You may have to register before you can download all our books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
Musical imagination and creativity are amongst the most abstract and complex aspects of musical behaviour. This book is a wide ranging, multidisciplinary review of the latest theory and research on musical creativity, performance and perception by some of the most eminent scholars in their respective disciplines.
The Musical Ear: Oral Tradition in the USA provides a wide-ranging look at the role played by music that is passed on orally without the use of notation, in the folk, popular and art musics of North America. In order to study the process and to find the common elements, McLucas provides an overview of recent research on the brain and memory in order to help the reader understand the inner workings of oral tradition.
Music is a tremendously powerful channel through which people develop their personal and social identities. Music is used to communicate emotions, thoughts, political statements, social relationships, and physical expressions. But, just as language can mediate the construction and negotiation of developing identities, so music can also be a means of communication through which aspects of people's identities are constructed. Music can have a profound influence on our developing sense of identity, our values, and our beliefs, be it from rock music, classical music, or jazz. Musical identities (MacDonald, Hargreaves and Miell, 2002) was unique in being in being one of the first books to explore...
It is a truism in teaching choral conducting that the director should look like s/he wishes the choir to sound. But how can these forms of physical communication be explained? Do they belong to a pre-cultural realm of primate social bonding, or do they rely on the context and conventions of a particular choral culture? Is body language an inherent part of musical performance styles, or does it come afterwards, in response to music? This book explores these questions at both theoretical and practical levels. Its findings will be of interest both to those engaged in the study of music as a cultural practice, and to practitioners involved in a choral conducting context that increasingly demands fluency in a variety of styles.
What do expert drummers do? Why do they do it? Is there anything creative about it? If so, how might that creativity inform their practice and that of others in related artistic spheres? Applying ideas from cultural psychology to findings from research into the creative behaviors of a specific subset of popular music instrumentalists, Bill Bruford demonstrates the ways in which expert drummers experience creativity in performance and offers fresh insights into in-the-moment interactional processes in music. An expert practitioner himself, Dr. Bruford draws on a cohort of internationally renowned, peak-career professionals and his own experience to guide the reader through the many dimensions of creativity in drummer performance.
How do children learn--or learn about--music? How do national cultures and education systems affect children's musical learning?Combining information, analysis and evaluation from fifteen countries, Musical Development and Learning answers these questions. This unique survey, written by an international team of experts, not only provides a global perspective on musical education and development but also a comparative framework designed to enable teachers, parents and researchers to learn from practice and policy in other countries.
'A boy sings...a beautiful thing' (www.boychoirs.org), but is it? What kinds of boy, singing what kinds of music and to whom? Martin Ashley presents a unique consideration of boys' singing that shows the high voice to be historically, culturally and physiologically more problematic even than is commonly assumed. Through Ashley's extensive conversations with young performers and analysis of their reception by 'peer audiences', the research reveals that the common supposition that 'boys don't want to sound like girls' is far from adequate in explaining the 'missing males' syndrome that can perplex choir directors. The book intertwines the study of singing with the study of identity to create a...
The two volumes of The Oxford Handbook of Music Education offer a comprehensive overview of the many facets of musical experience, behavior and development in relation to the diverse variety of educational contexts in which they occur. In these volumes, an international list of contributors update and redefine the discipline through fresh and innovative principles and approaches to music learning and teaching.
Music Learning and Teaching in Infancy, Childhood, and Adolescence explores a comprehensive array of key issues, concepts, and debates related to music learning and teaching in three phases of a child's development. It provides a broad framework for understanding the distinct needs and perspectives of infants, children, and adolescents as they relate to music.
Music and the Mind brings together an outstanding, international team of authorities from the fields of music and psychology, to celebrate the life and work of John Sloboda. In addition the book reviews and takes stock of where the field of music psychology stands 25 years after Sloboda's classic work 'The Musical Mind' first appeared.