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A Spaniard in the Works
by John LennonAN OMNIBUS EDITION OF JOHN LENNON' S WHIMSICAL POETRY, PROSE, AND DRAWINGS, REISSUED IN CELEBRATION OF THE 70TH ANNIVERSARY OF HIS BIRTH.
Spanish Harlem's Musical Legacy: 1930-1980
by Silvio H. AlavaSpanish Harlem's musical development thrived between the 1930s and 1980s in New York City. This area was called El Barrio by its inhabitants and Spanish Harlem by all others. It was a neighborhood where musicians from the Caribbean or their descendants organized musical groups, thereby adding to the diaspora that began in Africa and Spain. The music now called salsa had its roots in Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Santo Domingo, and it continued developing onanother island: Manhattan.
Sparkers
by Eleanor GlewweIn the city of Ashara, magicians rule all. Marah Levi is a promising violinist who excels at school and can read more languages than most librarians. Even so, she has little hope of a bright future: she is a sparker, a member of the oppressed lower class in a society run by magicians. Then a mysterious disease hits the city of Ashara, turning its victims' eyes dark before ultimately killing them. As Marah watches those whom she loves most fall ill, she finds an unlikely friend in Azariah, a wealthy magician boy. Together they pursue a cure in secret, but more people are dying every day, and time is running out. Then Marah and Azariah make a shocking discovery that turns inside-out everything they thought they knew about magic and about Ashara, their home. Set in an imaginative world rich with language, lore, and music, this gripping adventure plunges the reader into the heart of a magical government where sparks of dissent may be even more deadly than the dark eyes.
Sparks-Tastic
by Tosh BermanIn 2008, Tosh Berman-author and publisher of TamTam Books-got on a plane with a single motive: "Sparks Spectacular." It had been announced that the band Sparks would perform all twenty-one of their albums in a succession of twenty-one nights in London...a monumental experience for any Sparks fanatic. Part travel journal, part personal memoir, Berman takes us through the streets of London and Paris, observing both cities' history and culture through the eye of an obsessive Sparks fan's lens. Including album-by-album reviews of all twenty-one albums and beyond, Sparks-Tastic defines a place and time in music history that's too defining to be ignored.
Speak In Tongues: An Oral History of Cleveland's DIY Punk Venue
by Eric SandySpeak In Tongues was a freewheeling, community-run underground music venue in Cleveland, Ohio that operated on a do-it-yourself basis throughout the late 1990s. The venue fostered a flourishing creative culture, where you could enjoy a puppet show from a spray-painted couch or meet other punks to start a band or a movement, but was also smoothly run with a great sound system and the best curation of music that you could hear in the city during its tenure. On any given night, you could go see hardcore punk, experimental jazz, or thrash shows where fireworks were set off inside the building. Traveling bands regularly booked shows there, including ones that went on to greater fame, like Modest Mouse, Avail, Lifter Puller, Jimmy Eat World, Alkaline Trio, Milemarker, and J Church. Venue operators, and later a management collective, contended with police surveillance, skinheads with knives, an exploding oil drum full of raw meat, a flaming car, and a different number of riots depending on who you ask. There may not have been a bar, but a healthy BYOB policy ensures that everyone’s memory is different, resulting in an entertaining story of a place that truly was what you made it, the source of lifelong friendships and endless lore. This comprehensive oral history tells a story that is greater than the sum of each person’s recollections, forming a picture of a unique, weird, special place that deeply informed the next twenty years of Cleveland’s underground culture.
Speak it Louder: Asian Americans Making Music
by Deborah WongSpeak It Louder: Asian Americans Making Music documents the variety of musics-from traditional Asian through jazz, classical, and pop-that have been created by Asian Americans. This book is not about "Asian American music" but rather about Asian Americans making music. This key distinction allows the author to track a wide range of musical genres. Wong covers an astonishing variety of music, ethnically as well as stylistically: Laotian song, Cambodian music drama, karaoke, Vietnamese pop, Japanese American taiko, Asian American hip hop, and panethnic Asian American improvisational music (encompassing jazz and avant-garde classical styles). In Wong's hands these diverse styles coalesce brilliantly around a coherent and consistent set of questions about what it means for Asian Americans to make music in environments of inter-ethnic contact, about the role of performativity in shaping social identities, and about the ways in which commercially and technologically mediated cultural production and reception transform individual perceptions of time, space, and society. Speak It Louder: Asian Americans Making Music encompasses ethnomusicology, oral history, Asian American studies, and cultural performance studies. It promises to set a new standard for writing in these fields, and will raise new questions for scholars to tackle for many years to come.
'Speak to Me': The Legacy of Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon
by Russell ReisingThe endurance of Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon on the Billboard Top 100 Chart is legendary, and its continuing sales and ongoing radio airplay ensure its inclusion on almost every conceivable list of rock's greatest albums. This collection of essays provides indispensable studies of the monumental 1973 album from a variety of musical, cultural, literary and social perspectives. The development and change of the songs is considered closely, from the earliest recordings through to the live, filmed performance at London's Earls Court in 1994. The band became almost synonymous with audio-visual innovations, and the performances of the album at live shows were spectacular moments of mass-culture although Roger Waters himself spoke out against such mass spectacles. The band's stage performances of the album serve to illustrate the multifaceted and complicated relationship between modern culture and technology. The album is therefore placed within the context of developments in late 1960s/early 1970s popular music, with particular focus on the use of a variety of segues between tracks which give the album a multidimensional unity that is lacking in Pink Floyd's later concept albums. Beginning with 'Breathe' and culminating in 'Eclipse', a tonal and motivic coherence unifies the structure of this modern song cycle. The album is also considered in the light of modern day 'tribute' bands, with a discussion of the social groups who have the strongest response to the music being elaborated alongside the status of mediated representations and their relation to the 'real' Pink Floyd.
Speaking of Dance: Twelve Contemporary Choreographers on Their Craft
by Joyce MorgenrothSpeaking of Dance: Twelve Contemporary Choreographers on Their Craft delves into the choreographic processes of some of America's most engaging and revolutionary dancemakers. Based on personal interviews, the book's narratives reveal the methods and quests of, among others, Merce Cunningham, Meredith Monk, Bill T. Jones, Trisha Brown, and Mark Morris. Morgenroth shows how the ideas, craft, and passion that go into their work have led these choreographers to disrupt known forms and expectations. The history of dance in the making is revealed through the stories of these intelligent, articulate, and witty dance masters.
Speaking of Pianists (Quality Paperbacks Ser.)
by Abram ChasinsThe pianist, composer, music director of WOXR, contributor to the Saturday Review collects his reminiscences- and reactions stimulated by piano playing and piano music. So that his clavichord is well-tempered not only by his knowledge and feeling for its music, but also by his own association with many performers. He re-establishes Josef Hofmann as a great pianist and a greatly loved teacher; Rachmaninoff, the communicable and sumptuous melodist; Schnabel and Godowsky; the courtly Paderewski and the ebullient Rubinstein; Wanda Landowski and Backhaus, Gieseking and Serkin, Casadesus and Horowitz are all in this gallery of greats. He writes also of interpretation and teaching, of the ruthless stranglehold of concert management, of hi fidelity and its ""high fatality"" to the quality of recorded performances, and there is a substantial section of commentaries on particular works and composers- chiefly classical... Informed, but informally presented music appreciation which the general listener will enjoy- along with the contact with many concert pianists and the anecdotal asides (Kirkus Review)
Speaking Words of Wisdom: The Beatles and Religion (American Music History)
by Michael McGowan“More popular than Jesus.”Despite the uproar it caused in America in 1966, John Lennon’s famous assessment of the Beatles vis-à-vis religion was not far off. The Beatles did mean more to kids than the religions in which they were raised, not only in America but everywhere in the world.By all accounts, the Beatles were the most significant musical group of the twentieth century. Their albums sold in the hundreds of millions, and the press was always eager to document their activities and perspectives. And when fan appreciation morphed into worship, Beatlemania took on religious significance. Many young people around the world began to look to the Beatles—their music, their commentary, their art—for meaning in a turbulent decade. Speaking Words of Wisdom is a deep dive into the Beatles’ relationship to religion through the lenses of philosophy, cultural studies, music history, and religious studies. Chapters explore topics such as religious life in Liverpool, faith among individual band members, why and how India entered the Beatles’ story, fan worship/deification, and the Beatles’ long-lasting legacy. In the 1960s, the Beatles facilitated a reevaluation of our deepest values. The story of how the Beatles became modern-day sages is an important case study for the ways in which consumers make culturally and religiously significant meaning from music, people, and events.In addition to the editor, the contributors to this book include David Bedford, Kenneth Campbell, John Covach, Melissa Davis, Anthony DeCurtis, Mark Duffett, Scott Freer, Murray Leeder, Sean MacLeod, Grant Maxwell, Christiane Meiser, and Eyal Regev.
Special Deluxe
by Neil YoungNeil Young's first memoir, Waging Heavy Peace, was an international bestseller and critical sensation. The Wall Street Journal wrote that it was "terrific: modest, honest, funny and frequently moving," while The New York Times found it "as charismatically off the wall as Mr. Young's records." Now, in Special Deluxe, Young has fashioned a second work of extraordinary reminiscences about his Canadian boyhood, his musical influences, his family, the rock 'n' roll life, and one of his deepest, most ebullient passions: cars. Through the framework of the many vehicles he's collected and driven, Young explores his love for the well-crafted vintage automobile,and examines his newfound awareness of his hobby's negative environmental impact. With his ferocious devotion to clean energy, he recounts the saga of Lincvolt, his specially modified electric car, and his efforts to demonstrate to lawmakers and consumers how viable non-gas-guzzling vehicles truly can be.Special Deluxe captures Young's singular lyrical, almost musical, voice. Witty, eclectic, and wonderfully candid, Special Deluxe is an unforgettable amalgam of memories, artwork, and political ponderings from one of the most genuine and enigmatic artists of our time.
The Special Liveliness of Hooks in Popular Music and Beyond
by Steven G. SmithThis book illuminates the aesthetically underrated meaningfulness of particular elements in works of art and aesthetic experiences generally. Beginning from the idea of "hooks" in popular song, the book identifies experiences of special liveliness that are of enduring interest, supporting contemplation and probing discussion. When hooks are placed in the foreground of aesthetic experience, so is an enthusiastic “grabbing back” by the experiencer who forms a quasi-personal bond with the beloved singular moment and is probably inclined to share this still-evolving realization of value with others. This book presents numerous models of enthusiastic “grabbing back” that are art-critically motivated to explain how hooks achieve their effects and philosophically motivated to discover how hooks and hook appreciation contribute to a more ideally desirable life. Framing hook appreciation with a defensible general model of aesthetic experience, this book gives an unprecedented demonstration of the substantial aesthetic and philosophical interest of hook-centered inquiry.
Spectacle, Fashion and the Dancing Experience in Britain, 1960-1990 (Palgrave Studies in the History of Subcultures and Popular Music)
by Jon StrattonThis book explores dancing from the 1960s to the 1980s; though this period covers only twenty years, the changes during it were seismic. Nevertheless continuities can be found, and those are what this book examines. In dancing, it answers how we moved from the self-control that formed the basis for ballroom dancing, to ecstatic rave dancing. In terms of music, it answers how we moved from the beat groups to electronic dance music. In terms of youth, it answers how we moved from youth culture to club culture.
The Spectral Piano
by Marilyn Nonken Hugues DufourtThe most influential compositional movement of the past fifty years, spectralism was informed by digital technology but also extended the aesthetics of pianist-composers such as Franz Liszt, Alexander Scriabin and Claude Debussy. Students of Olivier Messiaen such as Tristan Murail and Gérard Grisey sought to create a cooperative committed to exploring the evolution of timbre in time as a basis for the musical experience. In The Spectral Piano, Marilyn Nonken shows how the spectral attitude was influenced by developments in technology but also continued a tradition of performative and compositional virtuosity. Nonken explores shared fascinations with the musical experience, which united spectralists with their Romantic and early Modern predecessors. Examining Murail's Territoires de l'oubli, Jonathan Harvey's Tombeau de Messiaen, Joshua Fineberg's Veils, and Edmund Campion's A Complete Wealth of Time, she reveals how spectral concerns relate not only to the past but also to contemporary developments in philosophical aesthetics.
Speculative Music
by Jeff DolvenJeff Dolven's poems take the guise of fables, parables, allegories, jokes, riddles, and other familiar forms. So, there is an initial comfort: I remember this, the reader thinks, from the stories of childhood . . . . But wait, something is off. In each poem, an uncanny conceit surprises the form, a highway paved with highwaymen, a school for shame, a family of chairs. Dolven makes these strange wagers with the grace and edgy precision of a metaphysical poet, and there are moments when we might imagine ourselves to be somewhere in the company of Donne or Spenser. Then we encounter "The Invention: A Libretto for Speculative Music," which is, well-surreal, and features a decisively modern, entirely notional score, sung by an inventor and his invention, which (who?) turns out to be a 40s-type piano-perched chanteuse who (which?) somehow knows all the words to the song you never knew you had in you. The daring of this collection is not in replaying the fractured polyphony of our moment. Speculative Music gives us accessible lyrics that still manage to listen in on our echoing interiors. These are poems that promise Frost's "momentary stay against confusion" and, at the same time, provoke a deep, head-shaking wonder.
Speech and Audio Processing for Coding, Enhancement and Recognition
by Tokunbo Ogunfunmi Roberto Togneri Madihally Sim NarasimhaThis book describes the basic principles underlying the generation, coding, transmission and enhancement of speech and audio signals, including advanced statistical and machine learning techniques for speech and speaker recognition with an overview of the key innovations in these areas. Key research undertaken in speech coding, speech enhancement, speech recognition, emotion recognition and speaker diarization are also presented, along with recent advances and new paradigms in these areas.
Speech and Song at the Margins of Global Health: Zulu Tradition, HIV Stigma, and AIDS Activism in South Africa
by Steven P. BlackSpeech and Song at the Margins of Global Health tells the story of a unique Zulu gospel choir comprised of people living with HIV in South Africa, and how they maintained healthy, productive lives amid globalized inequality, international aid, and the stigma that often comes with having HIV. By singing, joking, and narrating about HIV in Zulu, the performers in the choir were able to engage with international audiences, connect with global health professionals, and also maintain traditional familial respect through the prism of performance. The focus on gospel singing in the narrative provides a holistic viewpoint on life with HIV in the later years of the pandemic, and the author’s musical engagement led to fieldwork in participants’ homes and communities, including the larger stigmatized community of infected individuals. This viewpoint suggests overlooked ways that aid recipients contribute to global health in support, counseling, and activism, as the performers set up instruments, waited around in hotel lobbies, and struck up conversations with passersby and audience members. The story of the choir reveals the complexity and inequities of global health interventions, but also the positive impact of those interventions in the crafting of community.
Spider from Mars: My Life with Bowie
by Woody WoodmanseyA band member recounts his experience with David Bowie during the early years: “Those interested in rock history won’t want to miss this.” —Publishers WeeklyFor millions of people, David Bowie was an icon celebrated for his music, his film and theatrical roles, and his trendsetting influence on fashion and gender norms. But until now, no one from Bowie’s inner circle has told the story of how David Jones—a young folksinger, dancer, and aspiring mime—became one of the most influential artists of our time.Drummer Woody Woodmansey’s Spider from Mars reveals what it was like to be at the white-hot center of a star’s self-creation. With never-before-told stories and never-before-seen photographs, Woodmansey offers details of the album sessions for The Man Who Sold the World, Hunky Dory, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardustand the Spiders from Mars, and Aladdin Sane: the four albums that made Bowie a cult figure. And, as fame beckoned and eventually consumed Bowie, Woodmansey recalls the wild tours, eccentric characters, and rock ‘n’ roll excess that eventually drove the band apart.A vivid and unique evocation of a transformative musical era and the enigmatic, visionary musician at the center of it, with a foreword by legendary music producer Tony Visconti and an afterword from Def Leppard’s Joe Elliot, Spider from Mars is a close-up portrait of David Bowie, by one of the people who knew him best.“Wild tours, behind-the-scenes drama, and album sessions . . . revealing.” —USA Today“An engaging behind-the-scenes look at an early phase in the life of one of rock’s most triumphant figures.” —Booklist
Spiders of the Market: Ghanaian Trickster Performance in a Web of Neoliberalism (African Expressive Cultures)
by David Afriyie DonkorThe Ghanaian trickster-spider, Ananse, is a deceptive figure full of comic delight who blurs the lines of class, politics, and morality. David Afriyie Donkor identifies social performance as a way to understand trickster behavior within the shifting process of political legitimization in Ghana, revealing stories that exploit the social ideologies of economic neoliberalism and political democratization. At the level of policy, neither ideology was completely successful, but Donkor shows how the Ghanaian government was crafty in selling the ideas to the people, adapting trickster-rooted performance techniques to reinterpret citizenship and the common good. Trickster performers rebelled against this takeover of their art and sought new ways to out trick the tricksters.
Spinning Plates: Music, Men, Motherhood and Me: THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY
by Sophie Ellis-BextorSOPHIE ELLIS-BEXTOR SINGER - SINGER, WRITER AND PIONEER OF THE LOCKDOWN KITCHEN DISCO, REFLECTS CANDIDLY ON LIFE, LOVE AND RELATIONSHIPSSophie Ellis-Bextor's kitchen discos became a source of escapism, catharsis and sequined joy for a swathe of the population during lockdown. From knackered mothers and fed up fathers, to cooped up partiers with nowhere to go, Sophie's gloriously chaotic Friday kitchen performances have cheered and revived us. Now Sophie is bringing that same mixture of down to earth candour and optimistic sparkle to her autobiography. In SPINNING PLATES Sophie writes openly and very frankly about her life. From a childhood flogging Blue Peter badges in the playground to joining Theaudience straight from school, to finding love after a dark and troubled relationship, and becoming mother to five boys, Sophie pulls no punches in her autobiography.By choosing to speak so openly on issues close to her heart, Sophie invites us all to join the conversation and bring those trickier subjects out of the shadows and into the light.Covering relationships, body image, good-enough parenting, the highs - and the lows - of competing on Strictly Come Dancing - Sophie writes about the things that take on greater and lesser importance as life becomes more complicated. This is a book about respecting and learning from our mistakes and experiences and not being afraid to smash a few plates for the sake of what we actually need, want and value.Honest, heartfelt and highly entertaining.
Spinning Plates: Music, Men, Motherhood and Me: THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY
by Sophie Ellis-BextorSOPHIE ELLIS-BEXTOR SINGER - SINGER, WRITER AND PIONEER OF THE LOCKDOWN KITCHEN DISCO, REFLECTS CANDIDLY ON LIFE, LOVE AND RELATIONSHIPSSophie Ellis-Bextor's kitchen discos became a source of escapism, catharsis and sequined joy for a swathe of the population during lockdown. From knackered mothers and fed up fathers, to cooped up partiers with nowhere to go, Sophie's gloriously chaotic Friday kitchen performances have cheered and revived us. Now Sophie is bringing that same mixture of down to earth candour and optimistic sparkle to her autobiography. In SPINNING PLATES Sophie writes openly and very frankly about her life. From a childhood flogging Blue Peter badges in the playground to joining Theaudience straight from school, to finding love after a dark and troubled relationship, and becoming mother to five boys, Sophie pulls no punches in her autobiography.By choosing to speak so openly on issues close to her heart, Sophie invites us all to join the conversation and bring those trickier subjects out of the shadows and into the light.Covering relationships, body image, good-enough parenting, the highs - and the lows - of competing on Strictly Come Dancing - Sophie writes about the things that take on greater and lesser importance as life becomes more complicated. This is a book about respecting and learning from our mistakes and experiences and not being afraid to smash a few plates for the sake of what we actually need, want and value.Honest, heartfelt and highly entertaining.
Spinning Plates: Music, Men, Motherhood and Me: TALES FROM OUR FAVOURITE 24 HOUR KITCHEN DISCO QUEEN
by Sophie Ellis-BextorSinger, broadcaster and mother Sophie Ellis-Bextor shares her experiences, insights and reflections on men, music and motherhood.Sophie Ellis-Bextor's kitchen discos became a source of much needed escapism, catharsis and sequined joy for a swathe of the population during lockdown. From knackered mothers and fed up fathers, to cooped up partiers with nowhere to go, Sophie's gloriously chaotic Friday kitchen performances have cheered and revived us. Now Sophie is bringing that same mixture of down to earth candour and optimistic sparkle to her first book. Part memoir, part musings, Sophie will write about the conjuring act of adulthood and motherhood and how her experience of working while raising her five sons has given her the inescapable lesson of how to navigate life in the face of failure and imperfection. Covering relationships, good enough parenting, the importance of delusion and dancing, Sophie writes about the things that take on greater importance as life becomes more complicated. From the non negotiables (solitude, music, glitter) to the unimportant (clean hair, deadlines, appropriate behaviour), this is a book about learning from our experiences and not being afraid to smash a few plates for the sake of what we actually need want and value.(P)2021 Hodder & Stoughton Limited
Spinning the Child: Musical Constructions of Childhood through Records, Radio and Television
by Liam MaloySpinning the Child examines music for children on records, radio and television by assessing how ideals of entertainment, education, ‘the child’ and ‘the family’ have been communicated through folk music, the BBC’s children’s radio broadcasting, the children’s songs of Woody Guthrie, Sesame Street, The Muppet Show and Bagpuss, the contemporary children’s music industry and other case studies. The book provides the first sustained critical overview of recorded music for children, its production and dissemination. The music, lyrics and sonics of hundreds of recorded songs are analysed with reference to their specific social, historical and technological contexts. The chapters expose the attitudes, morals and desires that adults have communicated both to and about the child through the music that has been created and compiled for children. The musical representations of age, race, class and gender reveal how recordings have both reflected and shaped transformations in discourses of childhood. This book is recommended for scholars in the sociology of childhood, the sociology of music, ethnomusicology, music education, popular musicology, children’s media and related fields. Spinning the Child’s emphasis on the analysis of musical, lyrical and sonic texts in specific contexts suggests its value as both a teaching and research resource.
A Spiral Way: How the Phonograph Changed Ethnography
by Erika BradyAssociation of Recorded Sound Collections Awards for ExcellenceBest Research in the General History of Recorded Sound (2000)The invention of the cylinder phonograph at the end of the nineteenth century opened up a new world for cultural research. Indeed, Edison's talking machine became one of the basic tools of anthropology. It not only equipped researchers with the means of preserving folk songs but it also enabled them to investigate a wide spectrum of distinct vocal expressions in the emerging fields of anthropology and folklore. Ethnographers grasped its huge potential and fanned out through regional America to record rituals, stories, word lists, and songs in isolated cultures. From the outset the federal government helped fuel the momentum to record cultures that were at risk of being lost. Through the Bureau of American Ethnology, the Smithsonian Institution took an active role in preserving native heritage. It supported projects to make phonographic documentation of American Indian language, music, and rituals before developing technologies and national expansion might futher undermine them. This study of the early phonograph's impact shows traditional ethnography being transformed, for attitudes of both ethnographers and performers were reshaped by this exciting technology. In the presence of the phonograph both fieldwork and the materials collected were revolutionized. By radically altering the old research modes, the phonograph brought the disciplines of anthropology and folklore into the modern era. At first the instrument was as strange and new to the fieldworkers as it was to their subjects. To some the first encounter with the phonograph was a deeply unsettling experience. When it was demonstrated in 1878 before members of the National Academy of Sciences, several members of the audience fainted. Even its inventor was astonished. Of his first successful test of his tinfoil phonograph, Thomas A. Edison said, "I was never taken so aback in my life." The cylinders that have survived from these times offer an unrivaled resource not only for contemporary scholarship but also for a grassroots renaissance of cultural and religious values. In tracing the historical interplay of the talking machine with field research, A Spiral Way underscores the natural adaptablity of cultural study to this new technology.
The Spirit of Music: The Lesson Continues
by Victor L. WootenGrammy Award winner Victor Wooten's inspiring parable of the importance of music and the threats that it faces in today's world. We may not realize it as we listen to the soundtrack of our lives through tiny earbuds, but music and all that it encompasses is disappearing all around us. In this fable-like story three musicians from around the world are mysteriously summoned to Nashville, the Music City, to join together with Victor to do battle against the "Phasers," whose blinking "music-cancelling" headphones silence and destroy all musical sound. Only by coming together, connecting, and making the joyful sounds of immediate, "live" music can the world be restored to the power and spirit of music.A VINTAGE ORIGINAL