Ethnic And Cultural Identity In Music And Song Lyrics

Ethnic and Cultural Identity in Music and Song Lyrics looks at a variety of popular and folk music from around the world, with examples of British, Slovene, Chinese and American songs, poems and musicals. Charles Taylor says that “it is through story that we find or devise ways of living bearably in time”; one can make the same claim for music. Inexorably tied to time, to the measure of the beat, but freed from time by the polysemous potential of the words, song rapidly becomes “our” song, helping to cement memory and community, to make the past comprehensible and the present bearable. The authors of the fifteen chapters in this volume demonstrate how lyrics set to music can reflect, express and construct collective identities, both traditional and contemporary.

Music, Popular Culture, Identities is a collection of sixteen essays that will appeal to a wide range of readers with interests in popular culture and music, cultural studies, and ethnomusicology. Organized around the central theme of music as an expression of local, ethnic, social and other identities, the essays touch upon popular traditions and contemporary forms from several different regions of the world: political engagement in Italian popular music; flamenco in Spain; the challenge of traditional music in Bulgaria; boerenrock and rap in Holland; Israeli extreme heavy metal; jazz and pop in South Africa, and musical hybridity and politics in Côte d’Ivoire. The collection includes essays about Latin America: on the Mexican corrido, the Caribbean, popular dance music in Cuba, and bossanova from Brazil. Communities of a cultural diaspora in North America are discussed in essays on Somali immigrant and refugee youth and Iranians in exile in the US. Grounded in cultural theory and a specialized knowledge of a particular popular musical practice, each author has written a critical study on the mix of music and identity in a particular social practice and context.

Musicians, teachers and those who love music will find in this volume some answers to the question of how gender affects its practice, performance and reception. What was performing like for female rock singers in the 20th century? How did Bowie change our concept of performer identity? Just how sexist are the lyrics in glam metal songs? Is rap as homophobic as has been thought? Can female metal singers growl as well as men? Are LGBTQ+ issues reflected in 21st century music? Did Canadian New Wave groups tackle major social issues? How do Shakespeare and Joyce use musical puns and allusions? From Indian thumri, through French opera, Irish folk songs, and pop, all the way to metal and rap, the 17 contributions gathered here will challenge and inform, while confirming that our music shapes our habits, language, ideas and gendered selves.

This book provides a broad introduction to the scientific and psychological study of music, exploring how music is processed by our brains, affects us emotionally, shapes our personal and cultural identities, and can be used in therapeutic and educational contexts. Why are some people tone deaf and others musical savants? What do our musical preferences say about our personality and the culture in which we were raised? Why do certain songs remind us so strongly of particular people, places, or events? How can music be therapeutically used to help those with autism, Parkinson's, and other medical conditions? The Science and Psychology of Music: From Beethoven at the Office to Beyoncé at the Gym answers these and other questions. This book provides a broad and accessible introduction to the fascinating field of music psychology. Despite its name, music psychology includes a number of fields, including neuroscience, psychology, social psychology, sociology, and health. Through a collection of thematically organized chapters, readers will discover how our brains recognize elements of music, how music can affect us and shape our identities, and the many real-world applications for such information.

"Due to significant political and social changes over the last decade in their countries and worldwide, many scholars in the Nordic nations and in Southern Africa have been researching on 'music and identity' - an area with a paucity of literature. It is our hope that this book will be beneficial to scholars interested in the field of music and identity. This volume is the result of the Swedish South African Research Network (SSARN) project, funded from 2004-2006 by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA) and the National Research Foundation (NRF) of South Africa, under the theme 'Music and Identity'. SSARN was founded by Stig-Magnus Thorsén of the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, in 2002 when he invited Nordic and Southern African scholars to participate in a research group focusing broadly on the topic 'Music and Identity'"--Publisher's website.

- Directly relevant to the needs of teachers and researchers in music, musicology, ethnomusicology and social anthropology. This book examines the significance of music in the construction of identities and ethnicities, and suggests ways to understand music as social practice. The authors focus on the role of music in the construction of national and regional identities; the media and 'postmodern identity'; concepts of authenticity; aesthetics; meaning; performance; 'world music'; and the use of music as a focus for discursive evocations of 'place'. The chapters tackle a wide range of subjects including 16th century etiquette, Celtic music and Chopin. The volume will be of interest to social anthropologists, and those working in the fields of cultural studies, politics, gender studies, musicology and folklore.

Music is used to sell everything from cars to political candidates. How can words and melody so successfully manipulate us? This volume provides answers by examining the ways in which music of various genres, including folk, popular music, rock, and rap, is used to protest and to promote structures of political, commercial, and religious authority. Students, teachers, musicians, historians, policy makers, and fans of music and popular culture will find answers to questions such as: How does music help to build national identity, foster a sense of patriotism, and reflect changes in society? What role did music play in building socialism in Czechoslovakia and in Belarus’ 2020 democratic movement? What are the most important features of Ukrainian songs of resistance? The book highlights the role of music in the feminist movement by analysing the Riot Grrrl movement and the history of Olivia Records, as well as the use of music as propaganda in the education system and as “purity propaganda” in religion. Two chapters focus on famous American protest singers, Woody Gurthie and Phil Ochs, and one highlights an ex-socialist society’s response to David Bowie’s music.

Geordie Stylizations is a short-focused research work which builds on the renovated interest on the nexus between accent-identity-prestige-prejudice, offering an analysis of celebrities' use of the Geordie variety in a series of public performances as a reflection instrument for scholars, but also for neophyte readers with an interest in Sociolinguistics, Pragmatics, Celebrity Studies, Cultural Studies, Anthropology, Sociology and Gender Studies. Of interest are the individual instances of Geordieness performed on specific occasions, i.e. the ways in which people construct their unique and constantly evolving language repertoires sometimes appropriating some, other times distancing themselves from, linguistic traits that would characterize them as members of specific communities in other people's perceptions. The material investigated is provided by the artistic world: engaging with the arts and culture, and in particular with music, is not just a solitary event, but also a participatory one which many people feel is worthwhile sharing through ordinary conversation and interaction via social networks every day.