Best Practice
Best Practice

Author: Judy Minot

Publisher:

Published: 2021-04-03

Total Pages: 290

ISBN-13: 9780578870441

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Best Practice is written for non-professional musicians who play "traditional" music of any style on any instrument. Technology and ease of travel may make these regional styles easier to learn about and hear, but many players struggle to maintain commitment and enthusiasm for practicing, given the pressures of daily life. These musicians need a different kind of advice on practicing and playing. Why? Because they're usually adults, playing primarily for enjoyment, and they're often self-taught. Many have expressed that, while they truly want to improve, they don't know whether their efforts are efficient, or even effective. They may wonder: Am I spending my practice time well? Am I working on the things that will help me achieve what I want? How much time should I spend practicing and how often should I practice? Should I focus on notes, ornaments, speed, intonation? How much music theory do I really need to know? What should my goals be for each day, each week, or longer?The book incorporates ideas for practice techniques, and also suggestions for developing mental and physical habits that support artistic progress and growth. The author interweaves concepts from a lifetime as a musician, over 20 years' training and teaching aikido, plus yoga, meditation, and even a career in television and marketing.Traditional, or "trad" music styles include old time, Celtic, Cajun, Swedish, contra, Québecois, blues, Métis, and others, but much of the information in the book could apply to any musician, singers, and even other types of artists. There are 197 short, self-contained chapters. Each offers a single concept or idea. You can read one whenever you sit down to practice or play. Best Practice incorporates the author's experience as a musician, a martial artist, a yoga teacher, and even as a broadcast video editor and producer. There are learnings from neuroscience, psychology, and Buddhist meditation. This is a book you'll want to keep near your practice space, to dip into repeatedly for inspiration.

The Folk Music Sourcebook
The Folk Music Sourcebook

Author: Larry Sandberg

Publisher: Da Capo Press, Incorporated

Published: 1989-08-21

Total Pages: 296

ISBN-13:

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This revised and updated book is a guide for the listener, collector, singer, player and devotee of folk music. It covers music from string band to bluegrass, Canadian, Creole, Zydeco, jug bands, ragtime and the many kinds of blues. The book evaluates, reviews and recommends on such subjects as where to buy records and instruments and places where folk music flourishes.

Traditional Music in Coastal Louisiana
Traditional Music in Coastal Louisiana

Author: Joshua Clegg Caffery

Publisher: LSU Press

Published: 2013-11-05

Total Pages: 410

ISBN-13: 080715203X

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Alan Lomax's prolific sixty-four-year career as a folklorist and musicologist began with a trip across the South and into the heart of Louisiana's Cajun country during the height of the Great Depression. In 1934, his father John, then curator of the Library of Congress's Archive of American Folk Song, took an eighteen-year-old Alan and a 300-pound aluminum disk recorder into the rice fields of Jennings, along the waterways of New Iberia, and behind the gates of Angola State Penitentiary to collect vestiges of African American and Acadian musical tradition. These recordings now serve as the foundational document of indigenous Louisiana music. Although widely recognized by scholars as a key artifact in the understanding of American vernacular music, most of the recordings by John and Alan Lomax during their expedition across the central-southern fringe of Louisiana were never transcribed or translated, much less studied in depth. This volume presents, for the first time, a comprehensive examination of the 1934 corpus and unveils a multifaceted story of traditional song in one of the country's most culturally dynamic regions. Through his textual and comparative study of the songs contained in the Lomax collection, Joshua Clegg Caffery provides a musical history of Louisiana that extends beyond Cajun music and zydeco to the rural blues, Irish and English folk songs, play-party songs, slave spirituals, and traditional French folk songs that thrived at the time of these recordings. Intimate in its presentation of Louisiana folklife and broad in its historical scope, Traditional Music in Coastal Louisiana honors the legacy of John and Alan Lomax by retrieving these musical relics from obscurity and ensuring their understanding and appreciation for generations to come. Includes: Complete transcriptions of the 1934 Lomax field recordings in southwestern Louisiana Side-by-side translations from French to English Photographs from the 1934 field trip and biographical details about the performers

Electric Folk
Electric Folk

Author: Britta Sweers

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2005-01-13

Total Pages: 350

ISBN-13: 0198038984

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In the 1960s and 1970s, a number of British musicians rediscovered traditional folk ballads, fusing the old melodies with rock, jazz, and blues styles to create a new genre dubbed "electric folk" or "British folk rock." This revival featured groups such as Steeleye Span, Fairport Convention, and Pentangle and individual performers like Shirley & Dolly Collins, and Richard Thompson. While making music in multiple styles, they had one thing in common: they were all based on traditional English song and dance material. These new arrangements of an old repertoire created a unique musical voice within the popular mainstream. After reasonable commercial success, peaking with Steeleye Span's Top 10 album All Around My Hat, Electric Folk disappeared from mainstream notice in the late 1970s, yet performers continue to create today. In Electric Folk: The Changing Face of English Traditional Music, Britta Sweers provides an illuminating history and fascinating analysis of the unique features of the electric folk scene, exploring its musical styles and cultural implications. Drawing on rare historical sources, contemporary music journalism, and first-hand interviews with several of electric folk's most prominent artists, Sweers argues that electric folk is both a result of the American folk revival of the early 1960s and a reaction against the dominance of American pop music abroad. Young British "folk-rockers," such as Richard Thompson and Maddy Prior, turned to traditional musical material as a means of asserting their British cultural identity. Yet, unlike many American and British folk revivalists, they were not as interested in the "purity" of folk ballads as in the music's potential for lively interaction with modern styles, instruments, and media. The book also delves into the impact of the British folk rock movement on mainstream pop, American rock music, and neighboring European countries. Ultimately, Sweers creates a richly detailed portrait of the electric folk scene--as cultural phenomenon, commercial entity, and performance style.

Folk and Traditional Music of the Western Continents
Folk and Traditional Music of the Western Continents

Author: Bruno Nettl

Publisher: Prentice Hall

Published: 1973

Total Pages: 280

ISBN-13:

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New edition of the text first published in 1965 (revised by Valerie Woodring Goertzeu). Presents the general characteristics of traditional music and its cultural context along with some of the methods used to study folk music. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Traditional Music and Irish Society: Historical Perspectives
Traditional Music and Irish Society: Historical Perspectives

Author: Martin Dowling

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-02-24

Total Pages: 419

ISBN-13: 1317008405

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Written from the perspective of a scholar and performer, Traditional Music and Irish Society investigates the relation of traditional music to Irish modernity. The opening chapter integrates a thorough survey of the early sources of Irish music with recent work on Irish social history in the eighteenth century to explore the question of the antiquity of the tradition and the class locations of its origins. Dowling argues in the second chapter that the formation of what is today called Irish traditional music occurred alongside the economic and political modernization of European society in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Dowling goes on to illustrate the public discourse on music during the Irish revival in newspapers and journals from the 1880s to the First World War, also drawing on the works of Pierre Bourdieu and Jacques Lacan to place the field of music within the public sphere of nationalist politics and cultural revival in these decades. The situation of music and song in the Irish literary revival is then reflected and interpreted in the life and work of James Joyce, and Dowling includes treatment of Joyce’s short stories A Mother and The Dead and the 'Sirens' chapter of Ulysses. Dowling conducted field work with Northern Irish musicians during 2004 and 2005, and also reflects directly on his own experience performing and working with musicians and arts organizations in order to conclude with an assessment of the current state of traditional music and cultural negotiation in Northern Ireland in the second decade of the twenty-first century.

Sources of Irish Traditional Music c. 1600-1855
Sources of Irish Traditional Music c. 1600-1855

Author: Aloys Fleischman

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-12-05

Total Pages: 710

ISBN-13: 1135810257

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First Published in 1998. Irish traditional music is one of the richest treasuries of folk music in the world. Being an oral tradition, much of it has already been lost, and what has been recorded is only partially available in isolated collections. Until now, no composite picture has yet been presented, showing its remarkable range and diversity over four centuries. This volume covers Irish materials in general collections up to 1800 and in Irish collections up to and including Petrie's Ancient Music of Ireland (1855).The purposes of the project are to identify Irish dance tunes and songs; to present the scholar with a mass of material showing the evolution of the Irish vocal and instrumental folk style, period by period, from the earliest recorded tune up to the middle of the last century; to put into circulation many of the splendid airs which were lost but have now been located. Some 6,000 songs and dance tunes are presented, also including Scottish and English tunes. Included are Scottish tunes that were used by 18th-century Irish poets for their verses, and both English and Scottish tunes that are still current among Irish traditional musicians. Tunes of present-day currency which do not seem to be included may still be located by comparing their first 12 notes in the thematic index at the end of the volume.To make the vast array of material readily available, an index allows readers to locate a tune by its melodic incipit, by any of its titles, or by the first line of its text. Unfortunately, the vast majority of Irish songs noted up to the end of the last century lack texts, since the collectors were ignorant of the Irish language. But almost every other facet is covered-provenance, tonality structure, and variants.

The Classical Music Book
The Classical Music Book

Author: DK

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2018-12-04

Total Pages: 713

ISBN-13: 1465483160

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Learn about the world’s greatest classical compositions and musical traditions in The Classical Music Book. Part of the fascinating Big Ideas series, this book tackles tricky topics and themes in a simple and easy to follow format. Learn about Classic Music in this overview guide to the subject, great for novices looking to find out more and experts wishing to refresh their knowledge alike! The Classical Music Book brings a fresh and vibrant take on the topic through eye-catching graphics and diagrams to immerse yourself in. This captivating book will broaden your understanding of Classical Music, with: - More than 90 pieces of world-famous music - Packed with facts, charts, timelines and graphs to help explain core concepts - A visual approach to big subjects with striking illustrations and graphics throughout - Easy to follow text makes topics accessible for people at any level of understanding The Classical Music Book is a captivating introduction to music theory, crucial composers and the impact of seminal pieces, aimed at adults with an interest in the subject and students wanting to gain more of an overview. Here you’ll discover more than 90 works by famous composers from the early period to the modern day, through exciting text and bold graphics. Your Classical Music Questions, Simply Explained From Mozart to Mendelssohn, this fresh new guide goes beyond your typical music books, offering a comprehensive overview to classical music history and biography. If you thought it was difficult to learn about music theory, The Classical Music Book presents key information in an easy to follow layout. Explore the main ideas underpinning the world’s greatest compositions and musical traditions, and define their importance to the musical canon and into their wider social, cultural, and historical context. The Big Ideas Series With millions of copies sold worldwide, The Classical Music Book is part of the award-winning Big Ideas series from DK. The series uses striking graphics along with engaging writing, making big topics easy to understand.

A Pocket History of Irish Traditional Music
A Pocket History of Irish Traditional Music

Author: Gearóid Ó hAllmhuráin

Publisher: O'Brien Press

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 168

ISBN-13:

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From the mythological harp of the Dagda to Riverdance, this concise history of Irish traditional music and dance explores a rich spectrum of historical sources and folklore. It uncovers the contribution of the Normans to Irish dancing, the rote of the music maker in Penal Ireland, and the popularity of dance tunes and set dancing from the end of the eighteenth century to the present. It also follows the music of the Irish diaspora from the music halls of vaudeville to the musical tapestry of Irish America today.