Bücher der Reihe SOAS Studies in Music

The ??yat al-ma?l?b by Ibn Kurr is the only theoretical text of any substance that can be considered representative of musicological discourse in Cairo during the first half of the fourteenth century CE. Owen Wright provides the first modern edition of the text itself, together with a detailed glossary.

Bands structured around western wind instruments are among the most widespread instrumental ensembles in the world. Although these ensembles draw upon European military traditions that spread globally through colonialism, militarism and missionary work.

This book explores art song as an emblem of musical modernity in early twentieth-century East Asia and Australia. It appraises the lyrical power of art song - a solo song set to a poem in the local language in Western art music style accompanied by piano - as a vehicle for creating a localized musical identity, while embracing cosmopolitan visions. The study of art song reveals both the tension and the intimacy between cosmopolitanism and local politics and culture. In 20 essays, the book includes overviews of art song development written by scholars from each of the five locales of Japan, Korea, China, Taiwan, and Australia, reflecting perspectives of both established narratives and uncharted historiography. The Art Song in East Asia and Australia, 1900 to 1950 proposes listening to the songs of our neighbours across cultural and linguistic boundaries. Recognizing the colonial constraints experienced by art song composers, it hears trans-colonial expressions addressing musical modernity, both in earlier times and now. Readers of this volume will include musicologists, ethnomusicologists, singers, musicians, and researchers concerned with modernity in the fields of poetry and history, working within local, regional, and transnational contexts.

The Routledge Companion to Music and Human Rights is a collection of case studies spanning a wide range of concerns about music and human rights in response to intensifying challenges to the wellbeing of individuals, peoples, and the planet.

Offering a tribute to ethnomusicologist Robert Garfias, this title explores the originating encounter in field work of ethnomusicologists with the musicians and musical traditions they study. It provides case studies from all over the world, including biographies of important musicians from the Philippines, Turkey, Lapland, and Korea.

What is it about the history, geographical position and cultures of the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia that has made music such a potent and powerful agent? This volume presents the first direct look at the complex relationship between music and power across a range of musical genres and countries. Discourses of power in the region centre on some of the most contested social issues, most notably in relation to nationhood, gender and religion. Individual chapters examine the ways in which music serves as a forum for playing out issues of power, ideology, resistance and subversion. How does music become a space for promoting - or conversely, resisting or subverting - particular ideologies or positions of authority? How does it accrue symbolic power in ways that are very particular, perhaps unique? And how does music become a site of social control or, alternatively, a vehicle for agency and empowerment, at times overt and at others highly subtle? What is it about music that facilitates, and sometimes disrupts, the exercise and flows of power? Who controls such flows, how and for what purposes? In asking such questions in the context of countries such as Afghanistan, Egypt, Iran, Tunisia and Tajikistan, the book draws on a wide range of relevant theoretical and critical ideas, and many disciplines including ethnomusicology, anthropology, sociology, politics, Middle Eastern studies, globalization studies, gender studies and cultural and media studies. The countries and areas explored share a great deal in historical and cultural terms, including a legacy of colonial and neo-colonial encounters and predominantly Judeo-Muslim religious traditions. It is hoped that the volume will contribute ultimately to a richer understanding of the role that music plays in these societies.

This anthology addresses the modern musical culture of interwar Osaka and its surrounding Hanshin region. Modernity as experienced in this locale, with its particular historical, geographic and demographic character, and its established traditions of music and performance, gave rise to configurations of the new, the traditional and the hybrid that were distinct from their Tokyo counterparts. The Taisho and early Showa periods, from 1912 to the early 1940s, saw profound changes in Japanese musical life. Consumption of both traditional Japanese and Western music was transformed as public concert performances, music journalism, and music marketing permeated daily life. The new bourgeoisie saw Western music, particularly the piano and its repertoire, as the symbol of a desirable and increasingly affordable modernity. Orchestras and opera troupes were established, which in turn created a need for professional conductors, and both jazz and a range of hybrid popular music styles became viable bases for musical livelihood. Recording technology proliferated; by the early 1930s, record players and SP discs were no longer luxury commodities, radio broadcasts reached all levels of society, and ΓÇÖtalkiesΓÇÖ with music soundtracks were avidly consumed. With the perceived need for music that suited ''modern life'', the seeds for the pre-eminent position of Euro-American music in post-Second-World war Japan were sown. At the same time many indigenous musical genres continued to thrive, but were hardly immune to the effects of modernization; in exploring new musical media and techniques drawn from Western music, performer-composers initiated profound changes in composition and performance practice within traditional genres. This volume is the first to draw together research on the interwar musical culture of the Osaka region and addresses comprehensively both Western and non-Western musical practices and genres, questions the common perception of their being wholly separate domains

Hindi films and film songs have dominated Indian public culture, and have made their presence felt strongly in many global contexts. This book demonstrates that in terms of the production process, musical style, and commercial life, the parent film powerfully shapes and defines the film songs and their success.

This anthology addresses the modern musical culture of interwar Osaka and its surrounding Hanshin region. It is the first to draw together research on the interwar musical culture of the Osaka region and addresses comprehensively both Western and non-Western musical practices and genres.

The musical genre of taarab is played for entertainment at weddings and other festive occasions all along the Swahili Coast in East Africa. In this study Janet Topp Fargion traces the development of the genre in Zanzibar, from the late nineteenth century to the end of the twentieth.

P'ansori is the quintessential traditional Korean musical drama, in which epic tales are sung and narrated by a solo singer accompanied by a drummer. Drawing on her extensive research in Korea and its diasporas, Haekyung Um describes and analyses the creative processes of p'ansori, weaving into her discussion musical.

The early-Republican era (1923-1938) was a major period of musical and cultural change in Turkey. Representing more than twenty years of research, Alaturka: Style in Turkish Music is a study of the significance of style in Turkish music and, in particular.

The last quarter of the twentieth century and the early years of the twenty-first saw a steady stream of new songbook publications and recordings in Yiddish - newly composed songs, well-known singers performing nostalgic favourites, American popular songs translated into Yiddish, theatre songs, and even a couple of forays into Yiddish hip hop.

Ma'luf, which literally means 'familiar' or 'customary,' bears the auditory traces of music brought to North Africa by Muslim and Jewish refugees escaping the Christian reconquista of Spain between the tenth and seventeenth centuries.

Explores the policy, ideology and practice of preservation and promotion of East Asian intangible cultural heritage, focusing on music traditions. This title intends to situate considerations of Japan, Korea, China and Taiwan together - states that were amongst the first to establish legislation and systems for indigenous traditions.

Marie-Galante is a small island situated in the Caribbean to the south of Guadeloupe. This book focuses on kadril dance and gwo ka drumming, two musical practices on the island with which Marie-Galantais construct unique perceptions of self in relation, specifically, to Africa and France.

Explains how musical art is an essential part of the identity of the Japanese geisha rather than a secondary feature. This book details the musical genres and traditions with which geisha have been involved during their artistic history, as well as their position within the traditional arts society.

Providing assessments of John Blacking's work, this book talks about the manipulation of traditional performance settings in pursuit of political or social strategies; children's music acquisition as an indicator of the innate musical capacity of humans; the biology of music making; the creation of pleasure, pain and power during dance; and more.

What is it about the history, geographical position and cultures of the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia that has made music such a potent and powerful agent? This book looks at the complex relationship between music and power across a range of musical genres and countries.

Japanese folk performing arts incorporate a body of entertainments that range from the ritual to the secular. They may be the ritual dances at Shinto shrines performed to summon and entertain deities. This title provides an introductory guide to the major performance types as understood by Japanese scholars.

Since the early 1990s, Okinawan music has experienced an extraordinary boom in popularity throughout Japan. In particular, the Yaeyama region in the south of Okinawa has long been known as a region rich in performing arts. This title explores some of the reasons for the high profile of Yaeyaman music, both inside and outside Yaeyama.

Examines how traditional and modern elements interact in the practice, reception and functions of wind music, or shengguan, at monasteries in Wutaishan, one of China's four holy mountains of Buddhism. This book provides an insight into the political and economic history of Wutaishan and its music.