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Vocal Workouts for the Contemporary Singer
by Anne PeckhamThis Book is for singers who are interested in contemporary, non-classical singing styles. It is a look at breath support, tone production, and voice strengthening, plus material for more experienced singers who want to continue to develop their voices. By following the Complete Vocal Workouts presented in this book, you will be able to sing with improved range, agility, sound, and overall expressive power.
The Voice: Listening for God's Voice and Finding Your Own
by Sandi Patty Cindy LambertChristian music icon and forty-time Dove award winner Sandi Patty has long astounded listeners with her powerful voice. And yet, off the stage, Sandi struggled to have a voice at all. Journey with Sandi and discover the tools you need to listen for God's voice and find your voice along the way.With a history of sexual abuse, infidelity, divorce, and crises of self-image, Sandi lived much of her life feeling unworthy of love or value. Like so many of us, she coped by living through the voices of others, allowing other people to prescribe her identity. As she performed around the world, Sandi met others just like her who hid their wounds behind quiet smiles and struggled to live with fractured identities.Through deeply intimate stories of her life and the empowering spiritual truths she's learned, Sandi offers readers wisdom to navigate the journey from voicelessness to discovering the voice God has given you, teaching you to:Embrace your true selfShare your storyBecome the person God created you to beSandi's warm and invitational writing will draw you to the voice of the God who sings over your life, saying you are seen, you are loved, and your voice is worth hearing. With timeless wisdom, The Voice will help you uncover your God-given identity and a voice of your very own.Praise for The Voice:"I've known Sandi for more than a quarter of a century. I'm one of the millions who have been blessed by her voice and touched by her words of wisdom. Her story is one of grace, hope, and second chances. May it impact all who read it."--Max Lucado, pastor and New York Times bestselling author"My favorite kind of spiritual leader is the one who tells the truth and gives others permission to tell the truth. I don't need shiny, polished, or tidy. I need genuine. Sandi, my dear friend, whom I love wholeheartedly, has given us this and more in The Voice."--Jen Hatmaker, New York Times bestselling author
The Voice: A Memoir
by Thomas Quasthoff Kirsten Stoldt WittenbornThe Voice is the profoundly inspiring memoir of one of the most sought after and admired classical singers in the world--a man who has arrived at the summit of his artistry by overcoming extraordinarily daunting odds. Thomas Quasthoff, the German bass baritone, stands a shade over four feet tall, his severely underdeveloped arms and hands the result of thalidomide poisoning while he was in his mother's womb. But through stunning determination enlivened by an impish sense of human, Quasthoff has overcome his physical limitations and Dickensian childhood, cultivating his musical genius and thrilling classical music lovers with his sublime voice. What shines through Quasthoff's astonishing story is his staunch refusal to wallow in self-pity, to see himself as a victim. Whether he is evoking a harrowing childhood marked by multiple agonizing surgeries, relating folksy family anecdotes, expressing his devotion to his students as a professor of voice, expounding on his love of jazz and American popular music (he is a great admirer of Stevie Wonder), or unburdening himself of his wickedly outspoken views on art and disability, Quasthoff's unerring sense of humanity, boisterous conviviality, and fierce honesty are always on display. The Voice is utterly winning--a memoir to both marvel at and enjoy.
Voice and New Writing, 1997–2007
by Maggie InchleyVoice and New Writing, 1997–2007 uses the voice as a focus for critical enquiry. It explores new writing theatres' claims to 'find' and to represent previously marginalised voices during Tony Blair's decade as Prime Minister. Hearing 'cultural evidence' for what Raymond Williams termed 'structures of feeling' in the articulation of identities, Maggie Inchley attends to the negotiation of accepted etiquettes of articulation and audibility through processes used in writing, voice training and performance. In the voices of theatre this book hears the narrative of betrayal around Anthony Giddens' 'promise of democracy', and an embattled belief in both transparency and dialogue as necessary conditions of representation. Voice and New Writing, 1997 – 2007 explores the use of voices in the work of writers including debbie tucker green, Gregory Burke, Kwame Kwei-Armah, Enda Walsh, Mark Ravenhill, and Dennis Kelly, as well as exploring the influential practice of voice teachers Cicely Berry, Patsy Rodenburg, Kristin Linklater and others.
The Voice as Something More: Essays toward Materiality (New Material Histories of Music)
by Mladen DolarIn the contemporary world, voices are caught up in fundamentally different realms of discourse, practice, and culture: between sounding and nonsounding, material and nonmaterial, literal and metaphorical. In The Voice as Something More, Martha Feldman and Judith T. Zeitlin tackle these paradoxes with a bold and rigorous collection of essays that look at voice as both object of desire and material object. Using Mladen Dolar’s influential A Voice and Nothing More as a reference point, The Voice as Something More reorients Dolar’s psychoanalytic analysis around the material dimensions of voices—their physicality and timbre, the fleshiness of their mechanisms, the veils that hide them, and the devices that enhance and distort them. Throughout, the essays put the body back in voice. Ending with a new essay by Dolar that offers reflections on these vocal aesthetics and paradoxes, this authoritative, multidisciplinary collection, ranging from Europe and the Americas to East Asia, from classics and music to film and literature, will serve as an essential entry point for scholars and students who are thinking toward materiality.
The Voice Book: Caring For, Protecting, and Improving Your Voice
by Kate Devore Starr CookmanWritten to save careers one voice at a time through scientifically proven methods and advice, this resource teaches people how to protect and improve one of their most valuable assets: their speaking voice. Simple explanations of vocal anatomy and up-to-date instruction for vocal injury prevention are accompanied by illustrations, photographs, and FAQs. An audio CD of easy-to-follow vocal-strengthening exercises--including Hum and Chew, Puppy Dog Whimper, Sirens, Lip Trills, and Tongue Twisters--is also included, along with information on breathing basics, vocal-cord vibration, and working with students who have medical complications such as asthma, acid reflux, or anxiety.
The Voice Book: Caring For, Protecting, and Improving Your Voice
by Kate DeVore Starr CookmanMore than 30 million Americans rely on their voices for their jobs—from teachers, religious leaders, and entertainers to lawyers, executives, salespeople, and doctors. A controlled voice increases self-confidence and enhances charisma, approachability, and trustworthiness. Yet an astounding 30 percent of professionals develop preventable vocal problems that could ruin their careers. And most do not know that both the quality and tone of one's voice can be changed.The Voice Book: Caring For, Protecting, and Improving Your Voice is a one-of-a-kind reference that will save and improve your voice, your job, and your personal life. With dozens of vocal exercises and a detailed guide to the anatomy and physiology of voice, the book covers the full range of vocal health, from protecting against hoarseness and laryngitis to expanding speaking range and enhancing voice tone and quality. Illustrations, photographs, FAQs, and downloadable audio tracks make this updated edition of The Voice Book a must-read for anyone who wants a dependable, strong, and engaging voice.
The Voice in the Headphones
by David GrubbsThe voice in the headphones says, “you’re rolling” . . .The Voice in the Headphones is an experiment in music writing in the form of a long poem centered on the culture of the recording studio. It describes in intricate, prismatic detail one marathon day in a recording studio during which an unnamed musician struggles to complete a film soundtrack. The book extends the form of Grubbs's previous volume Now that the audience is assembled, sharing its goal of musicalizing the language of writing about music. Mulling the insight that “studio is the absence of pushback”—now that no audience is assembled—The Voice in the Headphones details one musician's strategies for applying the requisite pressure to the proceedings, for making it count. The Voice in the Headphones is both a literary work and a meditation on sound recording, delivered at a moment in which the commercial recording studio shades into oblivion. It draws upon Grubbs's own history of several decades as a recording artist, and its location could be described as every studio in which he has set foot.
The Voice Inside
by John Farnham Poppy StockellAt last, the unflinching and unforgettable memoir of music and life from the much-loved Australian legend.Growing up in London and Melbourne, music was always part of John Farnham's world. But the young John never dreamed of what was to come. Pop stardom in the 1960s. The release of Whispering Jack, the critically acclaimed and highest-selling Australian album of all time. A decades-long touring career. Twenty-one ARIA awards. Australian of the Year. The list of accolades and achievements is long - so, at first glance, the John Farnham story is one filled with remarkable highs.It is, however, so much more than that. It is the story of the resilience John found as his stellar career stalled, record companies turned their backs, and he faced financial ruin. John has never shown how hard he fell and how difficult it was to stay true to himself in an industry that can be ruthless. It is the story of family, friendship and finding your voice.Throughout a lifetime filled with the highest of highs and the lowest of lows, John has remained steadfast, never losing his unique musical talent, creative strength nor his powerful ability to make human connections through his music. After his devastating cancer diagnosis and far too many goodbyes, John is now telling his story, his way.The Voice Inside is like sitting down with an old friend sharing stories that are both deeply personal and wildly entertaining. Written alongside award-winning filmmaker Poppy Stockell, this is a captivating and powerfully honest insight into the man whose music is the soundtrack to so many of our lives.'Honesty, intimacy, vulnerability - these are the traits we tend to crave from this genre. And Farnham, ably assisted by Stockell as both interlocutor and co-writer, succeeds . . . A compelling and complete memoir' THE AUSTRALIAN
Voice Leading: The Science behind a Musical Art
by David HuronVoice leading is the musical art of combining sounds over time. In this book, David Huron offers an accessible account of the cognitive and perceptual foundations for this practice. Drawing on decades of scientific research, including his own award-winning work, Huron offers explanations for many practices and phenomena, including the perceptual dominance of the highest voice, chordal-tone doubling, direct octaves, embellishing tones, and the musical feeling of sounds "leading" somewhere. Huron shows how traditional rules of voice leading align almost perfectly with modern scientific accounts of auditory perception. He also reviews pertinent research establishing the role of learning and enculturation in auditory and musical perception.Voice leading has long been taught with reference to Baroque chorale-style part-writing, yet there exist many more musical styles and practices. The traditional emphasis on Baroque part-writing understandably leaves many musicians wondering why they are taught such an archaic and narrow practice in an age of stylistic diversity. Huron explains how and why Baroque voice leading continues to warrant its central pedagogical status. Expanding beyond choral-style writing, Huron shows how established perceptual principles can be used to compose, analyze, and critically understand any kind of acoustical texture from tune-and-accompaniment songs and symphonic orchestration to jazz combo arranging and abstract electroacoustic music. Finally, he offers a psychological explanation for why certain kinds of musical textures are more likely to be experienced by listeners as pleasing.
Voice Leading: The Science behind a Musical Art (The\mit Press Ser.)
by David HuronAn accessible scientific explanation for the traditional rules of voice leading, including an account of why listeners find some musical textures more pleasing than others.Voice leading is the musical art of combining sounds over time. In this book, David Huron offers an accessible account of the cognitive and perceptual foundations for this practice. Drawing on decades of scientific research, including his own award-winning work, Huron offers explanations for many practices and phenomena, including the perceptual dominance of the highest voice, chordal-tone doubling, direct octaves, embellishing tones, and the musical feeling of sounds “leading” somewhere. Huron shows how traditional rules of voice leading align almost perfectly with modern scientific accounts of auditory perception. He also reviews pertinent research establishing the role of learning and enculturation in auditory and musical perception.Voice leading has long been taught with reference to Baroque chorale-style part-writing, yet there exist many more musical styles and practices. The traditional emphasis on Baroque part-writing understandably leaves many musicians wondering why they are taught such an archaic and narrow practice in an age of stylistic diversity. Huron explains how and why Baroque voice leading continues to warrant its central pedagogical status. Expanding beyond choral-style writing, Huron shows how established perceptual principles can be used to compose, analyze, and critically understand any kind of acoustical texture from tune-and-accompaniment songs and symphonic orchestration to jazz combo arranging and abstract electroacoustic music. Finally, he offers a psychological explanation for why certain kinds of musical textures are more likely to be experienced by listeners as pleasing.
Voice Machines: The Castrato, the Cat Piano, and Other Strange Sounds
by Bonnie GordonAn exploration of the castrato as a critical provocation to explore the relationships between sound, music, voice instrument, and machine. Italian courts and churches began employing castrato singers in the late sixteenth century. By the eighteenth century, the singers occupied a celebrity status on the operatic stage. Constructed through surgical alteration and further modified by rigorous training, castrati inhabited human bodies that had been “mechanized” to produce sounds in ways that unmechanized bodies could not. The voices of these technologically enhanced singers, with their unique timbre, range, and strength, contributed to a dramatic expansion of musical vocabulary and prompted new ways of imagining sound, the body, and personhood. Connecting sometimes bizarre snippets of history, this multi-disciplinary book moves backward and forward in time, deliberately troubling the meaning of concepts like “technology” and “human.” Voice Machines attends to the ways that early modern encounters and inventions—including settler colonialism, emergent racialized worldviews, the printing press, gunpowder, and the telescope—participated in making castrati. In Bonnie Gordon’s revealing study, castrati serve as a critical provocation to ask questions about the voice, the limits of the body, and the stories historians tell.
The Voice of Egypt
by Virginia DanielsonUmm Kulthum, the "voice of Egypt," was the most celebrated musical performer of the century in the Arab world. More than twenty years after her death, her devoted audience, drawn from all strata of Arab society, still numbers in the millions. Thanks to her skillful and pioneering use of mass media, her songs still permeate the international airwaves. In the first English-language biography of Umm Kulthum, Virginia Danielson chronicles the life of a major musical figure and the confluence of artistry, society, and creativity that characterized her remarkable career. Danielson examines the careful construction of Umm Kulthum's phenomenal popularity and success in a society that discouraged women from public performance. From childhood, her mentors honed her exceptional abilities to accord with Arab and Muslim practice, and as her stature grew, she remained attentive to her audience and the public reception of her work. Ultimately, she created from local precendents and traditions her own unique idiom and developed original song styles from both populist and neo-classical inspirations. These were enthusiastically received, heralded as crowning examples of a new, yet authentically Arab-Egyptian, culture. Danielson shows how Umm Kulthum's music and public personality helped form popular culture and contributed to the broader artistic, societal, and political forces that surrounded her. This richly descriptive account joins biography with social theory to explore the impact of the individual virtuoso on both music and society at large while telling the compelling story of one of the most famous musicians of all time. "She is born again every morning in the heart of 120 million beings. In the East a day without Umm Kulthum would have no color. "--Omar Sharif
The Voice of the Blues: Classic Interviews from Living Blues Magazine
by Jim O'Neal Amy van SingelThe Voice of the Blues brings together interviews with many pioneering blues men including Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Little Walter, Jimmy Reed, B.B. King, and many others.
The Voice of the Rural: Music, Poetry, and Masculinity among Migrant Moroccan Men in Umbria (Chicago Studies in Ethnomusicology)
by Alessandra CiucciA moving portrait of the contemporary experiences of migrant Moroccan men. Umbria is known to most Americans for its picturesque rolling hills and medieval villages, but to the many migrant Moroccan men who travel there, Umbria is better known for the tobacco fields, construction sites, small industries, and the outdoor weekly markets where they work. Marginalized and far from their homes, these men turn to Moroccan traditions of music and poetry that evoke the countryside they have left— l-‘arubiya, or the rural. In this book, Alessandra Ciucci takes us inside the lives of Moroccan workers, unpacking the way they share a particular musical style of the rural to create a sense of home and belonging in a foreign and inhospitable nation. Along the way, she uncovers how this culture of belonging is not just the product of the struggles of migration, but also tied to the reclamation of a noble and virtuous masculine identity that is inaccessible to Moroccan migrants in Italy. The Voice of the Rural allows us to understand the contemporary experiences of migrant Moroccan men by examining their imagined relationship to the rural through sound, shedding new light on the urgent issues of migration and belonging.
The Voice of the Rural: Music, Poetry, and Masculinity among Migrant Moroccan Men in Umbria (Chicago Studies in Ethnomusicology)
by Alessandra CiucciA moving portrait of the contemporary experiences of migrant Moroccan men. Umbria is known to most Americans for its picturesque rolling hills and medieval villages, but to the many migrant Moroccan men who travel there, Umbria is better known for the tobacco fields, construction sites, small industries, and the outdoor weekly markets where they work. Marginalized and far from their homes, these men turn to Moroccan traditions of music and poetry that evoke the countryside they have left— l-‘arubiya, or the rural. In this book, Alessandra Ciucci takes us inside the lives of Moroccan workers, unpacking the way they share a particular musical style of the rural to create a sense of home and belonging in a foreign and inhospitable nation. Along the way, she uncovers how this culture of belonging is not just the product of the struggles of migration, but also tied to the reclamation of a noble and virtuous masculine identity that is inaccessible to Moroccan migrants in Italy. The Voice of the Rural allows us to understand the contemporary experiences of migrant Moroccan men by examining their imagined relationship to the rural through sound, shedding new light on the urgent issues of migration and belonging.
The Voice of the Rural: Music, Poetry, and Masculinity among Migrant Moroccan Men in Umbria (Chicago Studies in Ethnomusicology)
by Alessandra CiucciA moving portrait of the contemporary experiences of migrant Moroccan men. Umbria is known to most Americans for its picturesque rolling hills and medieval villages, but to the many migrant Moroccan men who travel there, Umbria is better known for the tobacco fields, construction sites, small industries, and the outdoor weekly markets where they work. Marginalized and far from their homes, these men turn to Moroccan traditions of music and poetry that evoke the countryside they have left— l-‘arubiya, or the rural. In this book, Alessandra Ciucci takes us inside the lives of Moroccan workers, unpacking the way they share a particular musical style of the rural to create a sense of home and belonging in a foreign and inhospitable nation. Along the way, she uncovers how this culture of belonging is not just the product of the struggles of migration, but also tied to the reclamation of a noble and virtuous masculine identity that is inaccessible to Moroccan migrants in Italy. The Voice of the Rural allows us to understand the contemporary experiences of migrant Moroccan men by examining their imagined relationship to the rural through sound, shedding new light on the urgent issues of migration and belonging.
Voice Studies: Critical Approaches to Process, Performance and Experience (Routledge Voice Studies)
by Konstantinos Thomaidis Ben MacphersonVoice Studies brings together leading international scholars and practitioners, to re-examine what voice is, what voice does, and what we mean by "voice studies" in the process and experience of performance. This dynamic and interdisciplinary publication draws on a broad range of approaches, from composing and voice teaching through to psychoanalysis and philosophy, including: voice training from the Alexander Technique to practice-as-research; operatic and extended voices in early baroque and contemporary underwater singing; voices across cultures, from site-specific choral performance in Kentish mines and Australian sound art, to the laments of Kraho Indians, Korean pansori and Javanese wayang; voice, embodiment and gender in Robertson’s 1798 production of Phantasmagoria, Cathy Berberian radio show, and Romeo Castellucci’s theatre; perceiving voice as a composer, listener, or as eavesdropper; voice, technology and mobile apps. With contributions spanning six continents, the volume considers the processes of teaching or writing for voice, the performance of voice in theatre, live art, music, and on recordings, and the experience of voice in acoustic perception and research. It concludes with a multifaceted series of short provocations that simply revisit the core question of the whole volume: what is voice studies?
The Voice That Challenged a Nation: Marian Anderson and the Struggle for Equal Rights
by Russell Freedman"A voice like yours," celebrated conductor Arturo Toscanini told contralto Marian Anderson, "is heard once in a hundred years." This insightful account of the great African American vocalist considers her life and musical career in the context of the history of civil rights in this country. Drawing on Anderson's own writings and other contemporary accounts, Russell Freedman shows readers a singer pursuing her art despite the social constraints that limited the careers of black performers in the 1920s and 1930s. Though not a crusader or a spokesperson by nature, Marian Anderson came to stand for all black artists -- and for all Americans of color -- when, with the help of such prominent figures as Eleanor Roosevelt, she gave her landmark 1939 performance on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, which signaled the end of segregation in the arts.<P><P> Carefully researched, expertly told, and profusely illustrated with contemporary photographs, this Newbery Honor and Sibert Medal-winning book is a moving account of the life of a talented and determined artist who left her mark on musical and social history. Through her story, Newbery Medal-winning author Russell Freedman, one of today's leading authors of nonfiction for young readers, illuminates the social and political climate of the day and an important chapter in American history. Notes, bibliography, discography, index.<P> Newbery Honor book and Winner of the Sibert Medal
Voice Work: Art and Science in Changing Voices
by Christina Shewell Rockford SansomVoice Work Second Edition The voice is one of the fundamental modes of self-expression, a key touchstone of identity and sense of self. Many people in all walks of life are looking to change their voices, whether to modify a speaking challenge of some kind, to cultivate a professional skill, or for other reasons. Voice practitioners have an invaluable role in guiding clients along the path to their desired voice outcomes. Building on the success of the first edition, Voice Work continues to offer a wide-ranging introduction to the repair, improvement, development, and exploration of the spoken and sung voice. Balancing rigorous scholarship with practical insights, the book draws from all major vocal professions and paths within voice work. It offers guidance for developing the voice alongside detailed, up-to-date insights into the work of voice instruction. Readers of the second edition of Voice Work will also find: Numerous new colour illustrationsExtensive chapter revisions and reference updatesOriginal chapters on the history of voice work, public speaking and voice work onlineUpdated material on voice and emotions, mindfulness and imagery, voice work and well-being, the applications of technology and the value of practitioner supervisionAdditional techniques and exercises Voice Work is a valuable resource for spoken voice teachers, singing teachers, and speech and language therapists and pathologists. Endorsements from leading members of these professions for both the first and second editions are featured inside.
Voices: How a Great Singer Can Change Your Life
by nick Coleman"Voices isn't just illuminating and thought–provoking and clever; it is exciting." —Roddy Doyle, author of The CommitmentsA personal exploration of what singing means and how it works, Voices is a book about our deepest, most telling relationships with music. Nick Coleman examines the act of singing not as a performance, but as a close, difficult moment of hopeful connection. What does it do to us, emotionally and psychologically, to listen hard and habitually to somebody else’s singing? Why is human song so essential to our lives? The book asks many other questions, too: Why did Jagger and Lennon sing like that (and not like this)? Billie, Janis, Amy: must the voices of anguish always dissolve into spectacle? What makes us turn again and again to a singing human voice?The history of postwar popular music is often told sociologically or in terms of musicological influence and innovation in style. Voices offers a different, intimate perspective. In ten discrete but cohering essays, Coleman tackles the arc of that history as an emotional experience with real psychological consequences. He writes about the voices that have affected the ways he feels about and understands the world—from Aretha Franklin to Amy Winehouse, Marvin Gaye to David Bowie. Ultimately, Voices is the story of what it is to listen and be moved—what it is to feel emotion.
Voices and Texts in Early Modern Italian Society
by Stefano Dall’Aglio Brian Richardson Massimo RospocherThis book studies the uses of orality in Italian society, across all classes, from the fifteenth to the seventeenth century, with an emphasis on the interrelationships between oral communication and the written word. The Introduction provides an overview of the topic as a whole and links the chapters together. Part 1 concerns public life in the states of northern, central, and southern Italy. The chapters examine a range of performances that used the spoken word or song: concerted shouts that expressed the feelings of the lower classes and were then recorded in writing; the proclamation of state policy by town criers; songs that gave news of executions; the exercise of power relations in society as recorded in trial records; and diplomatic orations and interactions. Part 2 centres on private entertainments. It considers the practices of the performance of poetry sung in social gatherings and on stage with and without improvisation; the extent to which lyric poets anticipated the singing of their verse and collaborated with composers; performances of comedies given as dinner entertainments for the governing body of republican Florence; and a reading of a prose work in a house in Venice, subsequently made famous through a printed account. Part 3 concerns collective religious practices. Its chapters study sermons in their own right and in relation to written texts, the battle to control spaces for public performance by civic and religious authorities, and singing texts in sacred spaces.
Voices Found: Free Jazz and Singing
by Chris TonelliVoices Found: Free Jazz and Singing contributes to a wave of voice studies scholarship with the first book-length study of free jazz voice. It pieces together a history of free jazz voice that spans from sound poetry and scat in the 1950s to the more recent wave of free jazz choirs. The author traces the developments and offers a theory, derived from interviews with many of the most important singers in the history of free jazz voice, of how listeners have experienced and evaluated the often unconventional vocal sounds these vocalists employed. This theory explains that even audiences willing to enjoy harsh sounds from saxophones or guitars often resist when voices make sounds that audiences understand as not-human. Experimental poetry and scat were combined and transformed in free jazz spaces in the 1960s and 1970s by vocalists like Yoko Ono (in solo work and her work with Ornette Coleman and John Stevens), Jeanne Lee (in her solo work and her work with Archie Shepp and Gunter Hampel), Leon Thomas (in his solo work as well as his work with Pharoah Sanders and Carlos Santana), and Phil Minton and Maggie Nicols (who devoted much of their energy to creating unaccompanied free jazz vocal music). By studying free jazz voice we can learn important lessons about what we expect from the voice and what happens when those expectations are violated. This book doesn't only trace histories of free jazz voice, it makes an attempt to understand why this story hasn't been told before, with an impressive breadth of scope in terms of the artists covered, drawing on research from the US, Canada, Wales, Scotland, France, The Netherlands, and Japan.
Voices in Bali: Energies and Perceptions in Vocal Music and Dance Theater (Music Culture)
by Rene T. Lysloff Edward Herbst Judith BeckerA scholar and trained performer of Balinese vocal music and dance, ethnomusicologist Edward Herbst brings unique talents to bear in this provocative book. The lessons of his Balinese masters enable him to offer fresh insight to this culture's aesthetics and cultural elements. Appropriating John Cage's effective style of "mixing theory, anecdote, context, philosophy, and humor," Herbst crafts an accessible body of work, compelling in substance and form. By merging the "Balinese concept of place-time-context with Cage's concepts of structure, method, and form, [Herbst] returns to the critical issue of what scholars and intercultural artists are doing, and 'what' is their 'object' under study." Undergraduates and scholars in fields as varied as theater studies and anthropology will find this book and companion CD (in print editions) an important resource not only for its knowledgeable treatment of Balinese culture, but as an example of a more personal and engaging style of scholarly discourse. The ebook edition includes embedded audio.
Voices of Black Folk: The Sermons of Reverend A. W. Nix (American Made Music Series)
by Terri BrinegarRecipient of a 2023 Certificate of Merit for Best Historical Research in Recorded Blues, R&B, Gospel, Hip Hop, or Soul Music from the Association for Recorded Sound CollectionsIn the late 1920s, Reverend A. W. Nix (1880–1949), an African American Baptist minister born in Texas, made fifty-four commercial recordings of his sermons on phonographs in Chicago. On these recordings, Nix presented vocal traditions and styles long associated with the southern, rural Black church as he preached about self-help, racial uplift, thrift, and Christian values. As southerners like Nix fled into cities in the North to escape the rampant racism in the South, they contested whether or not African American vocal styles of singing and preaching that had emerged during the slavery era were appropriate for uplifting the race. Specific vocal characteristics, like those on Nix’s recordings, were linked to the image of the “Old Negro” by many African American leaders who favored adopting Europeanized vocal characteristics and musical repertoires into African American churches in order to uplift the modern “New Negro” citizen. Through interviews with family members, musical analyses of the sounds on Nix’s recordings, and examination of historical documents and relevant scholarship, Terri Brinegar argues that the development of the phonograph in the 1920s afforded preachers like Nix the opportunity to present traditional Black vocal styles of the southern Black church as modern Black voices. These vocal styles also influenced musical styles. The “moaning voice” used by Nix and other ministers was a direct connection to the “blues moan” employed by many blues singers including Blind Willie, Blind Lemon, and Ma Rainey. Both Reverend A. W. Nix and his brother, W. M. Nix, were an influence on the “Father of Gospel Music,” Thomas A. Dorsey. The success of Nix’s recorded sermons demonstrates the enduring values African Americans placed on traditional vocal practices.