More Important Than The Music

Today, jazz is considered high art, America’s national music, and the catalog of its recordings—its discography—is often taken for granted. But behind jazz discography is a fraught and highly colorful history of research, fanaticism, and the intense desire to know who played what, where, and when. This history gets its first full-length treatment in Bruce D. Epperson’s More Important Than the Music. Following the dedicated few who sought to keep jazz’s legacy organized, Epperson tells a fascinating story of archival pursuit in the face of negligence and deception, a tale that saw curses and threats regularly employed, with fisticuffs and lawsuits only slightly rarer. Epperson examines the documentation of recorded jazz from its casual origins as a novelty in the 1920s and ’30s, through the overwhelming deluge of 12-inch vinyl records in the middle of the twentieth century, to the use of computers by today’s discographers. Though he focuses much of his attention on comprehensive discographies, he also examines the development of a variety of related listings, such as buyer’s guides and library catalogs, and he closes with a look toward discography’s future. From the little black book to the full-featured online database, More Important Than the Music offers a history not just of jazz discography but of the profoundly human desire to preserve history itself.

Today, jazz is considered high art, America’s national music, and the catalog of its recordings—its discography—is often taken for granted. But behind jazz discography is a fraught and highly colorful history of research, fanaticism, and the intense desire to know who played what, where, and when. This history gets its first full-length treatment in Bruce D. Epperson’s More Important Than the Music. Following the dedicated few who sought to keep jazz’s legacy organized, Epperson tells a fascinating story of archival pursuit in the face of negligence and deception, a tale that saw curses and threats regularly employed, with fisticuffs and lawsuits only slightly rarer. Epperson examines the documentation of recorded jazz from its casual origins as a novelty in the 1920s and ’30s, through the overwhelming deluge of 12-inch vinyl records in the middle of the twentieth century, to the use of computers by today’s discographers. Though he focuses much of his attention on comprehensive discographies, he also examines the development of a variety of related listings, such as buyer’s guides and library catalogs, and he closes with a look toward discography’s future. From the little black book to the full-featured online database, More Important Than the Music offers a history not just of jazz discography but of the profoundly human desire to preserve history itself.

What’s So Important About Music Education? presents a new philosophy of music education for the United States, rooted in history and current perspectives from ethnomusicology. J. Scott Goble explores the societal effects of the nation's foundations in democracy and capitalism, the constitutional separation of church and state, and the rise of recording, broadcast, and computer technologies. He shows how these and other factors have brought about changes in the ways music teachers and concerned others have conceptualized music and its importance in education. In demonstrating how many of the personal and societal benefits of musical engagement have come to be obscured in the nation’s increasingly diverse public forum, Goble argues for the importance of musical engagement in human life and for the importance of music in education. An ideal text for courses in music education foundations, the book concludes with recommendations for teaching the musical practices of the nation's cultural communities in schools in terms of their respective cultural meanings.

Winner, ASA (American Society for Aesthetics) 2023 Outstanding Monograph Prize For Theodore Gracyk meaning in popular music depends as much on the context of reception and performer's intentions as on established musical and semantic practices. Songs are structures that serve as the scaffolding for meaning production, influenced by the performance decisions of the performer and their intentions. Arguing against prevailing theories of meaning that ignore the power of the performance, Gracyk champions the contextual relevance of the performer as well as novel messaging through creative repurposing of recordings. Extending the philosophical insight that meaning is a function of use, Gracyk explains how both the performance persona and the personal life of a song's performer can contribute to (or undercut) ethical and political aspects of a performance or recording. Using Carly Simon's “You're So Vain”, Pink Floyd, the emergence of the musical genre of post-punk and the practice of “cover” versions, Gracyk explores the multiple, sometimes contradictory, notions of authenticity applied to popular music and the conditions for meaningful communication. He places popular music within larger cultural contexts and examines how assigning a performance or recording to one music genre rather than another has implications for what it communicates. Informed by a mix of philosophy of art and philosophy of language, Gracyk's entertaining study of popular music constructs a theoretical basis for a philosophy of meaning for songs.

This collection of papers on functional syntax shows the development of a specific stream of functional linguistics initiated by Susumu Kuno of Harvard University. Inspired by Prague School linguists such as Jan Firbas and Vilém Mathesius, Kuno developed a more comprehensive and theory-oriented approach and linked it with the American formalist approach of generative grammar. His approach is thus a unique combination of functionalism and formalism that constantly urges the promotion of interactions between these two major trends in linguistics. The papers in this collection coherently deal with functional aspects of linguistics from a wide variety of perspectives such as theoretical, applicational, experimental and diachronic aspects, incorporating the functional concept advocated by Kuno.

The field of Music Psychology has grown dramatically in the past 20 years, to emerge from being just a minor topic to one of mainstream interest within the brain sciences. However, until now, there has been no comprehensive reference text in the field. The Oxford Handbook of Music Psychology is a landmark text providing, for the first time ever, a comprehensive overview of the latest developments in this fast-growing area of research. With contributions from over fifty experts in the field, the range and depth of coverage is unequalled. All the chapters combine a solid review of the relevant literature with well-reasoned arguments and robust discussions of the major findings, as well as original insights and suggestions for future work. Written by leading experts, the 52 chapters are divided into 11 sections covering both experimental and theoretical perspectives, each edited by an internationally recognised authority Ten sections each present chapters that focus on specific areas of music psychology: - the origins and functions of music - music perception - responses to music - music and the brain - musical development - learning musical skills - musical performance - composition and improvisation - the role of music in our everyday lives - music therapy and conceptual frameworks In each section, expert authors critically review the literature, highlight current issues, and explore possibilities for the future. The final section examines how in recent years the study of music psychology has broadened to include a range of other scientific disciplines. It considers the way that the research has developed in relation to technological advances, fostering links across the field and providing an overview of the areas where the field needs further development in the future. The Oxford Handbook of Music Psychology will be the essential reference text for students and researchers across psychology and neuroscience.

A musical composer, guitar rocker, and lyric opera singer team up to write this sensational book on songwriting. This book includes everything you want to know about the core competencies of songwriting, elements of music, and lyrics. Features include writing song lyrics, crafting musical compositions, musical styles, getting a contract, sustaining a career, publishers and agents, recording, and even how to survive in the music industry. No matter what music genre you desire---blues, country, hip hop, gospel, punk, classical, alternative, jingles, or rock---this is the book for you. You will find this fascinating book filled with tips, quotes from famous songwriters and musicians, and numerous stories on songwriting that will keep you fully engaged.

From Nelson George, supervising producer and writer of the hit Netflix series, "The Get Down, Hip Hop America is the definitive account of the society-altering collision between black youth culture and the mass media.