What To Listen For In Rock

Author : Ken Stephenson
Publisher : Yale University Press
ISBN 13 : 0300128231
Total Pages : 271 pages
Book Rating : 4.39/5 ( download)

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Download or read book What to Listen for in Rock written by Ken Stephenson and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2002-01-01 with total page 271 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this concise and engaging analysis of rock music, music theorist Ken Stephenson explores the features that make this internationally popular music distinct from earlier music styles. The author offers a guided tour of rock music from the 1950s to the present, emphasizing the theoretical underpinnings of the style and, for the first time, systematically focusing not on rock music's history or sociology, but on the structural aspects of the music itself. What structures normally happen in rock music? What theoretical systems or models might best explain them? The book addresses these questions and more in chapters devoted to phrase rhythm, scales, key determination, cadences, harmonic palette and succession, and form. Each chapter provides richly detailed analyses of individual rock pieces from groups including Chicago; the Beatles; Emerson, Lake, and Palmer; Kansas; and others. Stephenson shows how rock music is stylistically unique, and he demonstrates how the features that make it distinct have tended to remain constant throughout the past half-century and within most substyles. For music students at the college level and for practicing rock musicians who desire a deeper understanding of their music, this book is an essential resource.

Author : Alex Ross
Publisher : Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN 13 : 1429932880
Total Pages : 640 pages
Book Rating : 4.82/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Rest Is Noise written by Alex Ross and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2007-10-16 with total page 640 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the 2007 National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism A New York Times Book Review Top Ten Book of the Year Time magazine Top Ten Nonfiction Book of 2007 Newsweek Favorite Books of 2007 A Washington Post Book World Best Book of 2007 In this sweeping and dramatic narrative, Alex Ross, music critic for The New Yorker, weaves together the histories of the twentieth century and its music, from Vienna before the First World War to Paris in the twenties; from Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia to downtown New York in the sixties and seventies up to the present. Taking readers into the labyrinth of modern style, Ross draws revelatory connections between the century's most influential composers and the wider culture. The Rest Is Noise is an astonishing history of the twentieth century as told through its music.

Author : Steve Almond
Publisher : Random House
ISBN 13 : 0679603654
Total Pages : 241 pages
Book Rating : 4.58/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Rock and Roll Will Save Your Life written by Steve Almond and published by Random House. This book was released on 2010-04-13 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drooling fanatic, n. 1. One who drools in the presence of beloved rock stars. 2. Any of a genus of rock-and-roll wannabes/geeks who walk around with songs constantly ringing in their ears, own more than 3,000 albums, and fall in love with at least one record per week. With a life that’s spanned the phonographic era and the digital age, Steve Almond lives to Rawk. Like you, he’s secretly longed to live the life of a rock star, complete with insane talent, famous friends, and hotel rooms to be trashed. Also like you, he’s content (sort of) to live the life of a rabid fan, one who has converted his unrequited desires into a (sort of) noble obsession. Rock and Roll Will Save Your Life traces Almond’s passion from his earliest (and most wretched) rock criticism to his eventual discovery of a music-crazed soul mate and their subsequent production of two little superfans. Along the way, Almond reflects on the delusional power of songs, the awkward mating habits of drooling fanatics, and why Depression Songs actually make us feel so much better. The book also includes: • sometimes drunken interviews with America’s finest songwriters • a recap of the author’s terrifying visit to Graceland while stoned • a vigorous and credibility-shattering endorsement of Styx’s Paradise Theater • recommendations you will often choose to ignore • a reluctant exegesis of the Toto song “Africa” • obnoxious lists sure to piss off rock critics But wait, there’s more. Readers will also be able to listen to a special free mix designed by the author, available online at www.stevenalmond.com, for the express purpose of eliciting your drool. For those about to rock—we salute you!

Author : Victor L. Wooten
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 9780425220931
Total Pages : 292 pages
Book Rating : 4.31/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Music Lesson written by Victor L. Wooten and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2008-04-01 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Grammy-winning musical icon and legendary bassist Victor L. Wooten comes an inspiring parable of music, life, and the difference between playing all the right notes…and feeling them. The Music Lesson is the story of a struggling young musician who wanted music to be his life, and who wanted his life to be great. Then, from nowhere it seemed, a teacher arrived. Part musical genius, part philosopher, part eccentric wise man, the teacher would guide the young musician on a spiritual journey, and teach him that the gifts we get from music mirror those from life, and every movement, phrase, and chord has its own meaning...All you have to do is find the song inside. “The best book on music (and its connection to the mystic laws of life) that I've ever read. I learned so much on every level.”—Multiple Grammy Award–winning saxophonist Michael Brecker

Author : Pierre Schaeffer
Publisher : Univ of California Press
ISBN 13 : 0520265742
Total Pages : 244 pages
Book Rating : 4.45/5 ( download)

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Download or read book In Search of a Concrete Music written by Pierre Schaeffer and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2012-11-26 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Suitable for those interested in contemporary musicology or media history, this title offers a translation of the author's pioneering work - at once a journal of his experiments in sound composition and a treatise on the raison d'etre of concrete music.

Author : Ben Ratliff
Publisher : Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN 13 : 1429953594
Total Pages : 272 pages
Book Rating : 4.97/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Every Song Ever written by Ben Ratliff and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2016-02-09 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is music in the age of the cloud? Today, we can listen to nearly anything, at any time. It is possible to flit instantly across genres and generations, from 1980s Detroit techno to 1890s Viennese neo-romanticism. This new age of listening brings with it astonishing new possibilities--as well as dangers. In Every Song Ever, the veteran New York Times music critic Ben Ratliff reimagines the very idea of music appreciation for our times. In the age of the cloud, the genre of the recording and the intention of the composer matter less and less. Instead, we can savor our own listening experience more directly, taking stock of qualities like repetition, speed, density, or loudness. The result is a new mode of listening that can lead to unexpected connections. When we listen for slowness, we may detect surprising affinities between the drone metal of Sunn O))), the mixtape manipulations of DJ Screw, and the final works of Shostakovich. And if we listen for more elusive qualities like closeness, we might notice how the tight harmonies of bluegrass vocals illuminate the virtuosic synchrony of John Coltrane's quartet. Encompassing the sounds of five continents and several centuries, Ratliff's book is a definitive field guide to our musical habitat, and a foundation for the new aesthetics our age demands.

Author : Greil Marcus
Publisher : Yale University Press
ISBN 13 : 0300190301
Total Pages : 278 pages
Book Rating : 4.04/5 ( download)

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Download or read book History of Rock 'n' Roll in Ten Songs written by Greil Marcus and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2014-09-02 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The legendary critic and author of Mystery Train “ingeniously retells the tale of rock and roll” (Publishers Weekly, starred review). Unlike previous versions of rock ’n’ roll history, this book omits almost every iconic performer and ignores the storied events and turning points everyone knows. Instead, in a daring stroke, Greil Marcus selects ten songs and dramatizes how each embodies rock ’n’ roll as a thing in itself, in the story it tells, inhabits, and acts out—a new language, something new under the sun. “Transmission” by Joy Division. “All I Could Do Was Cry” by Etta James and then Beyoncé. “To Know Him Is to Love Him,” first by the Teddy Bears and almost half a century later by Amy Winehouse. In Marcus’s hands these and other songs tell the story of the music, which is, at bottom, the story of the desire for freedom in all its unruly and liberating glory. Slipping the constraints of chronology, Marcus braids together past and present, holding up to the light the ways that these striking songs fall through time and circumstance, gaining momentum and meaning, astonishing us by upending our presumptions and prejudices. This book, by a founder of contemporary rock criticism—and its most gifted and incisive practitioner—is destined to become an enduring classic. “One of the epic figures in rock writing.”—The New York Times Book Review “Marcus is our greatest cultural critic, not only because of what he says but also, as with rock-and-roll itself, how he says it.”—The Washington Post Winner of the Deems Taylor Virgil Thomson Award in Music Criticism, given by the American Society of Composers, Authors & Publishers

Author : Byrd Baylor
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 1442408111
Total Pages : 32 pages
Book Rating : 4.11/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Everybody Needs a Rock written by Byrd Baylor and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2011-08-16 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Everybody needs a rock -- at least that's the way this particular rock hound feels about it in presenting her own highly individualistic rules for finding just the right rock for you.

Author : June Michele Pulliam
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN 13 : 1440865736
Total Pages : 292 pages
Book Rating : 4.32/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Listen to Punk Rock! written by June Michele Pulliam and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2021-04-19 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Listen to Punk Rock! Exploring a Musical Genre discusses the evolution of punk from its inception in 1975 to the present, delving into the lasting impact of the genre throughout society today. Listen to Punk Rock! provides readers with a fuller picture of punk rock as an inclusive genre with continuing relevance. Organized in a roughly chronological manner, it starts with an introduction that explains the musical and cultural forces that shaped the punk genre. Next, 50 entries cover important punk bands and subgenres, noting female punk bands as well as bands of color. The final part of the book discusses how punk has influenced other musical genres and popular culture. The book will give those new to the genre an overview of important bands and products related to the movement in music, including publications, fashion, and films about punk rock. Notably, it pays special attention to diversity within the genre, discussing bands often overlooked or mentioned only in passing in most histories of the movement, which focus mainly on The Sex Pistols, The Clash, and The Ramones as the pioneers of punk.

Author : Stephen Wade
Publisher : University of Illinois Press
ISBN 13 : 025209400X
Total Pages : 505 pages
Book Rating : 4.02/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Beautiful Music All Around Us written by Stephen Wade and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2012-08-10 with total page 505 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Beautiful Music All Around Us presents the extraordinarily rich backstories of thirteen performances captured on Library of Congress field recordings between 1934 and 1942 in locations reaching from Southern Appalachia to the Mississippi Delta and the Great Plains. Including the children's play song "Shortenin' Bread," the fiddle tune "Bonaparte's Retreat," the blues "Another Man Done Gone," and the spiritual "Ain't No Grave Can Hold My Body Down," these performances were recorded in kitchens and churches, on porches and in prisons, in hotel rooms and school auditoriums. Documented during the golden age of the Library of Congress recordings, they capture not only the words and tunes of traditional songs but also the sounds of life in which the performances were embedded: children laugh, neighbors comment, trucks pass by. Musician and researcher Stephen Wade sought out the performers on these recordings, their families, fellow musicians, and others who remembered them. He reconstructs the sights and sounds of the recording sessions themselves and how the music worked in all their lives. Some of these performers developed musical reputations beyond these field recordings, but for many, these tracks represent their only appearances on record: prisoners at the Arkansas State Penitentiary jumping on "the Library's recording machine" in a rendering of "Rock Island Line"; Ora Dell Graham being called away from the schoolyard to sing the jump-rope rhyme "Pullin' the Skiff"; Luther Strong shaking off a hungover night in jail and borrowing a fiddle to rip into "Glory in the Meetinghouse." Alongside loving and expert profiles of these performers and their locales and communities, Wade also untangles the histories of these iconic songs and tunes, tracing them through slave songs and spirituals, British and homegrown ballads, fiddle contests, gospel quartets, and labor laments. By exploring how these singers and instrumentalists exerted their own creativity on inherited forms, "amplifying tradition's gifts," Wade shows how a single artist can make a difference within a democracy. Reflecting decades of research and detective work, the profiles and abundant photos in The Beautiful Music All Around Us bring to life largely unheralded individuals--domestics, farm laborers, state prisoners, schoolchildren, cowboys, housewives and mothers, loggers and miners--whose music has become part of the wider American musical soundscape. The hardcover edition also includes an accompanying CD that presents these thirteen performances, songs and sounds of America in the 1930s and '40s.