The Traffic in Culture


Book Description

Article by Myers annotated separately.




The Audible Past


Book Description

Table of contents




Music at the Borders


Book Description

Not Drowning, Waving formed in Melbourne in 1983. Over the next decade they became one of Australia's most original rock bands, recording a series of inventive albums and attracting critical acclaim. Music At The Borders provides a detailed history of one remarkable facet of their career, their long-term engagement with the music - and musicians - of Papua New Guinea. Individual chapters analyse the Melbourne music culture from which the band emerged, the musical style they developed; their work with musicians associated with PNG's Pacific Gold Studios; and the band's re-union for the 1996 Sing Sing tour.




Music, Sound and Multimedia


Book Description

This new series aims to explore the area of "e;screen music"e;. Volume topics will include multimedia music, music and television, Hollywood film music, and the music of Bollywood cinema.Music and other sound effects have been central to a whole host of media forms throughout the twentieth century, either as background, accompaniment, or main driving force. Such interactions will continue to mutate in new directions, with the widespread growth of digital technologies. Despite the expansion of research into the use of music and sound in film, the investigation of sonic interactions with other media forms has been a largely under-researched area. Music, Sound and Multimedia provides a unique study of how music and other sounds play a central part in our understandings and uses of a variety of communications media. It focuses on four areas of sound and music within broader multimedia forms - music videos, video game music, performance and presentation, and production and consumption - and addresses the centrality of such aural concerns within our everyday experiences. Charting historical developments, mapping contemporary patterns, and speculating on future possibilities, this book is essential for courses on sound and media within media and communications studies, cultural studies and popular music studies.Key features* Charts a number of key developments in music and multimedia interactions* Provides both historical overviews and theoretical analyses* Features a number of in-depth case studies of important issues.




Sound Unseen


Book Description

Sound coming from outside the field of vision, from somewhere beyond, holds a privileged place in the Western imagination. When separated from their source, sounds seem to manifest transcendent realms, divine powers, or supernatural forces. According to legend, the philosopher Pythagoras lectured to his disciples from behind a veil, and two thousand years later, in the age of absolute music, listeners were similarly fascinated with disembodied sounds, employing various techniques to isolate sounds from their sources. With recording and radio came spatial and temporal separation of sounds from sources, and new ways of composing music. Sound Unseen: Acousmatic Sound in Theory and Practice explores the phenomenon of acousmatic sound. An unusual and neglected word, "acousmatic" was first introduced into modern parlance in the mid-1960s by avant garde composer of musique concrète Pierre Schaeffer to describe the experience of hearing a sound without seeing its cause. Working through, and often against, Schaeffer's ideas, Brian Kane presents a powerful argument for the central yet overlooked role of acousmatic sound in music aesthetics, sound studies, literature, philosophy and the history of the senses. Kane investigates acousmatic sound from a number of methodological perspectives -- historical, cultural, philosophical and musical -- and provides a framework that makes sense of the many surprising and paradoxical ways that unseen sound has been understood. Finely detailed and thoroughly researched, Sound Unseen pursues unseen sounds through a stunning array of cases -- from Bayreuth to Kafka's "Burrow," Apollinaire to %Zi%zek, music and metaphysics to architecture and automata, and from Pythagoras to the present-to offer the definitive account of acousmatic sound in theory and practice. The first major study in English of Pierre Schaeffer's theory of "acousmatics," Sound Unseen is an essential text for scholars of philosophy of music, electronic music, sound studies, and the history of the senses.




The SAGE International Encyclopedia of Music and Culture


Book Description

The SAGE Encyclopedia of Music and Culture presents key concepts in the study of music in its cultural context and provides an introduction to the discipline of ethnomusicology, its methods, concerns, and its contributions to knowledge and understanding of the world's musical cultures, styles, and practices. The diverse voices of contributors to this encyclopedia confirm ethnomusicology's fundamental ethos of inclusion and respect for diversity. Combined, the multiplicity of topics and approaches are presented in an easy-to-search A-Z format and offer a fresh perspective on the field and the subject of music in culture. Key features include: Approximately 730 signed articles, authored by prominent scholars, are arranged A-to-Z and published in a choice of print or electronic editions Pedagogical elements include Further Readings and Cross References to conclude each article and a Reader’s Guide in the front matter organizing entries by broad topical or thematic areas Back matter includes an annotated Resource Guide to further research (journals, books, and associations), an appendix listing notable archives, libraries, and museums, and a detailed Index The Index, Reader’s Guide themes, and Cross References combine for thorough search-and-browse capabilities in the electronic edition




Sounding Indigenous


Book Description

Sounding Indigenous explores the relations between music, people, and places through analysis of Bolivian music performances: by a non-governmental organization involved in musical activities, by a music performing ensemble, and by the people living in two rural areas of Potosi. Based on research conducted between 1993 and 1995, the book frames debates of Bolivian national and indigenous identities in terms of different attitudes people assume towards cultural and artistic authenticity. The book makes unique contributions through an emphasis on music as sensory experience, through its theorization of authenticity in relation to music, through its combined focus on different kinds of Bolivian music (indigenous, popular, avant-garde), through its combined focus on music performance and the Bolivian nation, and through its interpretation of local, national, and transnational fieldwork experiences.




Just Beyond Listening


Book Description

Just Beyond Listening asks how we might think about encounters with sound that complicate standard accounts of aurality. In a series of essays, Michael C. Heller considers how sound functions in dialogue with a range of sensory and affective modalities, including physical co-presence, textual interference, and spectral haunting. The text investigates sound that is experienced in other parts of the body, altered by cross-wirings of the senses, weaponized by the military, or mediated and changed by cultural practices and memory. Building on recent scholarship in sound studies and affect theory, Heller questions not only how sound propagates acoustically but how sonic presences temper our total experience of the world around us.




The Culture of Feedback


Book Description

When we want advice from others, we often casually speak of “getting some feedback.” But how many of us give a thought to what this phrase means? The idea of feedback actually dates to World War II, when the term was developed to describe the dynamics of self-regulating systems, which correct their actions by feeding their effects back into themselves. By the early 1970s, feedback had become the governing trope for a counterculture that was reoriented and reinvigorated by ecological thinking. The Culture of Feedback digs deep into a dazzling variety of left-of-center experiences and attitudes from this misunderstood period, bringing us a new look at the wild side of the 1970s. Belgrad shows us how ideas from systems theory were taken up by the counterculture and the environmental movement, eventually influencing a wide range of beliefs and behaviors, particularly related to the question of what is and is not intelligence. He tells the story of a generation of Americans who were struck by a newfound interest in—and respect for—plants, animals, indigenous populations, and the very sounds around them, threading his tapestry with cogent insights on environmentalism, feminism, systems theory, and psychedelics. The Culture of Feedback repaints the familiar image of the ’70s as a time of Me Generation malaise to reveal an era of revolutionary and hopeful social currents, driven by desires to radically improve—and feed back into—the systems that had come before.




Music Glocalization


Book Description

This unique edited volume offers a distinctive theoretical perspective and advanced insights into how music is impacted by the interaction of global forces with local conditions. As the first major book to apply the timely notion of “glocality” to music, this collection features robust scholarship on genres and practices from many corners of the world: from studies of European opera professions and the oeuvre of several contemporary art music composers, to music in Uzbekistan and Indonesia, urban street musicians, and even the didjeridoo. The authors interrogate theories of glocalization, distinguishing this notion from globalization and other more familiar concepts, and demonstrate how its application illuminates the mechanisms that link changing musical practices and technologies with their social milieu. This incisive book is relevant to scholars of many different specializations, particularly those with a deep interest in relationships between music and society, both past and present. More broadly, its discussions will be of value to those concerned with how changing policies and technologies impact cultural heritage and the creative approaches of performing artists worldwide.