by | December 3, 2015 · 6:00 am

Pranksta rap

 

Humor provides a means of navigating the race and gender politics of hip hop culture in several ways.

The Beastie Boys, a trio of white Jewish rappers, relied heavily on humor to mark their outsider status while mitigating claims of racial inauthenticity.

The triumphant career of Missy “Misdemeanor” Elliott shows how her humor—especially when aimed at the rapper herself—has functioned as an artistic expression of old-school legitimacy and as a means of empowerment for a businesswoman in the male-dominated music industry.

While the proliferation of hip hop parody relies on racial and gender stereotypes for much of its humor, it also offers outsiders the possibility to negotiate otherwise prohibitive social differences from within hip hop culture.

This according to “Pranksta rap: Humor as difference in hip hop” by Charles Hiroshi Garrett, an essay included in Rethinking difference in music scholarship (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014, pp. 315–337).

Below, Missy Elliott performs Work it, her classic send-up of sexual stereotypes.

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by | December 1, 2015 · 6:00 am

Bette Midler’s persona

 

The 1988 California court decision favoring Bette Midler over Ford Motor Company’s advertising agency left legal commentators wondering less about performance rights than what might be called persona rights.

After a number of performers, including Nancy Sinatra in Sinatra v. Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co. (1970), had been unsuccessful in their attempts to make a proprietal claim on an identifiable vocal style, Midler v. Ford Motor Co. reversed the trend.

The Ninth Circuit Court, overruling the trial court, concluded that Midler’s brassy belting of the 1972 hit Do you want to dance? was hers alone. In hiring a singer to imitate the Midler style in a Mercury Sable television commercial, the judge said that Ford’s agency was “pirating an identity”.

This according to “Bette Midler and the piracy of identity” by Jane M. Gaines, an essay included in Music and copyright (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1993, pp. 86–98).

Today is Midler’s 70th birthday! Below, singing Do you want to dance? in 1993.

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by | · 1:00 am

RILM Music Encyclopedias

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RILM proudly introduces RILM Music Encyclopedias™, a full-text compilation of 41 seminal titles published from 1775 to the present, the majority of which are not available anywhere else online.

RILM Music Encyclopedias comprises nearly 80,000 pages with approximately 165,000 entries. It provides comprehensive encyclopedic coverage of the most important disciplines, fields of research, and subject areas, among them popular music, opera, musical instruments, blues, gospel, world music, recorded sound, and women composers. Its content spans multiple countries, cultures, and languages (including English, German, French, Italian, Dutch, and Greek). It is designed as an extensive global resource that meets the teaching, learning, and research needs of the international music community.

New titles will be added annually, ensuring that RILM Music Encyclopedias is musicology’s reference shelf of the future, comprising every aspect of lexicographical writings on music. RILM Music Encyclopedias is available via EBSCOhost®, which brings its expertise to bear on the design of the online database with a user-friendly and familiar platform. RILM Music Encyclopedias is fully equipped with the most advanced search and browse capabilities, allowing for cross searches in multiple languages. It is the only multilingual cross-searchable collection of music encyclopedias in the world.

For trials, sales, and subscription terms please contact your EBSCO Sales Representative or email information@ebsco.com.

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by | November 28, 2015 · 6:00 am

Happy 90th to the Grand Ole Opry!

ernest tubb

On 28 November 1925 a white-bearded man sat down before one of the Nashville radio station WSM’s modern carbon microphones to play some old-time fiddle tunes. Uncle Jimmy Thompson played on the air for an hour that night, and throughout the region listeners took notice.

In Nashville the response at the offices of National Life and Accident Insurance Company, which owned radio station WSM, was dramatic. It was not long before the station manager was besieged by pickers and fiddlers of every variety, all wanting their shot at the Saturday night airwaves.

By 1940 the Grand Ole Opry had found its national audience and was poised to become the legendary institution that it remains to this day.

This according to A good-natured riot: The birth of the Grand Ole Opry by Charles K. Wolfe (Nashville: Country Music Foundation, 1999). Above, Ernest Tubb at the Opry. Below, a show from the early 1960s.

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by | November 26, 2015 · 6:00 am

Wampanoag music and dance

 

 

On this U.S. Thanksgiving Day, let’s pay our respects to the Wampanoag people, who helped the refugees at Plymouth Colony through their first winter, taught them to fish and grow corn, and attended their celebration after their first successful harvest.

Wampanoag music is wrapped up in dance. The beat of a hardwood stick, water drum, and corn rattles is the music of their lively social dances, while appreciation and gratitude are expressed in their ceremonial dances.

“It is part of our nature is to be in thanksgiving” said Ramona Peters, a Wampanoag woman. “It’s sort of our philosophy, so it gets threaded through both the social and ceremonial dances.”

This according to Music on Martha’s Vineyard: A history of harmony by Tom Dresser and Jerry Muskin (Charleston: History Press, 2014).

Below, the 2018 Mashpee Wampanoag Powwow.

Above, Wampanoag Festival by Massachusetts Office of Travel and Tourism is licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0.

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by | November 24, 2015 · 6:00 am

Journal of interdisciplinary voice studies

JIVS

Launched by Intellect in 2015, Journal of interdisciplinary voice studies provides a platform for academics and practitioners involved in voice studies.

Voice is understood here as a phenomenon of different disciplines such as communication and performance, but also as a methodological tool and analytical mechanism. This journal aims to represent the wide variety of voice scholars and hopes to reflect the multifaceted nature of this subject.

Below, a project by the interactive theater collective non zero one, the subject of one of the articles in the inaugural issue.

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by | November 19, 2015 · 6:00 am

Tommy Dorsey hits the screen

Tommy Dorsey's Band in Las Vegas Nights

Unlike his older brother Jimmy, who got his start in films with uncredited background music, Tommy Dorsey shrewdly bided his time until his band was famous enough to command a significant fee.

Unfortunately, his first film, Las Vegas nights, was a disaster. “A picture like that can come back and haunt you” admitted the film’s star, Bert Wheeler. Still, its place in history is assured as the first film appearance by Dorsey, Buddy Rich, and—as an uncredited chorus member—Frank Sinatra.

This according to “The Dorsey brothers: Filmdom’s favorites” by Robert L. Stockdale (The IAJRC journal XLI/2 [May 2008] pp. 46–57).

Today is Tommy Dorsey’s 110th birthday! Above, a still from Las Vegas nights showing Sinatra, far right in the back row (click to enlarge); below, an instrumental piece from the film.

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by | November 16, 2015 · 6:00 am

Paul Hindemith, visual artist

Apparently Hindemith seized every opportunity to draw, from early childhood until his last December, when he completed that year’s entry in a series of Christmas cards that spanned more than 20 years.

He used any medium that came to hand—including menus, advertisements, and paper napkins—and clearly never considered his drawings to be very important; they were carelessly preserved, and almost never dated or titled.

Most of Hindemith’s drawings are whimsical, often to the point of grotesquerie. He characteristically filled all the available space, often with impossible conglomerations of people, animals, and machines. The richness of his ideas and the skill of their expression bear witness to a truly original talent.

This according to Paul Hindemith: Der Komponist als Zeichner/Paul Hindemith: The composer as graphic artist (Zürich: Atlantis, 1995).

Below, part of Hindemith’s tribute to a great visual artist—the Renaissance painter Matthias Grünewald. Herbert Blomstedt conducts the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester in Grablegung, the second movement of Symphony: Mathis Der Maler.

BONUS: Hindemith must have rotated the above drawing several times as he worked on it; it can therefore be viewed with any edge on top. Copy it into a picture editor and rotate it yourself to see the four different angles!

Related articles:

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by | November 14, 2015 · 6:00 am

Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel’s biography

Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel

The idea that Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy prevented his sister, Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel, from publishing her compositions is not a feminist reinterpretation of her life; it can be traced to 19th-century publications by the Mendelssohn family that portray both siblings within socially acceptable gender roles. Centering Hensel’s biography on her brother’s influence oversimplifies the historical situation for women composers, replacing issues surrounding gender and class with a single male villain.

Current treatments of Hensel rely on Romantic stereotypes of the neglected genius; her life reveals a need for a feminist biography that balances larger cultural constraints with recognition of individual female agency.

This according to “The ‘suppression’ of Fanny Mendelssohn: Rethinking feminist biography” by Marian Wilson Kimber (19th-century music XXVI/2 [fall 2002] pp. 113–129).

Todays is Hensel’s 210th birthday! Below, Claudie Verhaeghe sings her Nachtwanderer.

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by | November 12, 2015 · 6:00 am

Neil Young and “Storytone”

 

In a 2014 interview, Neil Young discussed the making of his 35th studio album, Storytone.

“It was a great experience. I was in a room with all these musicians. We did it all at once. There’s no overdubs. ‘Be great or be gone’, that’s what my producer David Briggs always said. You only have one shot at a time and you can’t go fix it.”

“I knew where I wanted to go with the songs, and the orchestra had charts and an arranger and everything…It was done with up to a 90-piece orchestra. We did it live in the room like Sinatra.”

This accrding to “12 Things we learned from Howard Stern’s interview with Neil Young” by Andy Greene (Rolling stone 14 October 2014).

Today is Young’s 70th birthday! Below, one of the Storytone sessions.

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