The volumes in this series are anthologies of peer-reviewed articles focused on a specific topic. Reflecting the broad scope of music-archaeological research worldwide, they draw in perspectives from a range of disciplines, including newly emerging fields such as archaeoacoustics, but particularly encouraging both music-archaeological and ethnomusicological perspectives.
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In 2014 Bärenreiter and J. B. Metzler, the publishers of Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart (MGG), entered a long-term partnership with RILM. MGG Online will include the content of the 1994–2008 print edition of MGG as well as future updates, revisions, and additions.
Regular updates will guarantee that MGG remains musicology’s foremost reference work. All entries from this widely consulted and cited encyclopedia will be accessible to users through the new online database beginning in 2017.
Bärenreiter and J. B. Metzler will remain responsible for MGG’s content and will ensure that MGG Online continues to offer up-to-date and authoritative articles. RILM will bring its expertise to bear on the design of the online database and the creation of a user-friendly platform that will be fully equipped with the most advanced search and browse capabilities.
With its broad international experience, RILM will also be responsible for the worldwide marketing of MGG Online. Subscription details for libraries and other users will be issued soon.
Perhaps more than any other state, Tennessee is associated with music. The state, its cities, natural features, and historical events have been the subject of thousands of popular songs written and performed in almost every style. The idea of Tennessee is so popular that it has inspired great songwriting and performances not only by native Tennesseans but by people from all over the world.
My homeland Tennessee: A research guide to songs about Tennessee preserves and presents historic documents and recordings that illuminate Tennessee as represented in blues, ragtime, rock’n’roll, rap, folk, country, jazz, rhythm and blues, and other styles. This open-access resource also includes a special section on the several official state songs of Tennessee.
In the 1960s many rock bands were funny some of the time; only a few made humor about as much of the act as music was.
In the U.S., only two such bands did so with consistent brilliance: the Mothers of Invention and the Fugs. The international, and kinder and gentler, branch of that triangle of major rock comics was represented by England’s Bonzo Dog Band.
The Bonzos had only one big hit in the U.K. with I’m the urban spaceman, and some Beatles-glamor-by-association due to a cameo appearance in the Magical mystery tour film. In the U.S. they remained a cult band.
Sometimes compared to the Mothers of Invention, particularly in their zany stage shows and their facility for parodying multiple pop genres, the Bonzos lacked the savage cynicism that powered Frank Zappa’s brand of wit. As compensation, they offered a more whimsical, surreal take on the absurd that was in some ways more sonically versatile, encompassing not just rock but also prewar music hall, jazz, and spoken word.
This according to “The Bonzo Dog Band” by Richie Unterberger, an essay included in Urban spacemen and wayfaring strangers: Overlooked innovators and eccentric visionaries of ’60s rock (San Francisco: Miller Freeman, 2000, pp. 109–121).
Below, the Bonzos perform Death cab for cutie, the song that the American alt-rock band took for its name; the performance starts around 0:50.
Music Monday is an annual event sponsored by Canada’s Coalition for Music Education; each year it unites hundreds of thousands of young people through their schools and communities from coast to coast through a simultaneous musical event on the first Monday of May.
Singing and playing the official Music Monday song brings attention to the importance of music as part of a well-rounded education. I.S.S. (Is somebody singing), the official song for Music Monday 2013, was commissioned by the Coalition and CBC Music and written by the astronaut Col. Chris Hadfield—the first Canadian commander of the International Space Station—and singer/songwriter Ed Robertson of the Barenaked Ladies.
On Monday 6 May 2013 Hadfield performed the song from the International Space Station while Robertson, the Barenaked Ladies, and the Wexford Gleeks (the choir of the Wexford Collegiate School for the Arts), performed from Earth.
This according to “Building a voice that cannot be ignored!” by Holly Nimmons (Canadian music educator/Musicien éducateur au Canada LIV/3 [spring 2013] pp. 20–23).
Today is Music Monday’s 10th anniversary! Below, Hadfield, the Ladies, and the Gleeks perform I.S.S. for Music Monday 2013.
On this day in 1864 all of the children in the parish schools marched in procession with flowers and wreaths, along with the Cheshire Rifle Volunteers Band and a cart carrying the May Queen and her ladies-in-waiting. Then, as now, the procession ended on the Heath in the center of town, where the Queen was crowned.
Today the tradition is augmented with several dances, both as part of the procession and as displays before and after the crowning; morris, hornpipe, and sword dances are among the perennial favorites. Maypole dances round out the proceedings.
This according to “Royal May Day!” by Derek Schofield (English dance and song LXXVI/1 [spring 2014] pp. 32–35). Below, selections from the 145th celebration.
Nicolas Slonimsky’s Thesaurus of scales and melodic patterns (1947) is a highly systematic compendium of templates for composition and improvisation.
In an interview, Slonimsky stated that “the scales are compositions and they also provide materials for more extended compositions…I wrote several works in those scales.”
“Everybody warned me that only dyed-in-the-wool academics would touch the Thesaurus, but what actually happened was that academics did not care at all for it. So who picked it up? Jazz players!”
“I have interviewed McCoy Tyner, Coltrane’s pianist for a number of years, and he directly confirmed Coltrane’s use of the book. [According to Tyner,] Coltrane carried the book with him constantly during the years 1957 to ’59…He always took it with him when he travelled on concert tours, and…practiced it as part of his daily routine.”
Quoted in “Conversation with Nicolas Slonimsky about his composing” by Richard Kostelanetz (The musical quarterly LXXIV/3 [1990] pp. 458–72).
Today is Slonimsky’s 120th birthday! Below, selections from the Thesaurus played on electric guitar; a full open-source publication of the work is here.
BONUS: Coltrane’s Giant steps and Countdown, both of which are thought to have been influenced by Slonimsky’s Thesaurus.
An essential reference resource for scholars of global hymnody, with information on the hymns of many countries and languages and a strong emphasis on the historical as well as the contemporary, The Canterbury dictionary ofhymnology contains over 4000 individual entries and more than 300 authors from over 30 countries writing on hymns of the Judaeo-Christian tradition—from the earliest years to those written today—along with articles on individual hymns, authors from many countries, hymnals, organizations, themes, and hymn tunes and their composers.
Covering a multitude of hymn traditions from all continents, regions, and denominations, the database is ecumenical and international, and is published online to facilitate regular additions, amendments, and corrections. Intended as a replacement for the Dictionary of hymnology produced by John Julian in 1892 (with a supplement in 1907), it will be of interest to literary scholars, musicians, church historians, and theologians, and will be a delight for those who love the hymn as an art form. Each day three articles are made available to the public for one day.
Below, an example of African American lined-out hymn singing.
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Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown (1924–2005) spent his career fighting purism by synthesizing old blues, country, jazz, Cajun, and R & B styles.
Asked in an interview about his early blues-based recordings, he gave a practical answer: “I had to sound like that because I was just starting out. Seeing as how I was a newcomer, I obliged.”
“But after a while, I thought, ‘Why do I have to be one of these old cryin’ and moanin’ guitar players always talking bad about women?’ So I just stopped. That’s when I started having horns and piano in my band, and started playing arrangements more like Count Basie and Duke Ellington, rather than some old hardcore Mississippi Delta stuff.”
The main entrance to the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts’s exhibition Lou Reed: Caught between the twisted stars opens up on Lincoln Plaza, directly adjacent to the The Metropolitan Opera house. On a sunny day, the Met’s … Continue reading →
Seven strings/Сім струн (dedicated to Uncle Michael)* For thee, O Ukraine, O our mother unfortunate, bound, The first string I touch is for thee. The string will vibrate with a quiet yet deep solemn sound, The song from my heart … Continue reading →
Introduction: Dr. Philip Ewell, Associate Professor of Music at Hunter College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, posted a series of daily tweets during Black History Month (February 2021) providing information on some under-researched Black … Continue reading →
For it [the Walkman] permits the possibility…of imposing your soundscape on the surrounding aural environment and thereby domesticating the external world: for a moment, it can all be brought under the STOP/START, FAST FOWARD, PAUSE and REWIND buttons. –Iain Chambers, “The … Continue reading →
