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Book Taking Popular Music Seriously

Download or read book Taking Popular Music Seriously written by Simon Frith and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-07-05 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As a sociologist Simon Frith takes the starting point that music is the result of the play of social forces, whether as an idea, an experience or an activity. The essays in this important collection address these forces, recognising that music is an effect of a continuous process of negotiation, dispute and agreement between the individual actors who make up a music world. The emphasis is always on discourse, on the way in which people talk and write about music, and the part this plays in the social construction of musical meaning and value. The collection includes nineteen essays, some of which have had a major impact on the field, along with an autobiographical introduction.

Book Taking Popular Music Seriously

Download or read book Taking Popular Music Seriously written by Simon Frith and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-07-05 with total page 583 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As a sociologist Simon Frith takes the starting point that music is the result of the play of social forces, whether as an idea, an experience or an activity. The essays in this important collection address these forces, recognising that music is an effect of a continuous process of negotiation, dispute and agreement between the individual actors who make up a music world. The emphasis is always on discourse, on the way in which people talk and write about music, and the part this plays in the social construction of musical meaning and value. The collection includes nineteen essays, some of which have had a major impact on the field, along with an autobiographical introduction.

Book Taking Things Seriously

    Book Details:
  • Author : Joshua Glenn
  • Publisher : Princeton Architectural Press
  • Release : 2007-08-23
  • ISBN : 9781568986906
  • Pages : 180 pages

Download or read book Taking Things Seriously written by Joshua Glenn and published by Princeton Architectural Press. This book was released on 2007-08-23 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This is a book about the things that inspire all of us, from the sacred to the profane, from everyday objects like a marble or a rubber stamp, to the more surprising such as a dirt pile or a turtle tail. Artists, writers, designers, among many others, contribute their objects and ruminations that encourage, motivate, and energize their own creativity."--Provided by publisher.

Book Taking Rights Seriously

Download or read book Taking Rights Seriously written by Ronald Dworkin and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2013-10-21 with total page 457 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A landmark work of political and legal philosophy, Ronald Dworkin's Taking Rights Seriously was acclaimed as a major work on its first publication in 1977 and remains profoundly influential in the 21st century. A forceful statement of liberal principles - championing the legal, moral and political rights of the individual against the state - Dworkin demolishes prevailing utilitarian and legal-positivist approaches to jurisprudence. Developing his own theory of adjudication, he applies this to controversial public issues, from civil disobedience to positive discrimination. Elegantly written and cuttingly insightful, Taking Rights Seriously is one of the most important works of public thought of the last fifty years.

Book The First 20 Hours

    Book Details:
  • Author : Josh Kaufman
  • Publisher : Penguin
  • Release : 2013-06-13
  • ISBN : 1101623047
  • Pages : 290 pages

Download or read book The First 20 Hours written by Josh Kaufman and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2013-06-13 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Forget the 10,000 hour rule— what if it’s possible to learn the basics of any new skill in 20 hours or less? Take a moment to consider how many things you want to learn to do. What’s on your list? What’s holding you back from getting started? Are you worried about the time and effort it takes to acquire new skills—time you don’t have and effort you can’t spare? Research suggests it takes 10,000 hours to develop a new skill. In this nonstop world when will you ever find that much time and energy? To make matters worse, the early hours of prac­ticing something new are always the most frustrating. That’s why it’s difficult to learn how to speak a new language, play an instrument, hit a golf ball, or shoot great photos. It’s so much easier to watch TV or surf the web . . . In The First 20 Hours, Josh Kaufman offers a systematic approach to rapid skill acquisition— how to learn any new skill as quickly as possible. His method shows you how to deconstruct com­plex skills, maximize productive practice, and remove common learning barriers. By complet­ing just 20 hours of focused, deliberate practice you’ll go from knowing absolutely nothing to performing noticeably well. Kaufman personally field-tested the meth­ods in this book. You’ll have a front row seat as he develops a personal yoga practice, writes his own web-based computer programs, teaches himself to touch type on a nonstandard key­board, explores the oldest and most complex board game in history, picks up the ukulele, and learns how to windsurf. Here are a few of the sim­ple techniques he teaches: Define your target performance level: Fig­ure out what your desired level of skill looks like, what you’re trying to achieve, and what you’ll be able to do when you’re done. The more specific, the better. Deconstruct the skill: Most of the things we think of as skills are actually bundles of smaller subskills. If you break down the subcompo­nents, it’s easier to figure out which ones are most important and practice those first. Eliminate barriers to practice: Removing common distractions and unnecessary effort makes it much easier to sit down and focus on deliberate practice. Create fast feedback loops: Getting accu­rate, real-time information about how well you’re performing during practice makes it much easier to improve. Whether you want to paint a portrait, launch a start-up, fly an airplane, or juggle flaming chain­saws, The First 20 Hours will help you pick up the basics of any skill in record time . . . and have more fun along the way.

Book Bridging the Gap

    Book Details:
  • Author : Carlos Xavier Rodriguez
  • Publisher :
  • Release : 2004
  • ISBN :
  • Pages : 268 pages

Download or read book Bridging the Gap written by Carlos Xavier Rodriguez and published by . This book was released on 2004 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A valuable new resource on the trends and issues related to the use of popular music in the classroom, this collection of essays by well-known scholars and educators addresses many important topics. Includes a discussion of the many possible definitions of popular music, information on how popular musicians learn, and specific examples of educational programs that incorporate popular music with suggestions on how to choose high quality repertoire. Fourth in the Northwestern University Music Education Leadership series.

Book Taking Life Seriously

    Book Details:
  • Author : Francis Edward Sparshott
  • Publisher : University of Toronto Press
  • Release : 1994-01-01
  • ISBN : 9780802071798
  • Pages : 484 pages

Download or read book Taking Life Seriously written by Francis Edward Sparshott and published by University of Toronto Press. This book was released on 1994-01-01 with total page 484 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a wonderful book, intended as a companion and guide to a reading of the Ethics . Sparshott's intention is to display the continuity of thought in the text, rather than the traditional approach of examining and criticizing individual sections. The chapters are entitled What is Best for People (I i-xii; 1094a1-1102a4), Reason in Action (I xiii-VI; 1102a5-1145a11); The Pathology of Practical Reason (VII; 1145a15-1154b34); Love, Consciousness, and Society (VIII-IX; 1155a1-1172a15); The Worth of Pleasure (X i-v; 1172a19-1176a29); and The Good Life and the Best Life: Outline of a Discourse (X vi-viii; 1176a30-1179a32), and there is an interesting appendix on the world of Aristotle's theoretical construction. All Greek is transliterated and a glossary provided for these terms. The author's love of his topic is obvious throughout this book, which is written with clarity and cogency. It deserves to be read by everyone seeking to understand Aristotle's Ethics .

Book The Rest Is Noise

    Book Details:
  • Author : Alex Ross
  • Publisher : Farrar, Straus and Giroux
  • Release : 2007-10-16
  • ISBN : 1429932880
  • Pages : 706 pages

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 706 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.

Book Taking South Park Seriously

Download or read book Taking South Park Seriously written by Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2008-09-11 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Collection of scholarly essays on the wildly popular Comedy Central show.

Book Taking Faith Seriously

Download or read book Taking Faith Seriously written by Mary Jo Bane and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2005-03-31 with total page 420 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Whether simply uneasy or downright hostile, the relation between religion and liberal democracy in this country has long been vexed and complex--and crucial to what America is and aspires to be. Amid increasingly contentious exchanges over fundamentalism, abortion rights, secularism, and pluralism, this book reminds us of the critical role that religion plays in the health and well-being of a democracy. A healthy democracy draws strength from a rich civic and social life, many forms of which are religious. Moreover, these contributions are anchored in the intrinsic commitments of faith, commitments that extend over time, linking generations past and present. Strengthening these commitments and practices, the authors suggest, will also fortify pluralistic civil society and democratic participation. Their book provides the analytical tools and historical perspective for building and reinforcing such a constructive engagement between religion and liberal democracy--and for understanding the ongoing dialogue between secular political philosophy and communities of faith. Taking Faith Seriously offers nine case studies that describe the multiple and subtle roles that religion plays on many levels in our civic life: increasing moral and social "capital," inspiring citizens to serve their neighbors, building relationships across barriers of race and income, and providing a moral vision of what kind of society we are called to be.

Book Performing Rites

    Book Details:
  • Author : Simon Frith
  • Publisher : Harvard University Press
  • Release : 1998-02-06
  • ISBN : 0674247310
  • Pages : 363 pages

Download or read book Performing Rites written by Simon Frith and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 1998-02-06 with total page 363 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Who's better? Billie Holiday or P. J. Harvey? Blur or Oasis? Dylan or Keats? And how many friendships have ridden on the answer? Such questions aren't merely the stuff of fanzines and idle talk; they inform our most passionate arguments, distill our most deeply held values, make meaning of our ever-changing culture. In Performing Rites, one of the most influential writers on popular music asks what we talk about when we talk about music. What's good, what's bad? What's high, what's low? Why do such distinctions matter? Instead of dismissing emotional response and personal taste as inaccessible to the academic critic, Simon Frith takes these forms of engagement as his subject--and discloses their place at the very center of the aesthetics that structure our culture and color our lives. Taking up hundreds of songs and writers, Frith insists on acts of evaluation of popular music as music. Ranging through and beyond the twentieth century, Performing Rites puts the Pet Shop Boys and Puccini, rhythm and lyric, voice and technology, into a dialogue about the undeniable impact of popular aesthetics on our lives. How we nod our heads or tap our feet, grin or grimace or flip the dial; how we determine what's sublime and what's "for real"--these are part of the way we construct our social identities, and an essential response to the performance of all music. Frith argues that listening itself is a performance, both social gesture and bodily response. From how they are made to how they are received, popular songs appear here as not only meriting aesthetic judgments but also demanding them, and shaping our understanding of what all music means.

Book The Last Lecture

    Book Details:
  • Author : Randy Pausch
  • Publisher :
  • Release : 2010
  • ISBN : 9780340978504
  • Pages : 0 pages

Download or read book The Last Lecture written by Randy Pausch and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author, a computer science professor diagnosed with terminal cancer, explores his life, the lessons that he has learned, how he has worked to achieve his childhood dreams, and the effect of his diagnosis on him and his family.

Book Taking Sudoku Seriously

    Book Details:
  • Author : Jason Rosenhouse
  • Publisher : Oxford University Press
  • Release : 2012-01-19
  • ISBN : 0199913153
  • Pages : 227 pages

Download or read book Taking Sudoku Seriously written by Jason Rosenhouse and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2012-01-19 with total page 227 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Packed with more than a hundred color illustrations and a wide variety of puzzles and brainteasers, Taking Sudoku Seriously uses this popular craze as the starting point for a fun-filled introduction to higher mathematics. How many Sudoku solution squares are there? What shapes other than three-by-three blocks can serve as acceptable Sudoku regions? What is the fewest number of starting clues a sound Sudoku puzzle can have? Does solving Sudoku require mathematics? Jason Rosenhouse and Laura Taalman show that answering these questions opens the door to a wealth of interesting mathematics. Indeed, they show that Sudoku puzzles and their variants are a gateway into mathematical thinking generally. Among many topics, the authors look at the notion of a Latin square--an object of long-standing interest to mathematicians--of which Sudoku squares are a special case; discuss how one finds interesting Sudoku puzzles; explore the connections between Sudoku, graph theory, and polynomials; and consider Sudoku extremes, including puzzles with the maximal number of vacant regions, with the minimal number of starting clues, and numerous others. The book concludes with a gallery of novel Sudoku variations--just pure solving fun! Most of the puzzles are original to this volume, and all solutions to the puzzles appear in the back of the book or in the text itself. A math book and a puzzle book, Taking Sudoku Seriously will change the way readers look at Sudoku and mathematics, serving both as an introduction to mathematics for puzzle fans and as an exploration of the intricacies of Sudoku for mathematics buffs.

Book Listen to This

    Book Details:
  • Author : Alex Ross
  • Publisher : Farrar, Straus and Giroux
  • Release : 2010-09-28
  • ISBN : 1429977612
  • Pages : 384 pages

Download or read book Listen to This written by Alex Ross and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2010-09-28 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of The Telegraph's Best Music Books 2011 Alex Ross's award-winning international bestseller, The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century, has become a contemporary classic, establishing Ross as one of our most popular and acclaimed cultural historians. Listen to This, which takes its title from a beloved 2004 essay in which Ross describes his late-blooming discovery of pop music, showcases the best of his writing from more than a decade at The New Yorker. These pieces, dedicated to classical and popular artists alike, are at once erudite and lively. In a previously unpublished essay, Ross brilliantly retells hundreds of years of music history—from Renaissance dances to Led Zeppelin—through a few iconic bass lines of celebration and lament. He vibrantly sketches canonical composers such as Schubert, Verdi, and Brahms; gives us in-depth interviews with modern pop masters such as Björk and Radiohead; and introduces us to music students at a Newark high school and indie-rock hipsters in Beijing. Whether his subject is Mozart or Bob Dylan, Ross shows how music expresses the full complexity of the human condition. Witty, passionate, and brimming with insight, Listen to This teaches us how to listen more closely.

Book Taking Laughter Seriously

    Book Details:
  • Author : John Morreall
  • Publisher : SUNY Press
  • Release : 1983-06-30
  • ISBN : 9780873956437
  • Pages : 158 pages

Download or read book Taking Laughter Seriously written by John Morreall and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 1983-06-30 with total page 158 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Preface Part One: Laughter 1. Can There Be a Theory of Laughter? 2. The Superiority Theory 3. The Incongruity Theory 4. The Relief Theory 5. A New Theory Part Two: Humor 6. The Variety of Humor 7. Humor as Aesthetic Experience 8. Humor and Freedom 9. The Social Value of Humor 10. Humor and Life Notes Works Cited Index

Book Segregating Sound

    Book Details:
  • Author : Karl Hagstrom Miller
  • Publisher : Duke University Press
  • Release : 2010-02-11
  • ISBN : 0822392704
  • Pages : 386 pages

Download or read book Segregating Sound written by Karl Hagstrom Miller and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2010-02-11 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Segregating Sound, Karl Hagstrom Miller argues that the categories that we have inherited to think and talk about southern music bear little relation to the ways that southerners long played and heard music. Focusing on the late nineteenth century and the early twentieth, Miller chronicles how southern music—a fluid complex of sounds and styles in practice—was reduced to a series of distinct genres linked to particular racial and ethnic identities. The blues were African American. Rural white southerners played country music. By the 1920s, these depictions were touted in folk song collections and the catalogs of “race” and “hillbilly” records produced by the phonograph industry. Such links among race, region, and music were new. Black and white artists alike had played not only blues, ballads, ragtime, and string band music, but also nationally popular sentimental ballads, minstrel songs, Tin Pan Alley tunes, and Broadway hits. In a cultural history filled with musicians, listeners, scholars, and business people, Miller describes how folklore studies and the music industry helped to create a “musical color line,” a cultural parallel to the physical color line that came to define the Jim Crow South. Segregated sound emerged slowly through the interactions of southern and northern musicians, record companies that sought to penetrate new markets across the South and the globe, and academic folklorists who attempted to tap southern music for evidence about the history of human civilization. Contending that people’s musical worlds were defined less by who they were than by the music that they heard, Miller challenges assumptions about the relation of race, music, and the market.

Book Taking the Constitution Seriously

Download or read book Taking the Constitution Seriously written by Walter Berns and published by . This book was released on 1992 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The seven formidable essays that make up this new analysis explore the Constitution and its central place in the development of the first nation to be built on the foundation of the rights of man. Of particular interest is Berns's view of minorities under the Constitution. Overall, the book will be well received by serious students of the American political experience, but others might find it difficult going.