Music
Sight Readings
Jazz photography has attracted increasing attention in recent years. Photographs of musicians are popular with enthusiasts while historians and critics are keen to incorporate photographs as illustrations. Yet there has been little interrogation of these photographs and it is noticeable that what has become known as the jazz photography 'tradition' is dominated by a small number of well-known photographers and 'iconic' images.
Many photographers including African American photojournalists studio photographers early twentieth-century émigrés the Jewish exiles of the 1930s and vernacular snapshots are frequently overlooked. Drawing on ideas from contemporary photographic theory supported by extensive original archival research Sight Readings is a thorough exploration of twentieth century jazz photography and it includes discussions of jazz as a visual subject its attraction to different types of photographers and offers analysis of why and how they approached the subject in the way they did.
One of the remarkable things about this book is its movement back and forth between detailed archive research the empirical documentation of photographers their techniques working practices equipment etc. and cultural theory the sophisticated discussion of aesthetics cultural sociology the politics of identity etc. The result is both a fine scholarly achievement and an engaging labour of love.
Consent Practices in Performing Arts Education
This book explores consent as a foundational principle to guide practices and policies in university level performing arts education. It includes descriptions of the structural power dynamics present in educational spaces as well as tools for defusing them. It adapts the consent-forward protocols that are foundational to intimacy training in order to apply them to classroom and rehearsal spaces across performing arts disciplines.
This includes opening lines of communication actively discussing personal boundaries and modeling behavior that respects those boundaries. Additionally the book uses experiential reflections to address the real-world challenges that teachers face as they work to reshape their teaching habits and processes to include consent practices.
Ethno Music Gatherings
This book presents key findings from a 4-year project that sought to understand Ethno Gatherings an organized residential folk world and traditional music programme for young people aged 18-30. In response to three lines of enquiry pedagogy and professional development participant experience and the impact it had upon those who attended the authors examine the complexity of an Ethno music experience. By considering its history and current practices the following themes are explored: non-formal music making personal authenticity holistic praxis musical possible selves intercultural music exchange sustainability social media engagement song sharing and future practices. Constructed through data drawn from participant observations interviews online social media analysis onsite and video observations surveys and questionnaires the authors ask critical questions concerning Ethno’s history ethos pedagogy and philosophical ideals. First held in Sweden in 1990 Ethno Gatherings are now located in over 40 countries worldwide and are part of JM Internationals youth music programmes. As a collection of integrated thought the book’s purpose is to illuminate new understandings of what Ethno does to support its future growth and development.
From Broadway to The Bronx
The depiction of New York City in song across a variety of different genres focusing on jazz genres as well as the work of both New York born artists like Billy Joel or Lin-Manuel Miranda and artists living most of their life in New York City like Shinehead or Debbie Harry that are intimately connected with the city.
The book analyzes songs written about New York City and engage with the depiction of the city within them but mainly use it as a way to deal with several musical genres that the city has been home to and instrumental in developing. These include the musical theatre scene on Broadway and beyond but also early 20th century sheet music hip hop disco punk dancehall jazz swing rock or pop music. The collection includes essays from authors with a cultural studies media studies cultural history or musicology background making possible a far-ranging treatment of the interconnection of the city space and its musical history.
Places and Purposes of Popular Music Education
This book provides a manuscript-megaphone for a variety of perspectives on popular music education including those we do not usually hear from but who are doing far and away the coolest most relevant and most interesting things.
It includes rants manifestos and pieces that are pithy and punchy and poignant which have resulted in a wide tonal variety among chapters from more traditionally scholarly pieces replete with citations and references through descriptions of practice to straight-up polemics. It is more about beliefs experiences and motivation about frustrations aspirations and celebrations. The chapters are intended to whet appetites prime pumps open eyes and keep cogs turning. This book is organized into four parts: Beyond the Classroom Identity and Purpose Higher Education and Politics and Ideology. This book is intended for academics of all ages and stages but the writing is often deliberately non-academic in tone.
The book will appeal to those working in popular music studies communication studies education research and should be of interest to those involved in policy decisions at national and regional levels. It is also directly relevant to researchers looking music industry and music ecosystems nationally regionally and internationally as education and popular music industry DIY and community sectors continue to enmesh in complex and evolving ways.
Designing and Conducting Practice-Based Research Projects
This is a textbook aimed primarily at upper undergraduate and Master’s students undertaking practice-based research in the arts and includes practical guidance examples exercises and further resources.
The book offers definitions and a brief background to practice-related research in the arts contextualization of practice-based methods within that frame a step-by-step approach to designing practice-based research projects chapter summaries examples of practice-related research exercises for progressing methods design and evaluating research approach and lists for further reading. This textbook can serve as the foundation for a wider online “living” textbook for practice-related research in the arts.
Designing and Conducting Practice-Based Research Projects
This is a textbook aimed primarily at upper undergraduate and Master’s students undertaking practice-based research in the arts and includes practical guidance examples exercises and further resources.
The book offers definitions and a brief background to practice-related research in the arts contextualization of practice-based methods within that frame a step-by-step approach to designing practice-based research projects chapter summaries examples of practice-related research exercises for progressing methods design and evaluating research approach and lists for further reading. This textbook can serve as the foundation for a wider online “living” textbook for practice-related research in the arts.
The Psychology of Metal Music, Culture, and Dis/ability
Heavy metal has long been associated with deviance and non-conformity (Messick and Aranda 2020; Snell and Hodgetts 2007; Lynxwiler and Gay 2000) but it is less clear if that encompasses nonvoluntary forms of non-conformity. Metal culture prides itself on being inclusionary (Wray 2018) although that is more an ideal than an objective reality since despite becoming more inclusionary since its 1960s’ inception biases have prevented women (Shadrack 2021; Berkers and Schaap 2018; Heesch and Scott 2016) individuals from some religions (Moberg 2012; Hecker 2005; Kartheus 2015) and non-white fans (Dawes 2012) from being treated equally. These biases have been explored in academic and popular literature but there is less written about metal fans with dis/abilities. Consistent with Goodley (2018) this chapter uses the term ‘dis/ability’ to reference a broad range of disabilities and disorders because it acknowledges the duality of these conditions and avoids potentially ableist associations.
This chapter focuses on how widespread dis/ability is among metal fans the role of stigma historical contextualization and what psychological functions are fulfilled that make metal culture an appealing place for membership. Included here is preliminary theoretical work based on existing trends and evidence which are substantiated further by qualitative data. This chapter speaks of dis/abilities in broad strokes so although there is overlap across people of differing life experiences further nuance is needed when speaking of individual dis/abilities and experiences. This chapter outlines some possible psychological functions metal culture can provide for members with dis/abilities including mood and symptom maintenance representation social relatedness a sense of belonging and as an outlet for sharing experiences.
Disabled Drone: Trans-Feminist Noisecraft
In December 2018 Steff Juniper submitted their major research paper for their master’s in Critical Disability Studies at York University entitled Trans-feminist Witchcraft: A Psychiatric Survivor Narrative an arts-based autoethnography on witchcraft as radical healing and the politics of psychiatric survival and disability justice. It merged theories of disability mad queer and transgender studies to ground discussions on the embodiment theories of phenomenology (Merleau-Ponty 2008; Ahmed 2006) and enactive cognition. Steff submitted a demo cassette tape of their drone attached to the paper and through including creative writing personal narrative poetry prose and short story the paper aimed to convey the emotional non-linearity of experiencing the body and language as a limited social convention to express emotion.
Steff’s drone cassette tape sits in the office at York University’s Critical Disability Studies Department for those interested in what an arts-based approach to disability studies research may look feel or sound like. They will be drawing on the work in their master’s thesis in the formation of their submission to elucidate how the creation of drone is a process of communication and sublimation as a neurodivergent mad and disabled artist. Additionally they will explore how their identity politic grew as being foundational from the experience of ‘being a metalhead’. Their submission encompasses a phenomenological approach to their experience as a trans and disabled noise artist. Primarily they will explore how they have used making loud noise and strong-felt vibrations as a spiritual experience and activist tool to heal themselves and empower others to use their creativity to process feelings of alienation.
Content Warnings: Gender Dysphoria Gender-based Violence Psychiatric Oppression Transphobia Suicide and Suicidal Ideation
The carnelian caught my eye round surreptitiously plump like a blood python. I picked it up and felt the weight in my hands triangularly spherical smooth points of three. It asks how to acknowledge the weight of being alive so that when the lightness of lightning strikes I can notice.1
‘United We Never Shall Fall’: Metal and Disability
Outsiders to metal may conclude incorrectly that a music culture that valorizes strength would hold no place for the disabled. In fact metal’s frequent identification with social outsiders lyrical themes of personal struggle and fans’ strong sense of community hold considerable appeal for a surprising number of disabled persons. With this chapter we seek to open a conversation between the growing and increasingly sophisticated literature bringing together disability studies and popular music scholarship on the one hand and the metal studies literature on the other.