The Origins of Music

The Origins of Music
Author: Nils L. Wallin
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 516
Release: 2001-07-27
Genre: Music
ISBN: 9780262731430

The book can be viewed as representing the birth of evolutionary biomusicology. What biological and cognitive forces have shaped humankind's musical behavior and the rich global repertoire of musical structures? What is music for, and why does every human culture have it? What are the universal features of music and musical behavior across cultures? In this groundbreaking book, musicologists, biologists, anthropologists, archaeologists, psychologists, neuroscientists, ethologists, and linguists come together for the first time to examine these and related issues. The book can be viewed as representing the birth of evolutionary biomusicology—the study of which will contribute greatly to our understanding of the evolutionary precursors of human music, the evolution of the hominid vocal tract, localization of brain function, the structure of acoustic-communication signals, symbolic gesture, emotional manipulation through sound, self-expression, creativity, the human affinity for the spiritual, and the human attachment to music itself. Contributors Simha Arom, Derek Bickerton, Steven Brown, Ellen Dissanayake, Dean Falk, David W. Frayer, Walter Freeman, Thomas Geissmann, Marc D. Hauser, Michel Imberty, Harry Jerison, Drago Kunej, François-Bernard Mâche, Peter Marler, Björn Merker, Geoffrey Miller, Jean Molino, Bruno Nettl, Chris Nicolay, Katharine Payne, Bruce Richman, Peter J.B. Slater, Peter Todd, Sandra Trehub, Ivan Turk, Maria Ujhelyi, Nils L. Wallin, Carol Whaling

The Origin of Music

The Origin of Music
Author: Herbert Spencer
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
Total Pages: 90
Release: 2016-03-19
Genre:
ISBN: 9781530643561

- The Origin of Music - "The hypothesis that music had its origin in the amatory sounds made by the male to charm the female, has the support of the popular idea that the singing of birds constitutes a kind of courtship-an idea adopted by Mr. Darwin when he says that "the male pours forth his full volume of song, in rivalry with other males, for the sake of captivating the female."...

The Origins of Musicality

The Origins of Musicality
Author: Henkjan Honing
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 365
Release: 2019-08-20
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0262538512

Interdisciplinary perspectives on the capacity to perceive, appreciate, and make music. Research shows that all humans have a predisposition for music, just as they do for language. All of us can perceive and enjoy music, even if we can't carry a tune and consider ourselves “unmusical.” This volume offers interdisciplinary perspectives on the capacity to perceive, appreciate, and make music. Scholars from biology, musicology, neurology, genetics, computer science, anthropology, psychology, and other fields consider what music is for and why every human culture has it; whether musicality is a uniquely human capacity; and what biological and cognitive mechanisms underlie it. Contributors outline a research program in musicality, and discuss issues in studying the evolution of music; consider principles, constraints, and theories of origins; review musicality from cross-cultural, cross-species, and cross-domain perspectives; discuss the computational modeling of animal song and creativity; and offer a historical context for the study of musicality. The volume aims to identify the basic neurocognitive mechanisms that constitute musicality (and effective ways to study these in human and nonhuman animals) and to develop a method for analyzing musical phenotypes that point to the biological basis of musicality. Contributors Jorge L. Armony, Judith Becker, Simon E. Fisher, W. Tecumseh Fitch, Bruno Gingras, Jessica Grahn, Yuko Hattori, Marisa Hoeschele, Henkjan Honing, David Huron, Dieuwke Hupkes, Yukiko Kikuchi, Julia Kursell, Marie-Élaine Lagrois, Hugo Merchant, Björn Merker, Iain Morley, Aniruddh D. Patel, Isabelle Peretz, Martin Rohrmeier, Constance Scharff, Carel ten Cate, Laurel J. Trainor, Sandra E. Trehub, Peter Tyack, Dominique Vuvan, Geraint Wiggins, Willem Zuidema

The Cambridge History of World Music

The Cambridge History of World Music
Author: Philip V. Bohlman
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 943
Release: 2013-12-12
Genre: Music
ISBN: 1316025667

Scholars have long known that world music was not merely the globalized product of modern media, but rather that it connected religions, cultures, languages and nations throughout world history. The chapters in this History take readers to foundational historical moments – in Europe, Oceania, China, India, the Muslim world, North and South America – in search of the connections provided by a truly world music. Historically, world music emerged from ritual and religion, labor and life-cycles, which occupy chapters on Native American musicians, religious practices in India and Indonesia, and nationalism in Argentina and Portugal. The contributors critically examine music in cultural encounter and conflict, and as the critical core of scientific theories from the Arabic Middle Ages through the Enlightenment to postmodernism. Overall, the book contains the histories of the music of diverse cultures, which increasingly become the folk, popular and classical music of our own era.

Opera and Drama

Opera and Drama
Author: Richard Wagner
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
Total Pages: 444
Release: 1995-01-01
Genre: Music
ISBN: 9780803297654

With Richard Wagner, opera reached the apex of German Romanticism. Originally published in 1851, when Wagner was in political exile, Opera and Drama outlines a new, revolutionary type of musical stage work, which would finally materialize as The Ring of the Nibelung. Wagner's music drama, as he called it, aimed at a union of poetry, drama, music, and stagecraft. ø In a rare book-length study, the composer discusses the enhancement of dramas by operatic treatment and the subjects that make the best dramas. The expected Wagnerian voltage is here: in his thinking about myths such as Oedipus, his theories about operatic goals and musical possibilities, his contempt for musical politics, his exaltation of feeling and fantasy, his reflections about genius, and his recasting of Schopenhauer. ø This edition includes the full text of volume 2 of William Ashton Ellis's 1893 translation commissioned by the London Wagner Society.

The Journey of the Sitar in Indian Classical Music

The Journey of the Sitar in Indian Classical Music
Author: Dr. Swarn Lata
Publisher: iUniverse
Total Pages: 161
Release: 2013-02-07
Genre: Music
ISBN: 1475947070

Since the thirteenth century, the sitara stringed, plucked instrument of Indiahas transformed into an instrument beloved by millions in its country of origin as well as all over the world. The Journey of the Sitar in Indian Classical Music details the origin, history, and playing styles of this unique stringed instrument. Dr. Swarn Lata relies on more than thirty-five years of experience teaching sitar to students from diverse cultures and communities as well as extensive research from libraries, museums, temples, and musicologists to compile a comprehensive guidebook filled with fascinating facts about the sitar. In a carefully organized format, Lata offers an in-depth examination of the meaning of musical instruments, the styles of different gharanas, and the place of the sitar in Indian classical music. Music is an extraordinary medium of expression that has the capability to bring the world together. This step-by-step guidebook shares a one-of-akind study of a unique instrument that produces a beautiful sound while providing an unforgettable spiritual experience to all who listen.

A Complete History of Music

A Complete History of Music
Author: W.J Baltzell
Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand
Total Pages: 458
Release: 2020-08-04
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 3752405325

Reproduction of the original: A Complete History of Music by W.J Baltzell

A History of Music for Children

A History of Music for Children
Author: Mary Richards
Publisher: National Geographic Books
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2021-09-21
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 0500652473

A global history of music for children, celebrating how and why we make music. Embark on a musical journey around the world to meet the diverse cast of composers, musicians, and performers who are famous for making the music we love. From Johann Sebastian Bach to Billie Eilish, Hildegard of Bingen to DJ Kool Herc, Wolfgang Mozart to Miriam Makeba, musicians come from many different times and places and introduce music from a wide variety of genres. Why do we make music? How does music affect our brains and emotions? These are just some of the fascinating questions addressed in A History of Music for Children, which looks at music’s transnational and boundary-breaking qualities. All over the world and throughout time, music has been recorded and passed down through different oral traditions and forms of notation. It has always been a powerful catalyst for change and connecting people. And what might the future of music hold? Exploring the technology used to listen to and create music, the authors imagine new possibilities such as computer-generated compositions and robot musicians. Woven into this absorbing narrative is a stellar cast of musicians, including Mozart and his sister Maria Anna, Clara Schumann, Maria Callas, Bob Dylan, Ravi and Anoushka Shankar, David Bowie, Nina Simone, Charlie Parker, Kraftwerk, John Cage, Beyonce´, and Mali griot Toumani Diabaté, among others. This book even includes a playlist of songs that you can listen to as you read.