Music as Social Text

Download or read book Music as Social Text written by John Shepherd and published by Polity. This book was released on 1991-09-02 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: he study of music in its social context has expanded rapidly over the last fifteen years, yet little of this work discusses the music itself: the processes, textures and structures of sound which so powerfully affect us as individuals. Music as Social Text d begins by analysing the forces which have made this kind of discussion difficult within the intellectual tradition of the western world. The book argues that a society in which reality is grasped in an overwhelmingly visual way has difficulty with expression that is non-designative in its use of sound. Shepherd moves on to develop a framework for the social analysis of music as sound, and the way in which music can be highly individualizing at the same time as powerfully social.