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Ethnomusicologizing

Essays on Music in the New Paradigms

Bill Banfield

In Ethnomusicologizing: Essays on Music in the New Paradigms, composer and musicologist brings together a series of essays on music making in contemporary culture. More specifically, it focuses on the myriad ways we engage with music—as makers, as listeners, as consumers, as producers. Banfield labels this fully engaged process as “ethnomusicologizing,” as he explores the ways we create, share, teach, and discuss music. Throughout he argues that music is more than the experience of structured sound. It is rather a way of being more critically present as musicians and as citizens of sharing in the world itself.

Ethnomusicologizing contains writings on contemporary music and culture studies, offering glimpses on more than just music history through reflective essays, interviews with contemporary artists, and exercises in the analysis and criticism of popular culture. In this work, Banfield instructs readers in the ways by which we may better appreciate and understand creative artistry and process, and their relation to history and its meaning. The essays comprise a choir of voices and perspectives that provide insight into contemporary music culture that provide readers a text that uses his own experiences as a musician—and in particular his travels through the musical world of Cuba—as well as his takes on contemporary popular recording artists, American music traditions, and music education to explore every aspect of creating, performing, and being in music.

Offering many points of entry into the idea that musical experience, global citizenship and community-mindedness are all parts of a greater whole, Ethnomusicologizing encourages artists and readers to talk about the meaning of music—and art more generally—in entirely new ways.

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Pages: 446 • Trim: 6 x 9

978-1-4422-2971-6 • Paperback • August 2015 • $62.00 • (£48.00)

978-1-4422-2972-3 • eBook • August 2015 • $58.50 • (£45.00)

Series: African American Cultural Theory and Heritage

Subjects: Music / EthnoMusicology, Music / History & Criticism, Social Science / Popular Culture

Ethnomusicologizing

Essays on Music in the New Paradigms

Paperback

eBook

Summary

In Ethnomusicologizing: Essays on Music in the New Paradigms, composer and musicologist brings together a series of essays on music making in contemporary culture. More specifically, it focuses on the myriad ways we engage with music—as makers, as listeners, as consumers, as producers. Banfield labels this fully engaged process as “ethnomusicologizing,” as he explores the ways we create, share, teach, and discuss music. Throughout he argues that music is more than the experience of structured sound. It is rather a way of being more critically present as musicians and as citizens of sharing in the world itself.

Ethnomusicologizing contains writings on contemporary music and culture studies, offering glimpses on more than just music history through reflective essays, interviews with contemporary artists, and exercises in the analysis and criticism of popular culture. In this work, Banfield instructs readers in the ways by which we may better appreciate and understand creative artistry and process, and their relation to history and its meaning. The essays comprise a choir of voices and perspectives that provide insight into contemporary music culture that provide readers a text that uses his own experiences as a musician—and in particular his travels through the musical world of Cuba—as well as his takes on contemporary popular recording artists, American music traditions, and music education to explore every aspect of creating, performing, and being in music.

Offering many points of entry into the idea that musical experience, global citizenship and community-mindedness are all parts of a greater whole, Ethnomusicologizing encourages artists and readers to talk about the meaning of music—and art more generally—in entirely new ways.

Details

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Pages: 446 • Trim: 6 x 9

978-1-4422-2971-6 • Paperback • August 2015 • $62.00 • (£48.00)

978-1-4422-2972-3 • eBook • August 2015 • $58.50 • (£45.00)

Series: African American Cultural Theory and Heritage

Subjects: Music / EthnoMusicology, Music / History & Criticism, Social Science / Popular Culture

Author

Bill Banfield serves as professor of Africana Studies / Music and Society, composition, and graduate history studies at the Berklee College of Music. He is director of the Center for Africana Studies. An award-winning composer, former Pulitzer Prize judge, jazz guitarist, recording artist, and public radio show host, he is the author of six books on music, arts, cultural criticism, and history.

Table of Contents

Prelude
Keeping the Core Creative Soul-Spirit
Part 1: Theory: Music Thinking Theories, Teaching, and Approaches
Chapter 1: Ethnomusicologizing: The Way Forward, Cultural Relevancy
Chapter 2: Ethnomusicology Studies in Music Culture
Chapter 3: Popular Music Culture: How to Teach and Reach within Popular Music
Chapter 4: Black Music Matters
Chapter 5: Notes From Cuba
Chapter 6: The “I Theory”
Part 2: History: Backbones, Songs
Chapter 7: A Progressive View of American Popular Music History, 1948-2014
Chapter 8: American Mavericks Interviews
Chapter 9: Harlem Renaissance 1920-1935: Artistry, Aesthetics, Politics and Popular Culture
Chapter 10: CBMR Letter
Chapter 11: Mom, Dad, and the Making of Symphony 10 with Sweet Honey In The Rock
Part 3: Culture: New Standards, Cultural Critique
Chapter 12: Wake up! What Time is It Really? Who Turns it Up, Down, and Back?: Values on The Cultural Dial
Chapter 13: Does Our Music Still Bring The Good News Of The Day?
Chapter 14: On The Crisis of Popular Arts and Society: Steps Ahead
Chapter 15: The Problem With Jazz
Chapter 16: Review of George Lewis, Les Exercices Spirituels
Chapter 17: Don’t Use the “J word”: Jazz in its Connections to Culture and Meaning
Chapter 18: From Hip-Hop To Zombie Nation
Chapter 19: Critical Culture Concerns Today
Chapter 20: The Songs We Need To Be Hearing Again: Music Culture and A Musician’s Credo To Citizenry
Postlude: Afterthought on Ethnomusicologizing

Reviews

Today, many young musicians are driven by a short-sighted desire for money, fame, and power. But the purpose of art—true art—remains the search for meaning, purpose, inspiration, and spiritual fulfillment. Banfield is hopeful in this regard: 'Young people feel they are a more integral part of their success story if they are allowed to bring to a product a piece of who they are, what their story is. I think, despite our capitalistic surges, people always return back to the basic humanistic codes'. Such nuanced appraisals make Ethnomusicologizing a provocative and profitable read.
— Thinking On Music

Ethnomusicologizing

Essays on Music in the New Paradigms

Bill Banfield

Ethnomusicologizing

Essays on Music in the New Paradigms

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