Our Books - Ideas That Shape Scholarship

From personal anecdotes to philosophical inquiries, ‘What Punk Taught Me’ gathers essays from fifteen different contributors whose lives have all been touched upon by punk culture in some meaningful way. Many years after hearing their first blast of distorted punk guitar as a youth or teenagers, these individuals (like so many others) have come to realize later in life that their experience of punk has provided them with an incredibly valuable tutelage in becoming an artist, writer, educator, or overall human being. For these contributors, the experience of punk has been the source of community and ethics, philosophy and aesthetics, or even an attitude and identity. This anthology explores how various individuals have connected with punk in a variety of distinctive ways—through music, venues, fashion, art, writing, activism, collecting culture, rebellion, subversion, or DIY projects. These essays document the lessons of punk, bringing together people from a wide array of backgrounds. Each of them shares their own unique story of what punk has taught them – how those experiences have been formative in their lives and how punk has supported their personal and professional development. These narratives serve as a reflection on the myriad influences of punk – as a methodology, a philosophy, an ontology, an aesthetic, a strategy, a cultural phenomenon, or a worldview. The culmination of this collection provides a deeper understanding of the individualized and personal influences of punk but also the wider arch and overall legacy of punk culture. Through this analysis, an explicit correlation is drawn between the world of punk, the educations it provides, and the ripples of its wider socio-cultural impact.

The objective of this book is to disseminate the rich history of the guitar in Latin America, with special emphasis on Mexico, covering a period that goes from the viceregal age to the present day. The collaborators are some of the most outstanding guitarists and researchers of the instrument from Chile, Mexico, Guatemala and the United States. The chapters aim to explore the composers, performers, repertoire and construction of the guitar since the sixteenth century in Latin America and the US, but also to comprehend the social role and economic ecosystem of the instrument. Due to the long chronology proposed, the book not only deals with the modern guitar, but also with the baroque guitar, and there is even a chapter dedicated to the traditional instruments that have historically been heirs to the Spanish guitar. The originality of this work resides in the use of historical and humanistic tools. It is based on a current bibliography, and it is one of the first books published in English on the history of the guitar in Latin America.

THAWZEN Moments: Autoethnographic Piano Teaching and Learning Stories is a collection of 46 vignettes, digitally edited photographs, poems, and reflective-reflexive narratives about children’s imaginative, creative, and magical lifeworlds of exploring music and piano playing. There are many ways of learning to play the piano, THAWZEN different ways of re/imagining music. There are many stories to share with you, never-ending questions to explore together. The stories included in this book are our happy piano play, our shared musical journeys in re/creating more meaningful and joyful piano teaching and learning experiences.

'Transformational analysis in practice' is a Must-Have for everyone working in the field or aspiring to develop their music-analytical and theoretical skills in transformational theory. This co-authored book puts together a plethora of analytical studies, diverse both in the repertoires covered and the methodologies employed. It is a much-needed anthology in this sub-field of music analysis, which has been developing and growing in recent years, reaching ever wider outlets in English-speaking countries and beyond, from dedicated conference panels to YouTube videos. The book is divided into four parts based on the repertoires under discussion. Part I encompasses four analytical studies on familiar composers from the European Romanticism of the nineteenth century. Part II analyzes the music of less familiar composers from Brazil and Turkey. Part III offers four contrasting ways to adapt the analytical capabilities of neo-Riemannian theory to the post-tonal music of the twentieth century. Catering to the interests of jazz performers and researchers, as well as those into popular music production, Part IV offers transformational analytical approaches to both notated and improvised jazz, emphasizing John Coltrane’s performance. Providing an invaluable synthesis of a wide range of analytical studies, this book will be an essential companion for many musicology students, as well as for performers and composers.

A través de un recorrido sobre prácticas musicales gestadas en diversas localidades iberoamericanas, desde finales del siglo XIX hasta la actualidad, 'Escenas Diversas: Drama, Humor y Música' hace de la diversidad de las escenas musicales, una de sus mayores fortalezas. En esta obra, el concepto de “escena” se convierte en un ámbito discursivo oportuno para construir aproximaciones dinámicas y flexibles sobre el quehacer musical, ya sea del pasado histórico o del accionar reciente. Este volumen constituye un compendio de estudios de caso acontecidos en ciudades de España, Argentina, México, Cuba, Venezuela y Colombia, con el objetivo de contribuir a los debates actuales sobre escenas musicales desde su propia diversidad, asociada a elementos discursivos propios del drama social y el humor inteligente. Desde su individualidad, en cada capítulo se busca conciliar una mirada histórica a escenas pasadas y su pervivencia en documentos musicales de diversa índole. Además, se aborda la creciente virtualización y desterritorialización física de las escenas musicales de alcance glocal, a raíz de la actual situación pandémica. De gran interés para todo aquel atraído por los estudios culturales, la música y los estudios latinoamericanos, 'Escenas Diversas' contribuye a la creación de nuevas y múltiples instancias comunicativas para la socialización de conocimientos especializados sobre nuestras escenas musicales.

In recent years classical music has become a test case for debates over the future of culture. As times have changed, the value traditionally placed on this music has been challenged on social rather than aesthetic grounds. Lovers of classical music have been asked how its privileged history can be reconciled with growing demands for social justice and social inclusiveness. They have been asked how the music’s standing as one of the great accomplishments of the West can be reconciled with the many injustices on which those accomplishments in part depended. How can the future of classical music escape the darker shadows of its past? ‘Classical Music in a Changing World: Crisis and Vital Signs’ addresses the crisis provoked by such questions in two complementary ways. Several of the chapters show how the classical music world is already grappling with the crisis, and finding vital signs beyond the borders of the music’s traditional European strongholds: in Turkey from Ottoman times to the present, in Colombia, and in a Black American film. Other chapters identify areas that still need improvement, especially on behalf of female and LGBTQ+ musicians, and suggest how advances can be made both on concert stages and in schools. This volume, which opens with an introduction by Alberto Nones that contextualizes the book and outlines the main arguments of its chapters, contains an essay by Lawrence Kramer that examines the place of classical music in the history of consciousness—a history now changing rapidly—and concludes with a Postscript written by the two editors. The writing in this volume will be accessible to a wide audience, including scholars and students, professionals and amateurs, performers and listeners. Teachers will find it a source of lively classroom debate, and scholars a source of learning outside the usual arenas. The book’s “vital signs” include the accompanying audio tracks (available for download at: https://vernonpress. com/book/1281), which feature vibrant music-making from a diverse range of performers and composers.

In recent years classical music has become a test case for debates over the future of culture. As times have changed, the value traditionally placed on this music has been challenged on social rather than aesthetic grounds. Lovers of classical music have been asked how its privileged history can be reconciled with growing demands for social justice and social inclusiveness. They have been asked how the music’s standing as one of the great accomplishments of the West can be reconciled with the many injustices on which those accomplishments in part depended. How can the future of classical music escape the darker shadows of its past? ‘Classical Music in a Changing World: Crisis and Vital Signs’ addresses the crisis provoked by such questions in two complementary ways. Several of the chapters show how the classical music world is already grappling with the crisis, and finding vital signs beyond the borders of the music’s traditional European strongholds: in Turkey from Ottoman times to the present, in Colombia, and in a Black American film. Other chapters identify areas that still need improvement, especially on behalf of female and LGBTQ+ musicians, and suggest how advances can be made both on concert stages and in schools. This volume, which opens with an introduction by Alberto Nones that contextualizes the book and outlines the main arguments of its chapters, contains an essay by Lawrence Kramer that examines the place of classical music in the history of consciousness—a history now changing rapidly—and concludes with a Postscript written by the two editors. The writing in this volume will be accessible to a wide audience, including scholars and students, professionals and amateurs, performers and listeners. Teachers will find it a source of lively classroom debate, and scholars a source of learning outside the usual arenas. The book’s “vital signs” include the accompanying audio tracks (available for download at: https://vernonpress. com/book/1281), which feature vibrant music-making from a diverse range of performers and composers.

‘The Alphorn through the Eyes of the Classical Composer’ is the first and definitive book to be written about the alphorn in English. It has been written with English-speaking readers in mind, as it examines the extensive interest of primarily non-Swiss composers, writers and artists in the alphorn as a symbol of the Alps, the influence and significance of the alphorn in culture, literature and the arts across the globe, and the ways in which the instrument has been specifically utilised by the Swiss as the iconic representation of their country. This book also explores the use of the musical language of the alphorn call, to ascertain why and how such references as those of Berlioz or Beethoven can convey so much meaning. Dr Jones seeks out what it is that a composer brings into the concert hall, the theatre, the opera house, the church, or the drawing room by such a quotation, to what heritage they are referring, and upon what basis there are grounds for an assumption that such a reference will be understood by an audience. The book, which will be of interest to researchers in Swiss cultural studies and ethnomusicology, builds on Dr Jones’s research and PhD thesis. The six chapters deal with a variety of topics, including a basic introduction to the alphorn and an exploration of the promotion of the instrument as the symbol of Switzerland, as well as the reasons behind symbolic references to alphorn motifs by European and British composers in concert repertoire, jazz and film.

‘The Alphorn through the Eyes of the Classical Composer’ is the first and definitive book to be written about the alphorn in English. It has been written with English-speaking readers in mind, as it examines the extensive interest of primarily non-Swiss composers, writers and artists in the alphorn as a symbol of the Alps, the influence and significance of the alphorn in culture, literature and the arts across the globe, and the ways in which the instrument has been specifically utilised by the Swiss as the iconic representation of their country. This book also explores the use of the musical language of the alphorn call, to ascertain why and how such references as those of Berlioz or Beethoven can convey so much meaning. Dr Jones seeks out what it is that a composer brings into the concert hall, the theatre, the opera house, the church, or the drawing room by such a quotation, to what heritage they are referring, and upon what basis there are grounds for an assumption that such a reference will be understood by an audience. The book, which will be of interest to researchers in Swiss cultural studies and ethnomusicology, builds on Dr Jones’s research and PhD thesis. The six chapters deal with a variety of topics, including a basic introduction to the alphorn and an exploration of the promotion of the instrument as the symbol of Switzerland, as well as the reasons behind symbolic references to alphorn motifs by European and British composers in concert repertoire, jazz and film.