Böcker i SOAS Studies in Music-serien

Presents a series of case studies that demonstrate the persistence of Japanese sung narratives in a multiplicity of genres over ten centuries, including the way they flourished and declined, together with factors contributing to development and change in narrative performance.

"First edition published by Ashgate 2004."

The 'Special Period' in Cuba was an extended period of economic depression starting in the early 1990s, characterised by the collapse of revolutionary values and social norms, and a way of life conducted by improvised solutions for survival, including hustling and sex-work. During this period there developed a thriving.

Addressing a number of issues regarding the nature of musical creativity, the author explores both the discourses through which ideas about creativity are constructed, exchanged and negotiated within this tradition, and the practice by which new music comes into being.

Through an analysis both broad and deep of primary and secondary sources, ethnography, iconography and current performance practice, this enquiry undertakes a critical approach to the history of kathak dance and presents new data about hereditary performing artists, gendered contexts and practices, and postcolonial cultural reclamation.

The musical genre of taarab is played for entertainment at weddings and other festive occasions all along the Swahili Coast in East Africa. In this study Janet Topp Fargion traces the development of the genre in Zanzibar, from the late nineteenth century to the end of the twentieth.

The early-Republican era (1923-1938) was a major period of musical and cultural change in Turkey. Representing more than twenty years of research, Alaturka: Style in Turkish Music is a study of the significance of style in Turkish music and, in particular.

P'ansori is the quintessential traditional Korean musical drama, in which epic tales are sung and narrated by a solo singer accompanied by a drummer. Drawing on her extensive research in Korea and its diasporas, Haekyung Um describes and analyses the creative processes of p'ansori, weaving into her discussion musical.

The last quarter of the twentieth century and the early years of the twenty-first saw a steady stream of new songbook publications and recordings in Yiddish - newly composed songs, well-known singers performing nostalgic favourites, American popular songs translated into Yiddish, theatre songs, and even a couple of forays into Yiddish hip hop.

Ma'luf, which literally means 'familiar' or 'customary,' bears the auditory traces of music brought to North Africa by Muslim and Jewish refugees escaping the Christian reconquista of Spain between the tenth and seventeenth centuries.

Explains how musical art is an essential part of the identity of the Japanese geisha rather than a secondary feature. This book details the musical genres and traditions with which geisha have been involved during their artistic history, as well as their position within the traditional arts society.

In the Central Himalayan region of Garhwal, the gods (devtas) enjoy dancing and come on to their mediums when musicians play and 'make' them dance. This book examines music and musical practice in Garhwal from an analytical perspective that explores the nexus between musical sounds and performance events.

The role of the musican in their community has been an established form of study for many years, yet this is the first book to make an examination of the place of the mucician in western mucic. Examining the professional performer the author discusses the significance of ritual, myth and humour for the lives of musicans in the west.

Marie-Galante is a small island situated in the Caribbean to the south of Guadeloupe. This book focuses on kadril dance and gwo ka drumming, two musical practices on the island with which Marie-Galantais construct unique perceptions of self in relation, specifically, to Africa and France.

Japanese folk performing arts incorporate a body of entertainments that range from the ritual to the secular. They may be the ritual dances at Shinto shrines performed to summon and entertain deities. This title provides an introductory guide to the major performance types as understood by Japanese scholars.

In this work, the author examines timba, a contemporary Afrocuban dance music style that has become popular since Cuba's post-Soviet economic crisis, and shows how this music has come to represent the sound of a crisis that is not only economic but also social and political in nature.

Examines how traditional and modern elements interact in the practice, reception and functions of wind music, or shengguan, at monasteries in Wutaishan, one of China's four holy mountains of Buddhism. This book provides an insight into the political and economic history of Wutaishan and its music.

Taiwan aboriginal song has received extensive media coverage since the launch and settlement of a copyright lawsuit following pop group Enigma's allegedly unauthorized use of Amis voices in the 1996 Olympics hit, "Return To Innocence". The author explores the relationship of this song culture to contemporary Amis society.

Dedicated to the late Gerard Behague, this anthology offers perspectives on the evolving legacy of performance ethnography in socio-musical analysis and reflects the heritage but also contemporary trajectories of Behague's scholarly concerns. Prefaced by an essay outlining key developments in the ethnography of performance paradigm.

Since the early 1990s, Okinawan music has experienced an extraordinary boom in popularity throughout Japan. In particular, the Yaeyama region in the south of Okinawa has long been known as a region rich in performing arts. This title explores some of the reasons for the high profile of Yaeyaman music, both inside and outside Yaeyama.

Presents a study of Chinese shawm bands in their ceremonial and social context. Based in a county in Shanxi province in northwestern China, this work describes the painful maintenance of ceremonial and its music there under Maoism, its revival with the market reforms of the 1980s and its modification under the assault of pop music since the 1990s.

Music can and does change our perception of our "selves" and our world. This text concerns particular musics of particular people at particular times or events. It interfaces music and religious traditions, using multi- and interdisciplinary approaches.

Gives an impression of music-making in daily life in the poor mountainous region of Shaanbei, northwest China. This book and DVD, gives the background to the area and music-making in society. It also discusses the lives of bards and shawm bands respectively, describing modifications in their ceremonial activities through the 20th century.

Presents an ethnography of a group of female musicians from the Dzigbordi community dance-drumming club from the rural town of Dzodze, located in South-Eastern Ghana. This book addresses important methodological shifts in ethnomusicology that outline a humanistic perspective of music cultures. It includes a DVD documentary.

Performing arts in most parts of Maritime Southeast Asia are seen as an entity, where music and dance, sound and movement, acoustic and tactile elements intermingle and complement each other.