Categorizing Sound: Genre and Twentieth-Century Popular Music

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Univ of California Press, Jul 19, 2016 - Music - 368 pages
"Categorizing Sound addresses the relationship between categories of music and categories of people: in other words, how do particular ways of organizing sound become integral parts of whom we perceive ourselves to be and of how we feel connected to some people and disconnected from others? After an introduction that discusses the key theoretical concepts to be deployed, Categorizing Sound presents a series of case studies that range from foreign music, race music, and old-time music in the 1920s up through country and rhythm and blues in the 1980s. Each chapter focuses not so much on the musical contents of these genres as on the process of 'gentrification' through which these categories are produced."--Provided by publisher.
 

Contents

They Never Even Knew
1
Foreign Music and the Emergence of Phonography
41
Race Music in the 1920s
69
The Newness of OldTime Music
113
Swing in the 1940s
149
The Cornyness of the Folk
192
The Dictionary of Soul
235
1
280
27
289
53
300
Notes Toward a Conclusion
324
Bibliography
335
Index
351
115
352
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About the author (2016)

David Brackett is Professor of Music History/Musicology at the Schulich School of Music of McGill University. He is also the author of Interpreting Popular Music and The Pop, Rock, and Soul Reader: Histories and Debates.

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