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Music in the Shadows: Noir Musical Films
by Sheri Chinen BiesenSome musical films use film noir style and jazz to reveal the dark side of fame and the American Dream.Smoke. Shadows. Moody strains of jazz. Welcome to the world of "noir musical" films, where tormented antiheroes and hard-boiled musicians battle obsession and struggle with their music and ill-fated love triangles. Sultry divas dance and sing the blues in shrouded nightclubs. Romantic intrigue clashes with backstage careers. In her pioneering study, Music in the Shadows, film noir expert Sheri Chinen Biesen explores musical films that use film noir style and bluesy strains of jazz to inhabit a disturbing underworld and reveal the dark side of fame and the American Dream. While noir musical films like A Star Is Born include musical performances, their bleak tone and expressionistic aesthetic more closely resemble the visual style of film noir. Their narratives unfold behind a stark noir lens: distorted, erratic angles and imbalanced hand-held shots allow the audience to experience a tortured, disillusioned perspective.While many musicals glamorize the quest for the spotlight in Hollywood's star factory, brooding noir musical films such as Blues in the Night, Gilda, The Red Shoes, West Side Story, and Round Midnight stretch the boundaries of film noir and the musical as film genres collide. Deep shadows, dim lighting, and visual composition evoke moodiness, cynicism, pessimism, and subjective psychological points of view.As in her earlier study of film noir, Blackout: World War II and the Origins of Film Noir, Biesen draws on extensive primary research in studio archives to situate her examination within a historical, industrial, and cultural context.
Music in the Shadows: Noir Musical Films
by Sheri Chinen BiesenAn analysis of Hollywood films that blend elements of musicals and film noir, from the author of Blackout: World War II and the Origins of Film Noir.Welcome to the world of “noir musical” films, where tormented antiheroes and hard-boiled musicians battle obsession and struggle with their music and ill-fated love triangles. Sultry divas dance and sing the blues in shrouded nightclubs. Romantic intrigue clashes with backstage careers.In her pioneering study, Music in the Shadows, film noir expert Sheri Chinen Biesen explores musical films that use film noir style and jazz to inhabit a disturbing underworld and reveal the dark side of fame and the American Dream. While noir musical films like A Star Is Born (1954) include musical performances, their bleak tone and expressionistic aesthetic more closely resemble the visual style of film noir. Their narratives unfold behind a stark noir lens: distorted, erratic angles and imbalanced hand-held shots allow the audience to experience a tortured, disillusioned perspective.While many musicals glamorize the quest for the Hollywood spotlight, brooding noir musical films such as Blues in the Night, Gilda, The Red Shoes, West Side Story, and Round Midnight stretch the boundaries of film noir and the musical as film genres collide. Deep shadows, dim lighting, and visual composition evoke moodiness, cynicism, pessimism, and subjective psychological points of view.Biesen draws on extensive primary research in studio archives to situate her examination within a historical, industrial, and cultural context.“Biesen builds a fascinating and quite convincing case for a genre hybrid, the noir musical, that took root in the 1940s but has continued to evolve ever since.” —Thomas Schatz, The University of Texas at Austin
Music in the USA: A Documentary Companion
by Judith Tick Paul E. BeaudoinMusic in the USA: A Documentary Companion charts a path through American music and musical life using as guides the words of composers, performers, writers and the rest of us ordinary folks who sing, dance, and listen. The anthology of primary sources contains about 160 selections from 1540 to 2000. Sometimes the sources are classics in the literature around American music, for example, the Preface to the Bay Psalm Book, excerpts from Slave Songs of the United States, and Charles Ives extolling Emerson. But many other selections offer uncommon sources, including a satirical story about a Yankee music teacher; various columns from 19th-century German American newspapers; the memoirs of a 19th-century diva; Lottie Joplin remembering her husband Scott; a little-known reflection of Copland about Stravinsky; an interview with Muddy Waters from the Chicago Defender; a letter from Woody Guthrie on the "spunkfire" attitude of a folk song; a press release from the Country Music Association; and the Congressional testimony around "Napster. " "Sidebar" entries occasionally bring a topic or an idea into the present, acknowledging the extent to which revivals of many kinds of music play a role in American contemporary culture. This book focuses on the connections between theory and practice to enrich our understanding of the diversity of American musical experiences. Designed especially to accompany college courses which survey American music as a whole, the book is also relevant to courses in American history and American Studies.
Music to My Years: A Mixtape Memoir of Growing Up and Standing Up
by Cristela AlonzoIn this memoir full of humor and heart, comedian, writer, and producer Cristela Alonzo shares personal stories of growing up as a first-generation Mexican-American in Texas and following her dreams to pursue a career in comedy. When Cristela Alonzo and her family lived as squatters in an abandoned diner, they only had two luxuries: a television and a radio, which became her pop cultural touchstone and a guiding light. Cristela shares her experiences and struggles of being a first-generation American, her dreams of becoming a comedian, and how it feels to be a creator in a world that often minimizes people of color and women. Her stories range from the ridiculous—like the time she made her own tap shoes out of bottle caps or how the theme song of The Golden Girls landed her in the principal’s office—to the sobering moments, like how she turned to stand-up comedy to grieve the heartbreaking loss of her mother and how, years later, she’s committed to giving back to the community that helped make her. Each significant moment of the book relates to a song, and the resulting playlist is deeply moving, resonant, and unforgettable. Music to My Years will make you laugh, cry, and even inspire you to make a playlist of your own.
Music! Its Role and Importance in Our Lives
by George Degraffenreid Charles Fowler Timothy Gerber Vincent LawrenceMusic! Its Role and Importance In Our Lives is focused upon the use and value of music in people's lives. It encourages students to view music in a social context rather than as abstract information to be learned for its own sake. It presents music as a natural and essential ingredient of one's own life and of human life in all cultures. This book was written for all students, not just those who sing in the chorus or play in the band or orchestra.
Music, Authorship, Narration, and Art Cinema in Europe: 1940s to 1980s (Music and Sound on the International Screen)
by Michael Baumgartner Ewelina BoczkowskaMusic, Authorship, Narration, and Art Cinema in Europe: 1940s to 1980s investigates the function of music in European cinema after the Second World War up to the fall of the Berlin wall, a period when composers and directors embraced experimentation. Through analyses of music and sound in a wide range of iconic films from across Europe, the essays in this book provide a nuanced reconsideration of three core themes: auteur theory, art house film, and national cinema. Chapters written by an international array of contributors focus on case studies of music in the cinema of Carlos Saura, Jean-Pierre Melville, the Polish School, and Romanian directors, as well as collaborations between directors and composers, including Michelangelo Antonioni and Giovanni Fusco, Federico Fellini and Nino Rota, Leo Arnshtam and Dmitry Shostakovich, and Peter Greenaway and Michael Nyman. The contributors shift the emphasis from a director-centered view to the working relationship between director and composer, and from the visual component to the sonic aspects of these films, without ignoring the close correlation between soundtrack and visual elements. Enriching our understanding of the complex, intertwined nature of authorship in film, the role of film music, and sound, nation-state and art cinema, and European cinematic history, this volume offers a valuable addition to research across music and film studies.
Music, Collective Memory, Trauma and Nostalgia in European Cinema after the Second World War (Music and Sound on the International Screen)
by Michael Baumgartner Ewelina BoczkowskaIn the wake of World War II, the arts and culture of Europe became a site where the devastating events of the 20th century were remembered and understood. Exploring one of the most integral elements of the cinematic experience—music—the essays in this volume consider the numerous ways in which post-war European cinema dealt with memory, trauma and nostalgia, showing how the music of these films shaped the representation of the past. The contributors consider films from the United Kingdom, Poland, the Soviet Union, France, Italy, Germany, and the Netherlands, providing a diverse and well-rounded understanding of film music in the context of historical memory. Memory is often underrepresented within scholarly musical studies, with most of these applications found in the disciplines of ethnomusicology, popular music studies, music cognition, and psychology and music therapy. Likewise, trauma has mainly been studied in relation to music in only a few historical contexts, while nostalgia has attracted even less academic attention. In three parts, this volume addresses each area of study as it relates to the music of European cinema from 1945 to 1989, applying an interdisciplinary approach to investigate how films use music to negotiate the precarious relationships we maintain with the past. Music, Collective Memory, Trauma and Nostalgia in European Cinema after the Second World War offers compelling arguments as to what makes music such a powerful medium for memory, trauma and nostalgia.
Music, Disability, and Society
by Alex LubetMusical talent in Western culture is regarded as an extraordinary combination of technical proficiency and interpretative sensitivity. In Music, Disability, and Society, Alex Lubet challenges the rigid view of technical skill and writes about music in relation to disability studies. He addresses the ways in which people with disabilities are denied the opportunity to participate in music. Elaborating on the theory of "social confluence," Lubet provides a variety of encounters between disability and music to observe radical transformations of identity. Considering hand-injured and one-handed pianists; the impairments of jazz luminaries Django Reinhardt, Horace Parlan, and "Little" Jimmy Scott; and the "Blind Orchestra" of Cairo, he shows how the cultural world of classical music contrasts sharply with that of jazz and how musicality itself is regarded a disability in some religious contexts. Music, Disability, and Society also explains how language difference can become a disability for Asian students in American schools of music, limiting their education and careers. Lubet offers pungent criticism of the biases in music education and the music profession, going so far as to say that culture disables some performers by adhering to rigid notions of what a musician must look like, how music must be played, who may play it, and what (if any) is the legitimate place of music in society. In Music, Disability, and Society, he convincingly argues that where music is concerned, disability is a matter of culture, not physical impairment.
Music, Movies, Meanings, and Markets: Cinemajazzamatazz (Routledge Interpretive Marketing Research)
by Morris HolbrookMusic, Movies, Meanings, and Markets focuses on macromarketing-related aspects of film music in general and on the cinemusical role of ambi-diegetic jazz in particular. The book examines other work on music in motion pictures which has dealt primarily with the traditional distinction between nondiegetic film music (background music that comes from off-screen and is not audible to the film’s characters, to further the dramatic development of plot, character, or other themes) and diegetic music (source music produced on-screen and/or that is audible to the film’s characters, adding to the realism of the mise-en-scène without contributing much to other dramatic meanings). This book defines, describes, and illustrates another hitherto-neglected type of film music –ambi-diegetic film music, which appears on-screen but which contributes to the dramatic development of plot, character, and other themes. Consistent with an interest in macromarketing, such ambi-diegetic film music serves as a kind of product placement (suitable for commercialization via the cross-promotion of soundtrack albums, for example) and plays a role in product design. It also provides one type of symbolic consumer behavior that indicates choices made by film characters when playing-singing-listening-or-dancing in ways that reveal their personalities or convey other cinemusical meanings. Morris Holbrook argues that ambi-diegetic film music sheds light on various social issues –such as the age-old tension between art and entertainment as it applies to the contrast between creative integrity and commercialization. Music, Movies, Meanings, and Markets explores the ways in which ambi-diegetic jazz contributes to the development of dramatic meanings in various films, many of which address the art-versus-commerce theme as a central concern.
Music, Music for Everyone
by Vera B WilliamsA beautiful celebration of the power of music and of community—a companion book to the beloved Caldecott Honor picture book A Chair for My Mother."Rosa organizes her friends into the Oak Street Band in order to earn money her family needs because of her grandma's illness. Community, family and personal triumphs converge, making unforgettable music for everyone." —School Library Journal"Visual references connect readers to earlier books about Rosa's three-generation family, while the theme here underscores the interrelationship of Rosa to her foremothers, her girl friends, and their neighborhood. Images rich in vitality are placed within superbly composed, bordered watercolor paintings to convey the spirit of the story as well as details of their daily living." —BCCBVera B. Williams's beloved picture book favorites include:"More More More," Said the BabyAmber Was Brave, Essie Was SmartA Chair for AlwaysA Chair for My MotherCherries and Cherry PitsMusic, Music for EveryoneSomething Special for MeStringbean's Trip to the Shining SeaThree Days on a River in a Red Canoe
Music, Performance, and the Realities of Film: Shared Concert Experiences in Screen Fiction (Routledge Research in Music)
by Ben WintersThis book examines the relationship between narrative film and reality, as seen through the lens of on-screen classical concert performance. By investigating these scenes, wherein the performance of music is foregrounded in the narrative, Winters uncovers how concert performance reflexively articulates music's importance to the ontology of film. The book asserts that narrative film of a variety of aesthetic approaches and traditions is no mere copy of everyday reality, but constitutes its own filmic reality, and that the music heard in a film's underscore plays an important role in distinguishing film reality from the everyday. As a result, concert scenes are examined as sites for provocative interactions between these two realities, in which real-world musicians appear in fictional narratives, and an audience’s suspension of disbelief is problematised. In blurring the musical experiences of onscreen observers and participants, these concert scenes also allegorize music’s role in creating a shared subjectivity between film audience and character, and prompt Winters to propose a radically new vision of music’s role in narrative cinema wherein musical underscore becomes part of a shared audio-visual space that may be just as accessible to the characters as the music they encounter in scenes of concert performance.
Music, Radio and the Public Sphere
by Charles FairchildRadio, the most widely used medium in the world, is a dominant mediator of musical meaning. Through a combination of critical analysis, interdisciplinary theory and ethnographic writing about community radio, this book provides a novel theorization of democratic aesthetics, with important implications for the study of old and new media alike.
Music: A Very Short Introduction
by Nicholas CookWhat is music? How is it constructed? How is it consumed? Why do you enjoy it at all? Nicholas Cook invites us to really think about music and the role it plays in our lives and our ears. Drawing on a number of accessible examples, the author prompts us to call on our own musical experiences in order to think more critically about the roles of the performers and the listener, about music as a commodity and an experience, what it means to understand music, and the values we ascribe to it. This very short introduction, written with both humor and flair, begins with a sampling of music as human activity and then goes on to consider the slippery phenomenon of how music has become an object of thought. Covering not only Western and classical music, Cook touches on all types from rock to Indonesian music and beyond. Incorporating musical forms from every continent, Music will make enjoyable reading for beginner and expert alike.
Music: An Appreciation (10th edition)
by Roger KamienWhat does it take to make a great performance? It takes great music, a great performer and a great instrument. Music: An appreciation examines some of the greatest music ever created. Roger Kamien's excellence as an interpreter of that music has made his program number one in the market used by over half a million students since its conception. Now, connect Kamien provides the world-class instrument that allows Music: An Appreciation to bring great music to his audience in an extraordinary new way. Music: An Appreciation is the right music, the right interpreter, and the right instrument.
Music: An Appreciation (6th Brief Edition)
by Roger KamienWhether from a concert stage or at the front of a classroom, Roger Kamien knows how to reach an audience--blending intelligence and passion to lift music from the page and bring it to life. His unique combination of artistic and teaching skills makes Music: An Appreciation, Brief Edition an invaluable tool for students wanting to learn more about music. This best-selling textbook introduces students to perceptive listening and provides an engaging introduction to musical elements, forms, and stylistic periods. It is organized chronologically, but individual sections can be addressed in any order, for a variety of teaching approaches. Musical notation is included but is not required to understand the popular listening guides featured in the text, which focus students' attention on musical events as they unfold. The Online Learning Center for this text provides open access for all students to many activities and video instrument demonstrations in addition to quiz and study materials for each chapter.
Musicage: Cage Muses on Words, Art, Music
by Joan Retallack John Cage"I was obliged to find a radical way to work -- to get at the real, at the root of the matter," John Cage says in this trio of dialogues, completed just days before his death. His quest for the root of the matter led him beyond the bounds of the conventional in all his musical, written, and visual pieces. The resulting expansion of the definition of art -- with its concomitant emphasis on innovation and invention -- earned him a reputation as one of America's most influential contemporary artists. Joan Retallack's conversations with Cage represent the first consideration of his artistic production in its entirety, across genres. Informed by the perspective of age, Cage's comments range freely from his theories of chance and indeterminate composition to his long-time collaboration with Merce Cunningham to the aesthetics of his multimedia works. A composer for whom the whole world -- with its brimming silences and anarchic harmonies -- was a source of music, Cage once claimed, "There is no noise, only sounds." As these interviews attest, that penchant for testing traditions reached far beyond his music. His lifelong project, Retallack writes in her comprehensive introduction, was "dislodging cultural authoritarianism and gridlock by inviting surprising conjunctions within carefully delimited frameworks and processes." Consummate performer to the end, Cage delivers here just such a conjunction -- a tour de force that provides new insights into the man and a clearer view of the status of art in the 20th century.
Musical Comedy in America: From The Black Crook to South Pacific, From The King & I to Sweeney Todd
by Cecil A. Smith Glenn LittonFirst Published in 1987. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
Musical Stages: An Autobiography
by Richard RodgersRichard Rodgers was one of the most successful, prolific composers of the last century. His songs are as well known today as when he created them more than 50 years ago, for musicals such as South Pacific, Pal Joey, Carousel, the King and I, The Sound of Music and Oklahoma! At 16 he began a long working relationship with the brilliant but tormented lyricist Lorenz hart and then went on to collaborate for another 20 years with the sturdier and equally inspired Oscar Hammerstein II. Late in his extraordinary life, Rodgers wrote what has sine become a celebrated autobiography and a classic of the theatre world, Musical Stages.
Musical Style and Genre: History and Modernity
by Marina LobanovaFirst published in 2000. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
Musical Theatre For Dummies
by Seth RudetskyDiscover what goes on behind the curtains of your favorite musical Have you ever dreamed of being in a Broadway musical, or even just to be in the ensemble in your local community theatre? In Musical Theater For Dummies, Broadway insider and host of Sirus/XM Radio’s ON BROADWAY channel Seth Rudetsky takes you backstage and shows you what it takes to create a spectacular production. You’ll get the behind-the-curtain view of how your favorite on- and off-Broadway shows are made, plus get expert advice on how to launch your own career under the bright lights. If you’re new to musical theater, this book will initiate you into the world of musicals by sharing the stories and lingo that defines this fascinating world. This unique book shares insights into what makes musical theatre tick and how you can enjoy a show from your seat in the audience or from the stage itself. Learn the history of musical theater and discover the shows born on Broadway or the West End that became cultural phenomena Trace the development of productions, from the idea stage all the way through opening night and beyond Enjoy theater productions more, thanks to deep insights into how theater is made Get insider advice on the skills you need to perform in professional or amateur musical theater productions Real-life anecdotes and excellent show recommendations will entertain and delight you as you become a musical theater know-it-all, with Dummies.
Musician from the Darkness
by Claude ClementAn outsider in a primitive hunting society learns about the power of music as both an agent of destruction and consolation.
Musik und Internet: Aktuelle Phänomene populärer Kulturen (Musik und Medien)
by Peter Moormann Nicolas RuthStreaming-Plattformen und soziale Medien sind geprägt von mannigfaltigen musikalischen Formen und Inhalten. Mit ihren jeweiligen Oberflächen bzw. Gestaltungs- und Kommunikationsrahmen ermöglichen und prägen sie aktuelle Musikkulturen. Neben lang etablierten Formen, wie dem Popsong, die mehr und mehr von den Plattformlogiken und verkürzten Aufmerksamkeitsspannen strukturell beeinflusst werden, finden sich auch zahlreiche neue Phänomene, die sich aus alltäglichen Netzkulturen herausgebildet haben. Durch die unterschiedlichen Perspektiven und Phänomenaspekte des Bandes wird deutlich, wie relevant das Internet für aktuelle Musikkulturen ist und in welch komplexen Konstellationen dabei Musik gestaltet, distribuiert und rezipiert wird.
Muslim Heroes on Screen
by Daniel O'BrienIf films drawing on Middle East tropes often highlight white Westerners, figures such as Sinbad and the Thief of Bagdad embody a counter-tradition of protagonists, derived from Islamic folklore and history, who are portrayed as ‘Other’ to Western audiences. In Muslim Heroes on Screen, Daniel O’Brien explores the depiction of these characters in Euro-American cinema from the silent era to the present day. Far from being mere racial masquerade, these screen portrayals are more complex and nuanced than is generally allowed, not least in terms of the shifting concepts and assumptions that inform their Muslim identity. Using films ranging from Douglas Fairbanks’ The Thief of Bagdad, The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, El Cid, Kingdom of Heaven and The Message to The Wind and the Lion, O’Brien considers how the representational strategies of Western filmmakers may transcend such Muslim stereotypes as fanatic antagonists or passive victims. These figures possess a cultural significance which cannot be fully appreciated by Euro-American audiences without reference to their distinction as Muslim heroes and the implications and resonances of an Islamicized protagonist.
Muslim-Jewish Encounters (Studies In Muslim-jewish Relations Ser. #Vol. 4.)
by NettlerFirst Published in 1998. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
Mussolini's Dream Factory
by Stephen GundleThe intersection between film stardom and politics is an understudied phenomenon of Fascist Italy, despite the fact that the Mussolini regime deemed stardom important enough to warrant sustained attention and interference. Focused on the period from the start of sound cinema to the final end of Fascism in 1945, this book examines the development of an Italian star system and evaluates its place in film production and distribution. The performances and careers of several major stars, including Isa Miranda, Vittorio De Sica, Amedeo Nazzari, and Alida Valli, are closely analyzed in terms of their relationships to the political sphere and broader commercial culture, with consideration of their fates in the aftermath of Fascism. A final chapter explores the place of the stars in popular memory and representations of the Fascist film world in postwar cinema.