LibGuides: Music: Background Information

Background Information

“You have to, take a deep breath. and allow the music to flow through you. Revel in it, allow yourself to awe. When you play allow the music to break your heart with its beauty.” – Kelly White

“Music is powerful. As people listen to it, they can be affected. They respond.” – Ray Charles

There is a song, an artist, and a type of music that is pleasing to everyone. Music touches us and makes us feel things, opens our minds, and helps us through the day. There are so many genres of music blues, jazz, opera, kpop, hip hop, house, classical, the list goes on (see them all here). Music is an important aspect of human history; today we get to experience music from different countries, genres, and time periods. This libguide will help you find more information about why music is so important and where the roots of certain genres began.

Reference: Dictionaries and Ecyclopedias

New Penguin Dictionary of Music by Paul Griffiths The New Penguin Dictionary of Music is the essential A-Z of some 1,000 years of Western music. It explores in detail the lives and achievements of a huge range of composers, and examines such key topics as music history (from medieval plainchant to contemporary minimalism), performers, theory and jargon. Written by an award-winning music critic, and blending scholarship with personal insight and opinion, this dictionary is both a pleasurable read and an invaluable and authoritative reference book for all lovers of music, whether amateur or professional.
ISBN: 014100925X
Publication Date: 2006-08-01
The Harvard Dictionary of Music by Don Michael Randel A standard, desk-size comprehensive dictionary. The Harvard Dictionary of Music is the single most indispensable reference work for musicians, students of music, and music lovers. Seventy scholars have contributed nearly 6000 specially commissioned entries to produce what is simply the best one-volume music dictionary available today.
Call Number: ML100 .A64 2003
ISBN: 9780674011632
Publication Date: 2003-12-01
The Oxford Companion to Jazz by Bill Kirchner (Editor) Jazz and its colorful, expansive history resonate in this unique collection of 60 essays specially-commissioned from today's top jazz performers, writers, and scholars. Contributors include such jazz insiders as Bill Crow, Samuel A. Floyd Jr., Ted Gioia, Gene Lees, Dan Morgenstern, Gunther Schuller, Richard M. Sudhalter, and Patricia Willard. Both a reference book and an engaging read, the Companion surveys the evolution of jazz from its roots in Africa and Europe until the present. Along the way, each distinctive style and period is profiled by an expert in the field. Whether your preference is ragtime, the blues, bebop, or fusion, you will find the chief characteristics and memorable performances illuminated here with a thoroughness found in no other single-volume jazz reference. The Oxford Companion to Jazz features individual biographies of the most memorable characters of this relatively young art form. Sidney Bechet, King Oliver, Jelly Roll Morton, Louis Armstrong, Bix Beiderbecke, Bessie Smith, Duke Ellington, Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, Charles Mingus, John Coltrane, and the divas of jazz song--Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, and Sarah Vaughan--come to life in thoughtful considerations of their influences, often turbulent personal lives, and signature styles. In addition, this book looks at the impact of jazz on American culture-in literature, film, television, and dance-and explores the essential instruments of jazz and their most memorable players. The Oxford Companion to Jazz will provide a quick reference source as well as a dynamic and broad overview for all lovers of jazz, from novices to aficionados.
Call Number: ML3507 .O94 2000
ISBN: 019512510X
Publication Date: 2000-10-19
The Garland Handbook of African Music by Ruth M. Stone (Editor) The Garland Handbook of African Music is comprised of essays from The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music: Volume 1, Africa, (1997). Revised and updated, the essays offer detailed, regional studies of the different musical cultures of Africa and examine the ways in which music helps to define the identity of this particular area. Partnbsp;One provides an in-depth introduction to Africa. Partnbsp;Two focuses on issues and processes, such as notation and oral tradition, dance in communal life, and intellectual property. Partnbsp;Three focuses on the different regions, countries, and cultures of Africa with selected regional case studies. The second edition has been expanded to include exciting new scholarship that has been conducted since the first edition was published. Questions for Critical Thinking at the end of each major section guide and focus attention on what musical and cultural issues arise when one studies the music of Africanbsp;-- issues that might not occur in the study of other musics of the world. An accompanying audio compact disc offers musical examples of some of the music of Africa.
ISBN: 9780415961028
Publication Date: 2008-06-24
The Rock and Roll Film Encyclopedia by John Kenneth Muir (Applause Books). "One great rock show can change the world" says Jack Black's character Dewey Finn in the 2003 Richard Linklater comedy The School of Rock . This exhaustive, highly-detailed, yet reader-friendly A-to-Z encyclopedia takes that lesson to heart by gazing at half-a-century of rock 'n' roll films, big screen epics both celebrated and obscure. From the 1950s and the age of "juvenile delinquents" in films such as Blackboard Jungle to more intimate, twenty-first century rock band portraits such as Metallica: Some Kind of Monster , this book by noted film authority John Kenneth Muir also features entries on rock documentaries such as Martin Scorsese's The Last Waltz , movies starring rock stars including the Sting vehicle The Bride , and even films boasting extensive rock soundtracks, for example George Lucas's paean to the age of cruising, American Graffiti . The Rock and Roll Film Encyclopedia includes: * 230 film entries from 1956 through 2005, including cast list, creative personnel, M.P.A.A. rating, running time, and DVD availability. * Entries on the familiar conventions of this unique cinematic form, such as the Vietnam War, the ubiquitous press conference (in which band members wax philosophical), the rampant destruction of property (hotel rooms, specifically) and even the Yoko factor (meddling girlfriends). Biographical entries on players who made significant impact on the silver screen, from Elvis Presley and The Beatles to Alice Cooper and Prince. Interviews with rock movie directors Allan Arkush ( Rock 'n' Roll High School ), Martin Davidson ( Eddie and the Cruisers ) and Albert Magnoli ( Purple Rain ). Peter Smokler, the cinematographer who shot the Rolling Stones' Gimme Shelter , the Jimi Hendrix film Jimi at Berkeley , and This Is Spinal Tap is also interviewed. * In addition to pure rock 'n' roll, the films included cover all genres of popular music, ranging from Johnny Cash to Madonna, rock-influenced musical theatre ( Jesus Christ Superstar ), tejano ( Selena ), disco ( Can't Stop the Music, Xanadu ), and reggae. Whether your "one great rock show" is a beach movie starring Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello, a misbegotten horror/rock fusion like The Horror of Party Beach , or a rib-tickling, heavy metal mockumentary like This Is Spinal Tap , you'll find all your favorites remembered in the pages of The Rock and Roll Film Encyclopedia .
Call Number: REF PN1995.9.M86 M84 2007
ISBN: 9781557836939
Publication Date: 2007-04-01