New Music Books I Wish I Had Time to Read #5

Since I'm winding down my assistantship in the UNC-Chapel Hill Music Library, this will be the last "New Music Books I Wish I Had Time to Read"—at least for a while. For this job, I've been processing about 100 new books a month, and I like to write down the books I wish I had time to read. Among the many new books about Wagner, which magically keep coming despite the high volume of existing books about Wagner, I found these gems:

• Wind Bands of the World: Chronicle of a Cherished Tradition, by Robert E. Foster - Covering the breadth of history instead of depth, it would be really interesting to see the transformation and manifestation of wind bands through history.

  

  Picture from Amazon.com

• Music and Empire in Britain and India: Identity, Internationalism, and Cross-Cultural Communication, by Bob van der Linden - With chapters on Percy Grainger, Cyril Scott, and Rabindranath Tagore, of course I would interested.
• Music, Modernity, and Locality in Prewar Japan: Osaka and Beyond, edited by Hugh de Ferranti and Alison Tokita - Answers the question: When and how did Japan decide that Euro-American art music was their high culture?
• Britishness, Popular Music, and National Identity: the Making of Modern Britain, by Irene Morra - I’m a sucker for books on nationalism, especially British nationalism.
• Wonder of Wonders: A Cultural History of Fiddler on the Roof, by Alisa Soloman - How the strangely popular musical conquered the world.
• Flood, by S. Alexander Reed and Philip Sandifer - part of the 33 ⅓ series (named after the most common vinyl rotational speed), this little book takes on the most popular They Might Be Giants album, especially its reception from geeks to geeks.
• The Cambridge Companion to Vaughan Williams, edited by Alain Frogley and Aidan J. Thomson - A collection of essays about all aspects of Vaughan Williams life, including a conversation with contemporary British composers.
• Music in Films on the Middle Ages: Authenticity vs. Fantasy, by John Haines - as someone who likes reading about cultural anachronism and fantasy, I’ve seen a lot of Medieval-esque movies and TV shows, and I often wonder how the music connects to what's going on. This movie genre certainly has its own style of soundtrack, which may or may not be based on any sort of reality.

  

  From University of Illinois Press

• World Flutelore: Folktales, Myths, and Other Stories of Magical Flute Power, by Dale A Olsen - So there’s a lot of stories about the magical powers of music, especially flutes. Pied Piper of Hamelin, anyone? This book attempts to answer why and address themes, pairing each topic with a folk story about magical flutes from many cultures around the world.
• The Music of Herbert Howells, edited by Phillips A. Cooke and David Maw - A collection of essays about the works and style of the British composer, who I think wrote some great music.
• All the Songs: the Story Behind Every Beatles Release, by Jean-Michel Guesdon & Philippe Margotin - A huge compendium about Beatles songs for fans. Easy to get sucked in. Lots of interesting photos.
• Singing Simpkin and other Bawdy Jigs: Musical Comedy on the Shakespearean Stage: Scripts, Music, & Context, by Roger Clegg and Lucie Skeaping - Yes, there are two subtitles. About the intersection of Shakespearean theater and music, two of my favorite topics. "Jig" apparently has had many, many different meanings over the years.
• Lost Chords and Christian Soldiers: the Sacred Music of Arthur Sullivan, by Ian Bradley - Most people know Sullivan as part of the amazingly successful Gilbert and Sullivan operetta team, but he also wrote sacred music. According to the book, Sullivan wished his legacy to be judged on his sacred music, not the operettas. The book also examines how the operettas were influenced by the sacred music.
• Everything’s Coming Up Profits: the Golden Age of Industrial Musicals, by Steve Young and Sport Murphy - During the 60s, when the US was producing ⅔ of the world’s manufactured goods, industrial America started using musicals to inspire businessmen to sell more stuff. Here's a short example. Unsurprisingly, the writers of these musicals often went on to their own Broadway success. Lots of colorful pictures.

Have you read any good books about music lately? Interested in or have read one of these?

Vocab: vinyl, jig, operetta

New Music Books I Wish I Had Time to Read #4

It's time again for another installment of New Music Books I Wish I Had Time to Read. As always, I've been busy processing new books for the music library (about 100 per month), and I note the ones that I think would be interesting to read, had I the time. Hopefully, there's something interesting here for everyone. Here are my biased picks, listed in no particular order:

• Music Career Advising: A Guide for Students, Parents, and Teachers by Eric Branscome - Maybe a little too academically inclined, but I think it is important because so many young people go into university music programs because they are told they should, yet have no idea where such a program could lead them.
• Download! How the Internet Transformed the Record Business by Phil Hardy - Tries to chronicle how the music industry had to adapt to the new internet digital music market, from the CD boom through MP3s to the present. Probably a bit premature, but we have to start somewhere.
• Ubiquitous Musics: The Everyday Sounds That We Don’t Always Notice, edited by Marta Garcia Quinones, Anahid Kassabian, and Elena Boschi - Essays on gym music, mood music, ambient music, mobile phones, listening while traveling, etc.
  
• Javanese Gamelan and the West, by Sumarsam - Examines not only how Gamelan performance in Indonesia has changed since it was introduced to the west, but how Gamelans have influenced the western music, including the many university Gamelans in the U.S. and elsewhere.
• Made in Spain: Studies in Popular Music, ed. by Silvia Martinez and Hector Fouce - English language collection of essays about popular music in Spain, encompassing jazz, folk song and dance, pop, music during Franco, and regionalisms (because Spain is not a monolithic whole like sometimes we think in the U.S.)
• Understanding the Music Industries, by Chris Anderton, Andrew Dubber, and Martin James - The plural in the title is no mistake—instead of talking about the monolithic industry, instead they try to see how all the little pieces interact and work together (or don’t work together): Songwriting, publishing, production, distribution, promotion, live music, audiences (which have a big impact on how people make money, it turns out), and copyright.
• “Cashville”: Dilution of Original Country Music Identity through Increasing Commercialization, by Stephanie Schäfer - I’ve always thought that country music was mostly a self-perpetuating myth refined over the years to make money, but now here’s a book that backs up that arguement.
• The Notation is Not the Music: Reflections on Early Music Practice and Performance, by Barthold Kuijken - While this book focuses on early music, which is usually not my cup of tea, I think it is important to keep in mind that what you see written was not necessarily what was heard when it was originally performed, especially for pre-1700 music and folk music.
• Elvis Costello and Thatcherism: A Psycho-Social Exploration, by David Pilgrim and Richard Ormond - How could you go wrong with a title like this?
• Music Education in Crisis, edited by Peter Dickinson - A collection of essays from the past 15 years, mostly from a British perspective, defending music education as it has been recently attacked and cut. Because we all need more things in our pocket about music advocacy.
• Erik Satie: Music, Art, and Literature, edited by Caroline Potter - A collection of essays, including one on a topic for which I wrote a short paper as a graduate student: Satie as a comic. Sadly, (or probably happily for those reading this essay), this is not my paper.
• Songs of People on the Move, edited by Thomas A. McKean - A collections of essays about the music of itinerant groups from all over the world, groups which are often on the margins of society.

Have you read any good music books lately?

Vocab: MP3, gamelan, ambient music

New Music Books I Wish I Had Time to Read #3

In honor of school starting up again, here's my third installment of New Music Books I Wish I Had Time to Read. As always, this summer I've been busy processing new books for the music library (about 100 per month), and I note the ones that I think would be interesting to read, had I the time. Maybe you'll find something you want to explore more! Here are my picks, listed in no particular order:

• Rhythm of Labour: Music at Work in Britain, by Marek Korczynski, Michael Pickering, and Emma Robertson - People do more than just whistle at work. In fact, music has been a part of work for centuries. This book examines British work music from before the industrial revolution to broadcast music. It's nice to read about the practical application of music.
• Elgar’s Earnings, by John Drysdale - A study of how a British composer in the late 19th century made money, compared with other Victorian artistic types. The writing might be a little dry (hah!), but I think it’s interesting how musicians actually make a living. Especially since our current system is in such a flux.
  
• Romani Routes: Cultural Politics and Balkan Music in Diaspora by Carol Silverman - The Roma (also called Gypsy) people have always been important music producers across Europe, Asia, and beyond, and although their music is often celebrated, their culture is not.
• The Globalization of Irish Traditional Song Performance, by Susan H. Motherway - It used to be that only people from Ireland (or with close ancestry) performed Irish music, but that is not the case anymore. People from all over the the world now perform it, and this globalization changes the way the music is performed and received.
• The Sounds of War: Music in the United States during World War II, by Annegret Fauser - This book is written by a German professor who works at UNC and deals with a fascinating part of US music history. I hear her next project is on music during World War I, which is great because I just cataloged a bunch of sheet music from World War I for UNC's collection. Good timing for WWI's 100-year anniversary.
• I Drum, Therefore I Am: Being and Becoming a Drummer, by Gareth Dylan Smith - Although the title could be better, Smith shares some interesting ideas and observations about the culture of kit drumming, including a chapter on gender and drumming.
• Avatar of Modernity: The Rite of Spring Reconsidered, edited by Herman Danuser and Heidy Zimmermann - This is a collection of new essays about Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, produced for the recent 100th anniversary of the first performance of ballet, one of my favorite pieces of music ever.
• The Sociology of Wind Bands: Amateur Music Between Cultural Domination and Autonomy, by Vincent Dubois, Jean-Matthieu Meon, and Emmanuel Pierru - There’s not much scholarly written about volunteer marching and other wind bands, despite that fact that a large number of Americans have participated in them and they are a common cultural reference in our society. Of course, this is a French study translated into English, so I’m not sure how much it would transfer.
  
• Performing the “New” Europe: Identities, Feelings, and Politics in the Eurovision Song Contest, edited by Karen Fricker and Milija Gluhovic - I've been in Europe for several Eurovision song contests, and they're really...something else. As the title of this collection of essays suggests, more than music that determines how a country's delegation fares.
• Building the Operatic Museum: Eighteenth-Century Opera in Fin-de-Siècle Paris, by William Gibbons - While performing old opera seems so common nowadays (is there anything other than old opera? Not really), for most of the 19th century, opera in Paris was all about new! new! new! But near the end of the century, some operatic companies decided to start putting on operas that were over 100 years old, and it was a revelation for some people and a political magnet for others.
• The Scotch-Irish Influence on Country Music in the Carolinas: Border Ballads, Fiddle Tunes & Sacred Songs, by Michael C. Scoggins - This book is too close to home for me not to be interested, as I have Scotch-Irish ancestry and live in North Carolina.
• Pop Pagans: Paganism and Popular Music, ed. by Donna Weston and Andy Bennett - It's interesting how much popular subculture, especially connected to music, is based on various forms of Paganism. Music is important for many religions, including this one. One chapter I'm particularly interested in is on New Age and its connection with Celtic.
• Bug Music: How Insects Gave Us Rhythm and Noise, by David Rothenberg - A book about insect sounds and how they have influenced our music? Need I say more?

Is there any book in this list you are excited about? Is there a music book you've seen or read recently that you want to add to this list? 

Vocab: rhythm, sheet music, wind band, New Age music

Music Books I Wish I Had Time to Read #2

I've been busy processing new books for the music library (about 100 per month), and I write down the ones that I think would be interesting to read, had I the time. Here's my second installment. Maybe you'll see something that you would like to explore.

Henri-Edmond Cross, Les Iles d'Or



• Debussy: La musique et les arts - a French coffee-table book covering an exhibition in the Musée d'Orsay in Paris last year. There’s been a lot of speculation about the role art played in Debussy's composition, but this book puts Debussy in the context of the artists he was viewing and collaborating with, instead of simply showing a couple of Impressionist paintings (a movement considered old-fashioned when Debussy was starting to write music) and then listening to his Nocturnes, which is the normal music education route.
• ‘Rock On’: Women, Aging, and Popular Music, edited by Ros Jennings and Abigail Gardner - It seems that some women can keep on making popular music, but only if they look almost like they did at 25.
• The Saxophone by Stephen Cottrell - History of the saxophone, its uses and symbolism from its invention to the present.
• Whose Spain? Negotiating “Spanish Music” in Paris, 1908-1929 by Samuel Llano - Paris was the place to get a music education or to make new music during the early twentieth century, so many Spanish composers went to Paris to study and wrote their own Spanish music, and then the French composers started writing “Spanish” music, too.
• Redefining Mainstream Popular Music, ed. by Sarah Baker, Andy Bennett, and Jodie Taylor - A few Australians asking the question: What is mainstream music, anyway? Has it changed over time?
• Music in Science Fiction Television: Tuned to the Future, ed. by K.J. Donnelly and Philip Hayward - Those stereotypical music cues in SciFi television had to come from somewhere. Essays about the music in Lost, Star Trek, Doctor Who (old and new), the Twilight Zone, Lost in Space, and others.
• The First Four Notes: Beethoven's Fifth and the Human Imagination by Matthew Guerrieri - I don't think I've ever seen a book on just four notes before, but I guess in the case of Beethoven's fifth, that first motive has accumulated a lot of extra meaning over the years.
• Greenback Dollar: The Incredible Rise of the Kingston Trio by William J. Bush - Ever wondered why the Kingston Trio broke the charts in the 1950s when their music was nothing like the rest of the popular music of the day? And how they influenced other musical groups that followed? By the way, the place where "Tom Dooley" first hit no. 1 and so caught national attention? Salt Lake City.
• Contemplating Shostakovich: Life, Music, and Film, ed. by Alexander Ivashkin and Andrew Kirkman - Essays on the Soviet composers whose musical meanings were and had to be cryptic. Will we ever know what he really meant? At least he provided endless work for generations of scholars.
• The Violin: A Social History of the World's Most Versatile Instrument by David Schoenbaum - Did you know that the violin is used for music in almost every culture? More a popular book than scholarly.
  
• The Accessibility of Music: Participation, Reception, and Contact by Jochen Eisentraut - Have you ever wondered why some music is easier to listen to than other music? What effect does that have?
• Understanding Society Through Popular Music by Joseph A. Kotarba, Bryce Merrill, J. Patrick Williams, and Phillip Vannini - Music surrounds us, so what better way to understand society than by studying the music most heard by the culture? Sections on self identify, families, religion, politics, globalization, subcultures. Meant as a text for undergrad courses.
• Gender, Branding, and the Modern Music Industry by Kristin J. Lieb - A really interesting exploration into the idea of the female pop star, prioritizing sexual attractiveness and their body over their music, and the changing roles they have to play to stay on top until they age out ungracefully.

Any of those books sound interesting (or uninteresting) to you? Are there any other music books you wish you had time to read?

Vocab: motive

Music Books I Wish I Had Time to Read

I work at a large research university music library, and one of my responsibilities is processing new books, about 100 per month. I don't have time to read the vast majority of those books, but I've started keeping a list of what books I'd read if I had the time. Many of these are academic books, meaning they are too expensive unless you are professionally invested, but that's what libraries are for, right? 
Here's my list from the past few months:

• Beyond ‘Innocence’: Amis Aboriginal Song in Taiwan as an Ecosystem, by Shzr Ee Tan - Did you know that there is a group of native Taiwanese, cultural and ethnically different than the Chinese population, and they have their own music?
• Ukulele Heroes: The Golden Age, by Ian Whitcomb - Not particularly scholarly, but if you are interested in learning about how the ukelele developed (like how it might have come to Hawaii through Portugal), than this is the book for you.
• Turkish Metal, by Pierre Heckerl (right) - There are female Muslim rockers? Yes, there are.
• The Last Biwa Singer: A Blind Musician in History, Imagination, and Performance by Hugh Ferranti - Looks at the tradition of blind musicians in Japan, especially Yamashika Yoshiyuki (1901-1996). It’s amazing how many cultures revered blind, itinerant musicians. The Irish had a long tradition of blind harpers and fiddlers, too.
• In Search of Song: The Life and Times of Lucy Broadwood by Dorothy De Val - living in England at the beginning of the 20th century, Broadwood was instrumental in the folk music revival. She went around with many people (including one of my favorites, Percy Grainger) collecting English folk songs on wax cylinders before the music disappeared.
• The Music of Fantasy Cinema edited by Janet K. Halfyard - This book is an intersection of music and one of my other interests/hobbies, science fiction and fantasy. It's collection of essays about fantastical film music, including Jim Henson’s Labyrinth, Legend, and Edward Scissorhands.
• The Accordion in the Americas: Klezmer, Polka, Tango, Zydeco, and More! ed. by Helena Simonett - A bunch of essays about a very well-used and versatile instrument.
• Shpil: The Art of Playing Klezmer, ed. by Yale Strom - a collection of essays on how to play Klezmer music, with sections on each major instrument. I wish I had had this book when I started my own Klezmer band!
• Alice Cooper: Welcome to my Nightmare by Dave Thompson - Haven’t you always wanted to know about the real-person Born-Again-Christian golfer that spawned the famous Rock alter-ego?
• Music as Intangible Cultural Heritage: Policy, Ideology, and Practice in the Preservation of East Asian Traditions, ed. by Keith Howard - How does music become a politically protected cultural heritage, and does that actually change the music and the function of the music?

I guess I can deduce from this list that I'm interested folk music, the cultural power of music, and uncommon instruments. Any of those books sound interesting (or uninteresting) to you? Are there any music books you wish you had time to read?

Vocab: zydeco, biwa