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Beyond Christian Hip Hop: A Move Towards Christians and Hip Hop (Routledge Studies in Hip Hop and Religion)
by Erika D. Gault Travis HarrisChristians and Christianity have been central to Hip Hop since its inception. This book explores the intersection of Christians and Hip Hop and the multiple outcomes of this intersection. It lays out the ways in which Christians and Hip Hop overlap and diverge. The intersection of Christians and Hip Hop brings together African diasporic cultures, lives, memories and worldviews. Moving beyond the focus on rappers and so-called "Christian Hip Hop," each chapter explores three major themes of the book: identifying Hip Hop, irreconcilable Christianity, and boundaries.There is a self-identified Christian Hip Hop (CHH) community that has received some scholarly attention. At the same time, scholars have analyzed Christianity and Hip Hop without focusing on the self-identified community. This book brings these various conversations together and show, through these three themes, the complexities of the intersection of Christians and Hip Hop. Hip Hop is more than rap music, it is an African diasporic phenomenon. These three themes elucidate the many characteristics of the intersection between Christians and Hip Hop and our reasoning for going beyond "Christian Hip Hop." This collection is a multi-faceted view of how religious belief plays a role in Hip Hoppas' lives and community. It will, therefore, be of great interest to scholars of Religion and Hip Hop, Hip Hop, African Diasporas, Religion and the Arts, Religion and Race and Black Theology as well as Religious Studies more generally.
Beyond Dance: Laban's Legacy of Movement Analysis
by Eden DaviesBeyond Dance: Laban's Legacy of Movement Analysis offers students of dance and movement a brief introduction to the life and work of Rudolf Laban, and how this work has been extended into the fields of movement therapy, communications, early childhood development, and other fields. While many dance students know of Laban and his work as it applies to their field, few know the full story of how this technique has developed and grown. For many who enter into the fields of dance movement therapy, performance, and communications, there are valuable lessons to be learned from Laban and his follower's works. Beyond Dance offers a concise introduction to this world. Refreshingly free of jargon and easy to understand, the work offers dance students – and others interested in human movement – a full picture of the many possibilities inherent in Laban's theories. For many who will pursue careers 'beyond dance', this work will be a useful guidebook into related areas. This will be ideally suited to students of Laban movement theory in dance and movement therapy, and will be used in advanced courses in these areas as useful, brief introduction to the field.
Beyond Exoticism: Western Music and the World
by Timothy D. TaylorIn Beyond Exoticism, Timothy D. Taylor considers how western cultures' understandings of racial, ethnic, and cultural differences have been incorporated into music from early operas to contemporary television advertisements, arguing that the commonly used term "exoticism" glosses over such differences in many studies of western music. Beyond Exoticism encompasses a range of musical genres and musicians, including Mozart, Beethoven, Jean-Philippe Rameau, Maurice Ravel, Charles Ives, Henry Cowell, Bally Sagoo, and Bill Laswell as well as opera, symphony, country music, and "world music. " Yet, more than anything else, it is an argument for expanding the purview of musicology to take into account not only composers' lives and the formal properties of the music they produce but also the larger historical and cultural forces shaping both music and our understanding of it. Beginning with a focus on musical manifestations of colonialism and imperialism, Taylor discusses how the "discovery" of the New World and the development of an understanding of self as distinct from the other, of "here" as different from "there," was implicated in the development of tonality, a musical system which effectively creates centers and margins. He describes how musical practices signifying nonwestern peoples entered the western European musical vocabulary and how Darwinian thought shaped the cultural conditions of early-twentieth-century music. In the era of globalization, new communication technologies and the explosion of marketing and consumption have accelerated the production and circulation of tropes of otherness. Considering western music produced under rubrics including multiculturalism, collaboration, hybridity, and world music, Taylor scrutinizes contemporary representations of difference. He argues that musical interpretations of the nonwestern other developed hundreds of years ago have not necessarily been discarded; rather they have been recycled and retooled.
Beyond Jerusalem: Music in the Women's Institute, 1919-1969
by Lorna GibsonMusic in the Women's Institute has become stereotyped by the ritualistic singing of Jerusalem at monthly meetings. Indeed, Jerusalem has had an important role within the organization, and provides a valuable means within which to assess the organization's relationship with women's suffrage and the importance of rurality in the Women's Institute's identity. However, this book looks beyond Jerusalem by examining the full range of music making within the organization and locates its significance within a wider historical-cultural context. The Institute's promotion of conducting - a regular part of its musical activity since the 1930s - is discussed within the context of embodying overtly feminist sentiments. Lorna Gibson concludes that a redefinition of the term 'feminism' is needed and the concept of 'gendered spheres' of conducting provides a useful means of understanding the Institute's policy. The organization's promotion of folk song is also examined and reveals the Institute's contribution to the Folk Revival, as well as providing a valuable context within which to understand the National Federation's first music commission, Ralph Vaughan Williams's Folk Songs of the Four Seasons (1950). This work, and the Institute's second commission, Malcolm Williamson's The Brilliant and the Dark (1969), are examined with the context of the organization's music policy. In addition to discussing the background to the works, issues of critical reception are addressed. The book concludes with an Epilogue about the National Society Choir (later known as the Avalon Singers), which tested the organization's commitment to amateur music making. The book is the result of meticulous work undertaken in the archives of the National Federation, the BBC Written Archives Centre, the V&A archives, the Britten-Pears Library, the Ralph Vaughan Williams Library, the Women's Library and the Newspaper Library.
Beyond Notation: The Music of Earle Brown
by Rebecca Y. KimEarle Brown (1926–2002) was a crucial part of a group of experimental composers known as the New York School, and his music intersects in fascinating ways with that of his colleagues John Cage, Morton Feldman, and Christian Wolff. This book seeks to expand our view of Brown’s work by exploring his practices as a composer and draughtsman through a selection of works composed in the United States and Europe, which included a seminal collaboration with sculptor Alexander Calder. These essays detail Brown’s compositional methods in historical context: not only his influential experiments with open form composition and graphic notation, but his interest in performance, mixed media, jazz, the Schillinger system, and his engagement with the European avant-garde. The volume also includes never before published essays by Brown that shed new light on his relationships with colleagues and the ideas that shaped his work, in addition to several color photographs of Brown’s paintings.
Beyond Peterloo: Elijah Dixon and Manchester's Forgotten Reformers
by Maxine Peake Rob HargreavesELIJAH DIXON played a key role in the Blanketeer's March of 1817. Arrested, chained in double irons and imprisoned without trial, the episode set the stage for the Peterloo Massacre.Everybody in Victorian Manchester knew of Elijah Dixon. Over a period of sixty years, he was an ever-present force in the tumultuous politics of the town. He worked alongside the great figures of nineteenth century Radicalism, and as 'The Manchester Man' he became the towns ambassador for Chartism. An early apostle of votes for women, Temperance advocate, Christian convert, Dixon rose from poverty to make a fortune as Britains first mass-producer of matches.In Beyond Peterloo, Robert Hargreaves and Alan Hampson bring Elijahs previously overlooked yet vital contribution to social reform to life. Set against the backdrop of the Blanketeers March of 1817 and the Peterloo Massacre of 1819, they reveal the fascinating story of his life and work as Manchesters forgotten reformer.
Beyond Reason: Wagner contra Nietzsche
by Karol BergerBeyond Reason relates Wagner’s works to the philosophical and cultural ideas of his time, centering on the four music dramas he created in the second half of his career: Der Ring des Nibelungen, Tristan und Isolde, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, and Parsifal. Karol Berger seeks to penetrate the "secret" of large-scale form in Wagner’s music dramas and to answer those critics, most prominently Nietzsche, who condemned Wagner for his putative inability to weld small expressive gestures into larger wholes. Organized by individual opera, this is essential reading for both musicologists and Wagner experts.
Beyond Structural Listening? Postmodern Modes of Hearing
by Andrew Dell'AntonioIn a highly influential essay, Rose Rosengard Subotnik critiques "structural listening" as an attempt to situate musical meaning solely within the unfolding of the musical structure itself. The authors of this volume, prominent young music historians and theorists writing on repertories ranging from Beethoven to MTV, take up Subotnik's challenge in what is likely to be one of musical scholarship's intellectual touchstones for many years to come. Original, innovative, and sophisticated, their essays explore not only the implications of the "structural listening" model but also the alternative listening strategies that have developed in specific communities, often in response to twentieth-century Western music.
Beyond The Music
by Joe BielPunk is notorious for its loud music, aggressive attitude, and safety-pinned style. Less well known is the radical value system that has emerged hand in hand with the sound and aesthetic. Since the 1970s, punks have built their music, fashion, and lifestyles around core values of social justice, creative freedom, community integrity, fiercely democratic politics and do-it-yourself ingenuity. From journalism to psychology, graphic design to alternative fuel, bodybuilding to the Occupy movement, these interviews show just some of the ways that punk values continue to shape mainstream American life.
Beyond the Bandstand: Paul Whiteman in American Musical Culture (Music in American Life)
by Elijah Wald John Howland Catherine Tackley W. Anthony Sheppard Lisa Conathan Stephanie Doktor Christi J. Wells Ryan R. Bañagale Sarah C. Provost Katherine M. LeoThe most successful bandleader of the 1920s, Paul Whiteman was an entertainment icon who played a major role in the mainstreaming of jazz. Whiteman and his band premiered Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. Duke Ellington acknowledged his achievements. His astonishing ear for talent vaulted a who’s who of artists toward prominence. But Whiteman’s oversized presence eclipsed Black jazz musicians while his middlebrow music prompted later generations to jettison him from jazz history. W. Anthony Sheppard’s collection of essays confronts the racial implications of Whiteman’s career. The contributors explore Whiteman’s broad impact on popular culture, tracking his work and influence in American marketing, animated films, the Black press, Hollywood, and the music publication industry, and following him behind the scenes with arrangers, into grand concert halls, across the Atlantic, into the courtroom, and on television. Multifaceted and cutting-edge, Beyond the Bandstand explores the racial politics and artistic questions surrounding a controversial figure in popular music. Contributors: Ryan Raul Bañagale, Stephanie Doktor, John Howland, Katherine M. Leo, Sarah Caissie Provost, W. Anthony Sheppard, Catherine Tackley, Elijah Wald, and Christi Jay Wells
Beyond the Beat
by Daniel B. CornfieldAt a time when the bulwarks of the music industry are collapsing, what does it mean to be a successful musician and artist? How might contemporary musicians sustain their artistic communities? Based on interviews with over seventy-five popular-music professionals in Nashville, Beyond the Beat looks at artist activists--those visionaries who create inclusive artist communities in today's individualistic and entrepreneurial art world. Using Nashville as a model, Daniel Cornfield develops a theory of artist activism--the ways that artist peers strengthen and build diverse artist communities.Cornfield discusses how genre-diversifying artist activists have arisen throughout the late twentieth-century musician migration to Nashville, a city that boasts the highest concentration of music jobs in the United States. Music City is now home to diverse recording artists--including Jack White, El Movimiento, the Black Keys, and Paramore. Cornfield identifies three types of artist activists: the artist-producer who produces and distributes his or her own and others' work while mentoring early-career artists, the social entrepreneur who maintains social spaces for artist networking, and arts trade union reformers who are revamping collective bargaining and union functions. Throughout, Cornfield examines enterprising musicians both known and less recognized. He links individual and collective actions taken by artist activists to their orientations toward success, audience, and risk and to their original inspirations for embarking on music careers.Beyond the Beat offers a new model of artistic success based on innovating creative institutions to benefit the society at large.
Beyond the Conservatory Model: Reimagining Classical Music Performance Training in Higher Education (CMS Emerging Fields in Music)
by Michael Stepniak Peter SirotinAmid enormous changes in higher education, audience and music listener preferences, and the relevant career marketplace, music faculty are increasingly aware of the need to reimagine classical music performance training for current and future students. But how can faculty and administrators, under urgent pressure to act, be certain that their changes are effective, strategic, and beneficial for students and institutions? In this provocative yet measured book, Michael Stepniak and Peter Sirotin address these questions with perspectives rooted in extensive experience as musicians, educators, and arts leaders. Building on a multidimensional analysis of core issues and drawing upon interviews with leaders from across the performing arts and higher education music fields, Stepniak and Sirotin scrutinize arguments for and against radical change, illuminating areas of unavoidable challenge as well as areas of possibility and hope. An essential read for education leaders contemplating how classical music can continue to thrive within American higher education.
Beyond the Crossroads: The Devil and the Blues Tradition (New Directions in Southern Studies)
by Adam GussowThe devil is the most charismatic and important figure in the blues tradition. He's not just the music's namesake ("the devil's music"), but a shadowy presence who haunts an imagined Mississippi crossroads where, it is claimed, Delta bluesman Robert Johnson traded away his soul in exchange for extraordinary prowess on the guitar. Yet, as scholar and musician Adam Gussow argues, there is much more to the story of the devil and the blues than these cliched understandings.In this groundbreaking study, Gussow takes the full measure of the devil's presence. Working from original transcriptions of more than 125 recordings released during the past ninety years, Gussow explores the varied uses to which black southern blues people have put this trouble-sowing, love-wrecking, but also empowering figure. The book culminates with a bold reinterpretation of Johnson's music and a provocative investigation of the way in which the citizens of Clarksdale, Mississippi, managed to rebrand a commercial hub as "the crossroads" in 1999, claiming Johnson and the devil as their own.
Beyond the Handsomeness: A Biography of Thomas Schippers
by Nancy P. SpadaA lightning rod for powerful emotions, Thomas Schippers began his escalation to fame at nineteen continuing with performances in many renowned venues in the world. Here his career is traced through the accounts of those who knew or performed with him, red
Beyond the Sound Barrier: The Jazz Controversy in Twentieth-Century American Fiction (Literary Criticism and Cultural Theory)
by Kristin K HensonBeyond the Sound Barrier examines twentieth-century fictional representations of popular music-particularly jazz-in the fiction of James Weldon Johnson, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Langston Hughes, and Toni Morrison. Kristin K. Henson argues that an analysis of musical tropes in the work of these four authors suggests that cultural "mixing" constitutes one of the central preoccupations of modernist literature. Valuable for any reader interested in the intersections between American literature and the history of American popular music, Henson situates the literary use of popular music as a culturally amalgamated, boundary-crossing form of expression that reflects and defines modern American identities.
Bhangra Moves: From Ludhiana to London and Beyond (Ashgate Popular And Folk Music Ser.)
by AnjaliGera RoyBhangra is commonly understood as the hybrid music produced in Britain by British Asian music producers through mixing Panjabi folk melodies with western pop and black dance rhythms. This is derived from a Punjabi harvest dance of the same name. This book looks at Bhangra's global flows from one of its originary sites, the Indian subcontinent, to contribute to the understanding of emerging South Asian cultural practices such as Bhangra or Bollywood in multi-ethnic societies. It seeks to trace Bhangra's moves from Punjab and its 'return back' to look at the forces that initiate and regulate global flows of local texts and to ask how their producers and consumers redirect them to produce new definitions of culture, identity and nation. The critical importance of this book lies in understanding the difference between the present globalizing wave and previous trans-local movements. Gera Roy contrasts the frames of cultural imperialism with those of cultural invasion to show how Indian cultures have constantly reinvented themselves by cross-pollinating with 'invading' cultures such as Hellenic, Persian, Arabic and many others in the past. By looking at Bhangra's flows to and from India, the book revises the relation between culture, space and identity and challenges boundaries. It weighs both the uses and costs of visibility provided by global networks to marginalized groups in diverse localities and explores whether collaborations between Bhangra practitioners, largely of working class origin, give ordinary people any control over the circulation of culture in the global village. Finally, the book considers whether cultural practices can alter hierarchies and power structures in the real world.
Bhangra and Asian Underground: South Asian Music and the Politics of Belonging in Britain
by Falu BakraniaAsian Underground music--a fusion of South Asian genres with western breakbeats created for the dance club scene by DJs and musicians of Indian, Pakistani, and Bangladeshi descent--went mainstream in the U.K. in the late 1990s. Its success was unprecedented: British bhangra, a blend of Punjabi folk music with hip-hop musical elements, was enormously popular among South Asian communities but had yet to become mainstream. For many, the widespread attention to Asian Underground music signaled the emergence of a supposedly new, tolerant, and multicultural Britain that could finally accept South Asians. Interweaving ethnography and theory, Falu Bakrania examines the social life of British Asian musical culture to reveal a more complex and contradictory story of South Asian belonging in Britain. Analyzing the production of bhangra and Asian Underground music by male artists and its consumption by female club-goers, Bakrania shows that gender, sexuality, and class intersected in ways that profoundly shaped how young people interpreted "British" and "Asian" identity and negotiated, sometimes violently, contests about ethnic authenticity, sexual morality, individual expression, and political empowerment.
Bhartiya Sangeet (Badalta Paridrashya): भारतीय संगीत (बदलता परिदृश्य)
by Girish Chandra Upretiभारतीय संगीत (बदलता परिदृश्य) गिरीश चंद्र उप्रेती द्वारा लिखित एक महत्वपूर्ण पुस्तक है, जो भारतीय शास्त्रीय संगीत, उसकी परंपराओं और विकास पर विस्तृत चर्चा करती है। बारह अध्यायों में विभाजित यह पुस्तक राग, ध्रुपद, ख्याल, श्रुति, ठुमरी, भजन, ग़ज़ल और संगीत में लय की भूमिका को विस्तार से समझाती है। इसमें प्रमुख संगीतज्ञों के योगदान, संगीत शिक्षकों की भूमिका और भारतीय संगीत में समय के साथ हुए परिवर्तनों पर भी प्रकाश डाला गया है। लेखक ने अपने अनुभव और प्रसिद्ध संगीतकारों के सान्निध्य से प्राप्त ज्ञान के आधार पर यह स्थापित किया है कि शास्त्रीय संगीत स्थिर नहीं, बल्कि निरंतर विकसित होता रहता है। उन्होंने सादरा गायन शैली पर भी जानकारी दी है, जिसे उन्होंने स्वयं सीखा था। संगीतज्ञों के संस्मरणों और शास्त्रीय संगीत की प्रचलित धारणाओं पर आलोचनात्मक दृष्टिकोण प्रस्तुत करते हुए यह पुस्तक संगीत प्रेमियों, शोधकर्ताओं और विद्यार्थियों के लिए अत्यंत उपयोगी सिद्ध होती है।
Biblical Families in Music: Conflict and Heterodoxy in Oratorios, 1670–1770
by Robert L. KendrickExamines how stories of biblical families were reconfigured and projected in the genre of the oratorio, a form of sacred opera, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Based to a great extent on the Old Testament, the largely Catholic musical-dramatic genre was popular in Italy, Austria, and southern Germany in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Biblical Families in Music reveals how difficult stories of fratricide, child sacrifice, death, and forbidden love performed a didactic function in oratorios, teaching early modern audiences about piety and the rules of proper family life. In the century after 1670, the heavily adapted tales of Abraham and Isaac, Cain and Abel, and the Egyptian slave Hagar and her son Ishmael were set to music by figures such as Alessandro Scarlatti and Antonio Sacchini and performed during Lent in churches and other sacred spaces for an audience of court nobility, clergy, and the urban patriciate. By examining the resonance of Catholic oratorios within predominantly upper-class social realities, the book broadens our cultural understanding of the early modern European family and underscores the centrality of family and familial relation to social position, devotional taste, and identity.
Biblical: Rob Halford's Heavy Metal Scriptures
by Rob HalfordThe Metal God himself, Rob Halford - lead vocalist of Judas Priest and author of the critically acclaimed and reader-beloved autobiography, Confess - delivers a bible of hard rock and heavy metal, all in his enlightening, hilarious, and one-of-a-kind voice.Rob Halford has long been known for his legendary voice. As the front man of Judas Priest, his vocals have always been tremendous, and tremendously influential. In 2020, he brought his voice to the page with a glorious autobiography. Fans and readers loved Halford's frank and open narrative, as well as his terrific insight and sense of humour. Now, in Biblical, Halford runs his expert eye over all facets of the hard rock history and the heavy metal world. Biblical is a lively encyclopaedia in which Halford shares his opinions, memories, and anecdotes regarding every element of the rock and roll work and lifestyle from tours to tattoos, riffs to riders, and drugs to devil horns. In Halford's relaxed and honest tone, the book mixes serious and in-depth pieces with whimsical reflections on lessons learned during his fifty years of a life in music. Biblical is a handed-down-from-on-high holy tome that transports fans behind the scenes and back into their record collections, to the almighty ways of rock.
Biblical: Rob Halford's Heavy Metal Scriptures
by Rob HalfordThe Metal God himself, Rob Halford - lead vocalist of Judas Priest and author of the critically acclaimed and reader-beloved autobiography, Confess - delivers a bible of hard rock and heavy metal, all in his enlightening, hilarious, and one-of-a-kind voice.Rob Halford has long been known for his legendary voice. As the front man of Judas Priest, his vocals have always been tremendous, and tremendously influential. In 2020, he brought his voice to the page with a glorious autobiography. Fans and readers loved Halford's frank and open narrative, as well as his terrific insight and sense of humour. Now, in Biblical, Halford runs his expert eye over all facets of the hard rock history and the heavy metal world. Biblical is a lively encyclopaedia in which Halford shares his opinions, memories, and anecdotes regarding every element of the rock and roll work and lifestyle from tours to tattoos, riffs to riders, and drugs to devil horns. In Halford's relaxed and honest tone, the audiobook mixes serious and in-depth pieces with whimsical reflections on lessons learned during his fifty years of a life in music. Biblical is a handed-down-from-on-high holy tome that transports fans behind the scenes and back into their record collections, to the almighty ways of rock.(P) 2022 Hachette Audio
Biblical: Rob Halford's Heavy Metal Scriptures
by Rob HalfordThe Metal God, himself, Rob Halford—lead vocalist of Judas Priest and author of the critically acclaimed and reader-beloved autobiography, Confess—delivers yet again, now with the bible of hard rock and heavy metal, all in his enlightening, hilarious, and one-of-a-kind voice.Rob Halford has long been known for his legendary voice. As the front man of Judas Priest, his vocals have been tremendous, and tremendously influential. In 2020, he brought his voice to the page with a glorious autobiography. Fans and readers loved Halford&’s frank and open narrative, as well as his terrific insight and sense of humor. In an ideal follow-up, Halford runs his lively eye over all facets of the hard rock history and the heavy metal world. Biblical is an encyclopedia and manifesto in which Halford shares his opinions, memories, and anecdotes regarding every element of the rock and roll work and lifestyle from tours to tattoos, riffs to riders, and drugs to devil horns. In Halford&’s relaxed and honest tone, the book mixes serious and in-depth pieces with whimsical reflections on lessons learned during his fifty years of a life in music. Biblical is a handed-down-from-on-high holy tome that transports fans behind the scenes and back into their record collections, to the almighty ways of rock.
Big Band Jazz in Black West Virginia, 1930–1942 (American Made Music Series)
by Christopher WilkinsonAssociation of Recorded Sound Collections Awards for ExcellenceBest Research in Recorded Jazz Music–Certificate of Merit (2013)The coal fields of West Virginia would seem an unlikely market for big band jazz during the Great Depression. That a prosperous African American audience dominated by those involved with the coal industry was there for jazz tours would seem equally improbable. Big Band Jazz in Black West Virginia, 1930-1942 shows that, contrary to expectations, black Mountaineers flocked to dances by the hundreds, in many instances traveling considerable distances to hear bands led by Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Andy Kirk, Jimmie Lunceford, and Chick Webb, among numerous others. Indeed, as one musician who toured the state would recall, "All the bands were goin' to West Virginia."The comparative prosperity of the coal miners, thanks to New Deal industrial policies, was what attracted the bands to the state. This study discusses that prosperity as well as the larger political environment that provided black Mountaineers with a degree of autonomy not experienced further south. Author Christopher Wilkinson demonstrates the importance of radio and the black press both in introducing this music and in keeping black West Virginians up to date with its latest developments. The book explores connections between local entrepreneurs who staged the dances and the national management of the bands that played those engagements. In analyzing black audiences' aesthetic preferences, the author reveals that many black West Virginians preferred dancing to a variety of music, not just jazz. Finally, the book shows bands now associated almost exclusively with jazz were more than willing to satisfy those audience preferences with arrangements in other styles of dance music.
Big Bang, Baby: Rock Trivia
by Richard CrouseIn the middle of the conservative 1950s, rock and roll hit popular culture like an explosion a Big Bang, Baby! And the fallout from that explosion is still electrifying music fans today. Popular music expert Richard Crouse has ventured deep into the far reaches of rock history to bring together this dynamic collection of facts and oddities. Big Bang, Baby will entertain and enlighten music fans of all eras and will challenge even experienced rock trivia junkies.
Big Bangs
by Howard GoodallThe dramatic story of five key turning points in a thousand years of Western music - discoveries that changed the course of history. Who first invented 'Doh Re Mi...'?What do we mean by "in tune"?Looking back down the corridor of a thousand years, Howard Goodall guides us through the stories of five seismic developments in the history of Western music. His "big bangs" may not be the ones we expect - some are surprising and some are so obvious we overlook them - but all have had an extraordinary impact. Goodall starts with the invention of notation by an 11th-century Italian monk, which removed the creation of music from the hands of the players to the pens of the composers; moves on to the first opera; then to the invention of the piano, and ends with the story of the first recording made in history. Howard Goodall has the gift of making these complicated musical advances both clear and utterly fascinating. Racy and vivid in a narrative full of colourful characters and graphic illustrations of technical processes, he also gives a wonderful sense of the culture of trial and error and competition, be it in 11th-century Italy or 19th-century America, in which all progress takes place. Big Bangs opens a window on the crucial moments in our musical culture - discoveries that made possible everything from Bach to the Beatles - and tells us a riveting story of a millennium of endeavour.