Studies In Music From The University Of Western Ontario

Sociology and Music Education addresses a pressing need to provide a sociological foundation for understanding music education. The music education community, academic and professional, has become increasingly aware of the need to locate the issues facing music educators within a broader sociological context. This is required both as a means to deeper understanding of the issues themselves and as a means to raising professional consciousness of the macro issues of power and politics by which education is often constrained. The book outlines some introductory concepts in sociology and music education and then draws together seminal theoretical insights with examples from practice with innovative applications of sociological theory to the field of music education. The editor has taken great care to select an international community of experienced researchers and practitioners as contributors who reflect current trends in the sociology of music education in Europe and the UK. The book concludes with an Afterword by Christopher Small.

Recording Classical Music presents the fundamental principles of digitally recording and editing acoustic music in ambient spaces, focusing on stereo microphone techniques that will help musicians understand how to translate "live" environments into recorded sound. The book covers theory and the technical aspects of recording from sound source to delivery: the nature of soundwaves and their behavior in rooms, microphone types and the techniques of recording in stereo, proximity and phase, file types, tracking and critical listening, loudness, meters, and the post-production processes of EQ, control of dynamic range (compressors, limiters, dynamic EQ, de-essers), and reverberation (both digital reflection simulation and convolution), with some discussion of commercially available digital plugins. The final part of the book applies this knowledge to common recording situations, showcasing not only strategies for recording soloists and small ensembles, along with case studies of several recordings, but also studio techniques that can enhance or replace the capture of performances in ambient spaces, such as close miking and the addition of artificial reverberation. Recording Classical Music provides the tools necessary for anyone interested in classical music production to track, mix, and deliver audio recordings themselves or to supervise the work of others.

From prehistoric bone flutes to pipe organs to digital synthesizers, instruments have been important to musical cultures around the world. Yet, how do instruments affect musical organization? And how might they influence players' bodies and minds? Music at Hand explores these questions with a distinctive blend of music theory, psychology, and philosophy. Practicing an instrument, of course, builds bodily habits and skills. But it also develops connections between auditory and motor regions in a player's brain. These multi-sensory links are grounded in particular instrumental interfaces. They reflect the ways that an instrument converts action into sound, and the ways that it coordinates physical and tonal space. Ultimately, these connections can shape listening, improvisation, or composition. This means that pianos, guitars, horns, and bells are not simply tools for making notes. Such technologies, as creative prostheses, also open up possibilities for musical action, perception, and cognition. Throughout the book, author Jonathan De Souza examines diverse musical case studies-from Beethoven to blues harmonica, from Bach to electronic music-introducing novel methods for the analysis of body-instrument interaction. A companion website supports these analytical discussions with audiovisual examples, including motion-capture videos and performances by the author. Written in lucid prose, Music at Hand offers substantive insights for music scholars, while remaining accessible to non-specialist readers. This wide-ranging book will engage music theorists and historians, ethnomusicologists, organologists, composers, and performers-but also psychologists, philosophers, media theorists, and anyone who is curious about how musical experience is embodied and conditioned by technology.

First Published in 1997. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Bob Wiseman believes most things in life are universal or, as Lauryn Hill says, everything is everything. Bearing in mind that advice, Wiseman writes about finding the link between music and daily life, like what is common between Mary Margaret O’Hara, hiding around the corner with the lights turned off in order to record herself and his 5-year-old insisting he stop hurrying to her dance lesson and marvel at the fluff ball she is blowing toward the ceiling. Each entry is unique and compellingly written, but the themes throughout — on improvisational music, life lessons, and conflict — are ubiquitous.