States, Israel, ...
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After the collapse of the Soviet Union, a wave of Bukharian Jews left their homes from across the predominantly Muslim cities of Central Asia, to reestablish their lives in the United States, Israel, and Europe. Today, thirty-thousand Bukharian Jews reside in New York City, settled into close-knit communities and existing as a quintessential American immigrant group. For Bukharian immigrants, music is an essential part of their communal self-definition, and musicians are in a position to act as cultural representatives for the group as a whole. This book explores the circumstances facing new American immigrants, using the music of the Bukharian Jews to gain entrance into their community and their culture. The book investigates the transformation of Bukharian identity through an examination of corresponding changes in its music, focusing on three of these distinct but overlapping repertoires—maquom (classical or “heavy” music), Jewish religious music and popular music. Drawing upon interviews, participant observation, and music lessons, the book interprets the personal perspectives of musicians who serve as community leaders and representatives. By adapting strategies acquired as an ethno-religious minority among Central Asian Muslim neighbors, Bukharian musicians have adjusted their musical repertoire in their new American home. The result is the creation of a distinct Bukharian Jewish American identity—their musical activities are changing the city's cultural landscape while at the same time providing for an understanding of the cultural implications of Bukharian diaspora.Less
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, a wave of Bukharian Jews left their homes from across the predominantly Muslim cities of Central Asia, to reestablish their lives in the United States, Israel, and Europe. Today, thirty-thousand Bukharian Jews reside in New York City, settled into close-knit communities and existing as a quintessential American immigrant group. For Bukharian immigrants, music is an essential part of their communal self-definition, and musicians are in a position to act as cultural representatives for the group as a whole. This book explores the circumstances facing new American immigrants, using the music of the Bukharian Jews to gain entrance into their community and their culture. The book investigates the transformation of Bukharian identity through an examination of corresponding changes in its music, focusing on three of these distinct but overlapping repertoires—maquom (classical or “heavy” music), Jewish religious music and popular music. Drawing upon interviews, participant observation, and music lessons, the book interprets the personal perspectives of musicians who serve as community leaders and representatives. By adapting strategies acquired as an ethno-religious minority among Central Asian Muslim neighbors, Bukharian musicians have adjusted their musical repertoire in their new American home. The result is the creation of a distinct Bukharian Jewish American identity—their musical activities are changing the city's cultural landscape while at the same time providing for an understanding of the cultural implications of Bukharian diaspora.
Byron Dueck
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199747641
- eISBN:
- 9780199379859
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199747641.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Ethnomusicology, World Music, History, American
Musical Intimacies and Indigenous Imaginaries considers several genres of music and dance currently performed in First Nations and Métis communities in the western Canadian province of ...
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Musical Intimacies and Indigenous Imaginaries considers several genres of music and dance currently performed in First Nations and Métis communities in the western Canadian province of Manitoba, including fiddling, step dancing, country music, and gospel song. It also explores some of the contexts in which these genres are performed, including concerts, coffeehouses, dance competitions, and funerary wakes. Such gatherings open up spaces for the expression of distinctive modes of northern Algonquian sociability; they also play a role in the perpetuation of a distinctive indigenous public culture. They are in this sense interstitial sites: at once places of intimate engagement and spaces oriented to an imagined public of strangers. This volume looks at how Manitoban aboriginal musicians engage with musical intimates and mass-mediated audiences; how they negotiate the possibilities mass mediation affords—in some cases making enthusiastic use of broadcasts and recordings, and in others insistently prioritizing social intimacy; and how, in doing so, they extend and elaborate indigenous sociability.Less
Musical Intimacies and Indigenous Imaginaries considers several genres of music and dance currently performed in First Nations and Métis communities in the western Canadian province of Manitoba, including fiddling, step dancing, country music, and gospel song. It also explores some of the contexts in which these genres are performed, including concerts, coffeehouses, dance competitions, and funerary wakes. Such gatherings open up spaces for the expression of distinctive modes of northern Algonquian sociability; they also play a role in the perpetuation of a distinctive indigenous public culture. They are in this sense interstitial sites: at once places of intimate engagement and spaces oriented to an imagined public of strangers. This volume looks at how Manitoban aboriginal musicians engage with musical intimates and mass-mediated audiences; how they negotiate the possibilities mass mediation affords—in some cases making enthusiastic use of broadcasts and recordings, and in others insistently prioritizing social intimacy; and how, in doing so, they extend and elaborate indigenous sociability.
Kiri Miller
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199753451
- eISBN:
- 9780199932979
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199753451.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, History, American, Ethnomusicology, World Music
This book is about play, performance, and participatory culture in the digital age. It shows how music, video games, and social media are bridging virtual and visceral experience, creating dispersed ...
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This book is about play, performance, and participatory culture in the digital age. It shows how music, video games, and social media are bridging virtual and visceral experience, creating dispersed communities who forge meaningful connections by “playing along” with popular culture. Miller reveals how digital media are brought to bear in the transmission of embodied knowledge: how a Grand Theft Auto player uses a virtual radio to hear with her avatar’s ears; how a Guitar Hero player channels the experience of a live rock performer; and how an amateur guitar student translates a two-dimensional, pre-recorded online music lesson into three-dimensional physical practice and an intimate relationship with a distant teacher. Through ethnographic case studies, Miller demonstrates that our everyday experiences with interactive digital media are gradually transforming our understanding of musicality, creativity, play, and participation.Less
This book is about play, performance, and participatory culture in the digital age. It shows how music, video games, and social media are bridging virtual and visceral experience, creating dispersed communities who forge meaningful connections by “playing along” with popular culture. Miller reveals how digital media are brought to bear in the transmission of embodied knowledge: how a Grand Theft Auto player uses a virtual radio to hear with her avatar’s ears; how a Guitar Hero player channels the experience of a live rock performer; and how an amateur guitar student translates a two-dimensional, pre-recorded online music lesson into three-dimensional physical practice and an intimate relationship with a distant teacher. Through ethnographic case studies, Miller demonstrates that our everyday experiences with interactive digital media are gradually transforming our understanding of musicality, creativity, play, and participation.
Carol A. Hess
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199919994
- eISBN:
- 9780199345618
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199919994.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Ethnomusicology, World Music, History, American
What do we in the United States know about Latin American art music, and how do we know it? Representing the Good Neighbor: Music, Difference, and the Pan American Dream is the first study to explore ...
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What do we in the United States know about Latin American art music, and how do we know it? Representing the Good Neighbor: Music, Difference, and the Pan American Dream is the first study to explore this question in relation to Pan Americanism, or the idea that the American nations are bound by common aspirations. As Pan Americanism has risen and fallen over the decades, so too have attitudes in the United States toward Latin American art music. Under the Good Neighbor Policy, crafted to cement hemispheric solidarity amid fears of Nazism, Latin American art music flourished and U.S. critics applauded it as “universal.” During the cold war, however, this repertory assumed a very different status. While the United States supported anticommunist Latin American military dictators, many works were increasingly objectified through essentializing adjectives such as exotic, distinctive, and national—that is, through the filter of difference. Representing the Good Neighbor tracks the reception in the United States of the so-called musical Big Three—Carlos Chávez (Mexico), Heitor Villa-Lobos (Brazil), and Alberto Ginastera (Argentina)—and offers a new interpretation of a work about Latin America by the U.S. composer Frederic Rzewski, 36 Variations on “The People United Will Never Be Defeated!” Covering works performed in modern music concerts of the 1920s, at the 1939 World’s Fair, for the inauguration of the New York State Theater in 1966, and for the U.S. Bicentennial, this study illuminates ways north-south relations continue to inform our understanding of Latin American art music today.Less
What do we in the United States know about Latin American art music, and how do we know it? Representing the Good Neighbor: Music, Difference, and the Pan American Dream is the first study to explore this question in relation to Pan Americanism, or the idea that the American nations are bound by common aspirations. As Pan Americanism has risen and fallen over the decades, so too have attitudes in the United States toward Latin American art music. Under the Good Neighbor Policy, crafted to cement hemispheric solidarity amid fears of Nazism, Latin American art music flourished and U.S. critics applauded it as “universal.” During the cold war, however, this repertory assumed a very different status. While the United States supported anticommunist Latin American military dictators, many works were increasingly objectified through essentializing adjectives such as exotic, distinctive, and national—that is, through the filter of difference. Representing the Good Neighbor tracks the reception in the United States of the so-called musical Big Three—Carlos Chávez (Mexico), Heitor Villa-Lobos (Brazil), and Alberto Ginastera (Argentina)—and offers a new interpretation of a work about Latin America by the U.S. composer Frederic Rzewski, 36 Variations on “The People United Will Never Be Defeated!” Covering works performed in modern music concerts of the 1920s, at the 1939 World’s Fair, for the inauguration of the New York State Theater in 1966, and for the U.S. Bicentennial, this study illuminates ways north-south relations continue to inform our understanding of Latin American art music today.
Tamara Roberts
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780199377404
- eISBN:
- 9780199377442
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199377404.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, History, American, Ethnomusicology, World Music
Cultural hybridity is celebrated as a hallmark of U.S. American music and identity. But when hybrid music meets the culture industry, it is generally marked and marketed under a singular racial ...
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Cultural hybridity is celebrated as a hallmark of U.S. American music and identity. But when hybrid music meets the culture industry, it is generally marked and marketed under a singular racial label. This book examines musical projects that resist this tendency by foregrounding racial mixture in players, audiences, and sound. Examining Afro Asian musical settings as part of a genealogy of cross-racial culture and politics, the book argues that they are sites of sono-racial collaboration: musical engagements in which participants pointedly use race to form and perform interracial politics. Analyzing ensembles and individual artists who cross numerous genres, the book offers a glimpse into how artists live multiracial lives that inhabit yet exceed multicultural frameworks built on racial essentialism and segregation.Less
Cultural hybridity is celebrated as a hallmark of U.S. American music and identity. But when hybrid music meets the culture industry, it is generally marked and marketed under a singular racial label. This book examines musical projects that resist this tendency by foregrounding racial mixture in players, audiences, and sound. Examining Afro Asian musical settings as part of a genealogy of cross-racial culture and politics, the book argues that they are sites of sono-racial collaboration: musical engagements in which participants pointedly use race to form and perform interracial politics. Analyzing ensembles and individual artists who cross numerous genres, the book offers a glimpse into how artists live multiracial lives that inhabit yet exceed multicultural frameworks built on racial essentialism and segregation.
William Cheng
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- April 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199969968
- eISBN:
- 9780199370092
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199969968.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, History, American, Ethnomusicology, World Music
Video games open portals into fantastical worlds where imaginative play prevails. The virtual medium provides us with ample opportunities to behave and act out with relative freedom and impunity. Or ...
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Video games open portals into fantastical worlds where imaginative play prevails. The virtual medium provides us with ample opportunities to behave and act out with relative freedom and impunity. Or does it? Sound Play explores the aesthetic, ethical, and sociopolitical stakes of our engagements with gaming’s audio phenomena—from sonic violence to synthesized operas, from democratic musical performances to verbal sexual harassment. Cheng shows how the simulated environments of games empower designers, composers, players, and scholars to test and tinker with music, noise, speech, and silence in ways that might not be prudent or possible in the real world. In negotiating utopian and alarmist stereotypes of video games, Sound Play synthesizes insights from across musicology, sociology, anthropology, communications, literary theory, and philosophy. With case studies that span Final Fantasy VI, Silent Hill, Fallout 3, The Lord of the Rings Online, and Team Fortress 2, this book insists that what we do in there—in the safe, sound spaces of games—can ultimately teach us a great deal about who we are and what we value (musically, culturally, humanly) out here.Less
Video games open portals into fantastical worlds where imaginative play prevails. The virtual medium provides us with ample opportunities to behave and act out with relative freedom and impunity. Or does it? Sound Play explores the aesthetic, ethical, and sociopolitical stakes of our engagements with gaming’s audio phenomena—from sonic violence to synthesized operas, from democratic musical performances to verbal sexual harassment. Cheng shows how the simulated environments of games empower designers, composers, players, and scholars to test and tinker with music, noise, speech, and silence in ways that might not be prudent or possible in the real world. In negotiating utopian and alarmist stereotypes of video games, Sound Play synthesizes insights from across musicology, sociology, anthropology, communications, literary theory, and philosophy. With case studies that span Final Fantasy VI, Silent Hill, Fallout 3, The Lord of the Rings Online, and Team Fortress 2, this book insists that what we do in there—in the safe, sound spaces of games—can ultimately teach us a great deal about who we are and what we value (musically, culturally, humanly) out here.
Alejandro L. Madrid (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199735921
- eISBN:
- 9780199918607
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199735921.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Ethnomusicology, World Music, History, American
This volume maps out the continuous transnational dialogues that have informed culture and life at the U.S.‐Mexico border through the study of a wide variety of musical practices from the area. ...
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This volume maps out the continuous transnational dialogues that have informed culture and life at the U.S.‐Mexico border through the study of a wide variety of musical practices from the area. Without neglecting border musics that have been privileged in music scholarship (such as Tejano, corrido, and norteña) this book focuses on neglected indigenous, popular, and alternative musical practices in order to challenge biased understandings of the border as a homogeneous cultural area. The book’s multi‐disciplinary perspective offers a unique perspective to answer questions about the performativity of music within a politically and culturally contested geography.Less
This volume maps out the continuous transnational dialogues that have informed culture and life at the U.S.‐Mexico border through the study of a wide variety of musical practices from the area. Without neglecting border musics that have been privileged in music scholarship (such as Tejano, corrido, and norteña) this book focuses on neglected indigenous, popular, and alternative musical practices in order to challenge biased understandings of the border as a homogeneous cultural area. The book’s multi‐disciplinary perspective offers a unique perspective to answer questions about the performativity of music within a politically and culturally contested geography.
Franklin Odo
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199813032
- eISBN:
- 9780199345328
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199813032.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Ethnomusicology, World Music, History, American
Japanese immigrant workers constituted the bulk of Hawaii’s sugar plantation labor force between the 1880s and the 1940s. They became the single largest ethnic group in a multi-racial society and ...
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Japanese immigrant workers constituted the bulk of Hawaii’s sugar plantation labor force between the 1880s and the 1940s. They became the single largest ethnic group in a multi-racial society and their cultures decisively influenced much of contemporary Hawai`i. The holehole bushi are folk songs unique to this group; based on tunes brought from Japan but reflecting work, living conditions, love, lust, despair and courage in their new environments. This is the first serious study of this genre. Many lyrics reflect perspectives from Japanese women workers, a group only marginally represented in extant literature. Everyone assumed these songs would disappear along with the immigrants but they were revived and continue to be sung. This renaissance and the people who made it possible are explored as part of an examination of memory and recovery.Less
Japanese immigrant workers constituted the bulk of Hawaii’s sugar plantation labor force between the 1880s and the 1940s. They became the single largest ethnic group in a multi-racial society and their cultures decisively influenced much of contemporary Hawai`i. The holehole bushi are folk songs unique to this group; based on tunes brought from Japan but reflecting work, living conditions, love, lust, despair and courage in their new environments. This is the first serious study of this genre. Many lyrics reflect perspectives from Japanese women workers, a group only marginally represented in extant literature. Everyone assumed these songs would disappear along with the immigrants but they were revived and continue to be sung. This renaissance and the people who made it possible are explored as part of an examination of memory and recovery.
