This text provides the first comprehensive examination of pictographic notation. Pictographic musical notation represents the relevant instruments themselves rendered visually rather than verbally. Used most extensively in contemporary publications between the 1950s and 1980s, its popularity has waned in recent years. This expertly researched work displays the resourcefulness and inventiveness of 20th century orchestrators. Providing a detailed examination of pictographic score notation, this unique book passes over 60 years of contemporary composition and score publications. Divided into three sections, this work describes instrumental pictographs, stage diagrams, and pictographic performance directives. In addition to the thoroughly researched information and extensive technique illustrations, commentary on individual examples and frequent cross-referencing of related examples, differentiate this work from other journal articles and notation texts.

For hundreds of years, American artisanship and American authorship were entangled practices rather than distinct disciplines. Books, like other objects, were multisensory items all North American communities and cultures, including Native and settler colonial ones, regularly made and used. All cultures and communities narrated and documented their histories and imaginations through a variety of media. All created objects for domestic, sacred, curative, and collective purposes. In this innovative work at the intersection of Indigenous studies, literary studies, book history, and material culture studies, Caroline Wigginton tells a story of the interweavings of Native craftwork and American literatures from their ancient roots to the present. Focused primarily on North America, especially the colonized lands and waters now claimed by the United States, this book argues for the foundational but often-hidden aesthetic orientation of American literary history toward Native craftwork. Wigginton knits this narrative to another of Indigenous aesthetic repatriation through the making and using of books and works of material expression. Ultimately, she reveals that Native craftwork is by turns the warp and weft of American literature, interwoven throughout its long history.

A detailed critical and historical investigation of the development of musical notation as a powerful system of symbolic communication.

"The Feminine Musique: Multimedia and Women Today" traces the intersection of experimental music and new media through the works of composers and artists at the turn of twentieth century America. An invaluable addition to any music, visual arts, or historical library collection, "The Feminine Musique: Multimedia and Women Today" gives a voice to the sights and sounds of innovative women such as Laurie Anderson, Alison Knowles, Brenda Hutchinson, Pauline Oliveros, Pamela Z, Yoko Ono, Meredith Monk, Maggie Payne, Sylvia Pengilly, Madonna, Lydia Lunch, and countless others, who embraced social change, technology, and the arts to create compelling and sometimes controversial works.

The composer and pianist Michael Finnissy (b. 1946) is an unmistakeable presence in the British and international new music scene, both for his immeasurable generosity as prolific composer for many different types of musicians, major advocate for the works of others, and performer and conductor who has also been a driving force behind ensembles; he was also President of the International Society for Contemporary Music from 1990 to 1996. His vast and enormously varied output confounds those who seek easy categorisations: once associated strongly with the ‘new complexity’, Finnissy is equally known as composer regularly engaged with many different folk musics, for working with amateur and community musicians, for a long-term engagement with sacred music, or as an advocate of Anglo-American ‘experimental’ music. Twenty years ago, a large-scale volume entitled Uncommon Ground: The Music of Michael Finnissy gave the first major overview of the output of any ‘complex’ composer. This new volume brings a greater plurality of perspectives and critical sensibility to bear upon an output which is almost twice as large as it was when the earlier book was published. A range of leading contributors – musicologists, composers, performers and others – each grapple with particular questions relating to Finnissy’s music, often in ways which raise questions relating more widely to new music, and provide theoretical foundations for further of study both of Finnissy and other composers.

The worlds of new music and historically informed performance might seem quite distant from one another. Yet, upon closer consideration, clear points of convergence emerge. Not only do many contemporary performers move easily between these two worlds, but they often do so using a shared ethos of flexibility, improvisation, curiosity, and collaboration—collaboration with composers past and present, with other performers, and with audiences. Bringing together expert scholars and performers considering a wide range of issues and case studies, Historical Performance and New Music—the first book of its kind—addresses the synergies in aesthetics and practices in historical performance and new music. The essays treat matters including technologies and media such as laptops, printing presses, and graphic notation; new music written for period instruments from natural horns to the clavichord; personalities such as the pioneering singer Cathy Berberian; the musically “omnivorous” ensembles A Far Cry and Roomful of Teeth; and composers Luciano Berio, David Lang, Molly Herron, Caroline Shaw, and many others. Historical Performance and New Music presents pathbreaking ideas in an accessible style that speaks to performers, composers, scholars, and music lovers alike. Richly documented and diverse in its methods and subject matter, this book will open new conversations about contemporary musical life.

Shape is a concept widely used in talk about music, helping musicians in many genres to rehearse, teach and think about what they do. What makes a concept from vision so invaluable to work in sound? Music & Shape reveals the many ways in which shape is essential to music.

The Technique of Orchestration, Seventh Edition, is the definitive textbook on the study of orchestration, offering a concise, straight-to-the-point approach that prepares students to score their own compositions with confidence. Updated to reflect developments in instruments and orchestral best practices, this seventh edition features: Copious musical examples spanning the history of the orchestra Detailed descriptions of instruments and their distinctive characteristics Explanations of how to score chords and transcribe piano idioms Discussions on specialized ensembles and scoring techniques New musical examples have been added throughout and listening lists have been revised to include more music by women and composers of color, representing a diverse musical catalogue. Supported by an accompanying workbook of scores and scoring exercises (available separately), as well as a robust listening program keyed to the textbook, The Technique of Orchestration, Seventh Edition, is an accessible, essential, all-in-one resource for the student of orchestration.

A revision of the classic 1964 edition exploring counterpoint techniques beyond the stylistic base of the baroque tradition. This practical 194-page book contains a glossary of terms, a bibliography for further study, and a subject index. There is also an index of musical examples, and the included CDs contain recordings of musical examples from the text. Includes perforated exercise pages for students.