1st Edition
Interpreting Music, Engaging Culture An Introduction to Music Criticism
Interpreting Music, Engaging Culture: An Introduction to Music Criticism offers a clear, hands-on guide for emerging music critics that brings together aesthetics, critical theory, and practical music criticism. In an accessible format, readers are introduced to various critical schools and are taught how to connect music to its cultural, social, and political contexts. Over the course of the book, readers develop a vocabulary and framework for criticizing music of all kinds and for various media.
Excerpts from primary sources throughout provide a wide range of writing examples, while chapters address the distinct challenges of describing and interpreting music, and of writing forms such as album reviews and critical essays. The book explores questions at the core of music criticism, such as what constitutes a musical work and what makes a piece of music “authentic,” and introduces critical lenses, including feminist and queer criticism, postcolonialism and critical race theory, as well as the analysis of music in consumer culture. Addressing both classical and popular music criticism, Interpreting Music, Engaging Culture is a comprehensive and lively textbook that enables students to uncover, articulate, and analyze what makes music compelling and meaningful.
Contents
Introduction
A Critical Engagement with Music
Critical Discourse
From Critical to Criticism
What’s Not Criticism?
Why do Criticism?
Chapter Summary
Guide Questions
PART ONE: AESTHETIC FOUNDATIONS
Chapter One
What is Art? The Musical Work Problem
The Musical Work Concept
Getting to Know the Musical Work
Historically Informed Performance (HIP) Movement
Getting to Know Technical Aspects of the Performance
Getting to Know Interpretive Aspects of the Performance
The Musical Work and Value
The Case of Popular Music
Chapter Summary
Guide Questions
Chapter Two
Authenticity
Defining Authenticity
Folk Authenticity
Authenticity in Hip Hop
Chapter Summary
Guide Questions
Chapter Three
Beyond Authenticity
Postmodernism
Postmodern Music and Its Criticism
Postmodernism in a Post-Truth Era
Chapter Summary
Guide Questions
PART TWO: CRITICIZING MUSIC
Chapter Four
Describing Music
Elements of Music
Genre
Style Period
Contexts for Consumption
Chapter Summary
Guide Questions
Chapter Five
Interpreting Music
Musical Interpretation
Interpretive Strategies
Chapter Summary
Guide Questions
Chapter Six
Evaluating Music
Some Negative Criticism of Negative Criticism
Evaluation and the Work’s Purpose
The Value of the Purpose
The Critic as Educator
Chapter Summary
Guide Questions
PART THREE: CRITICAL LENSES
Chapter Seven
Feminist Music Criticism
Feminism and Feminisms
Why do we Need Feminism?
History of Feminisms
Feminism and Music
Feminist Criticism
Chapter Summary
Guide Questions
Chapter Eight
Queer Music Criticism
Gender Queer
Queering the Patriarchy
Music and Queer Expression
Camp isn’t Always Queer
Queer isn’t Always Camp
Queer Criticism as History and Allyship
Chapter Summary
Guide Questions
Chapter Nine
Postcolonialism and Critical Race Theory
Orientalism
Postcolonialism
Postcolonialism and Critical Race Theory
Chapter Summary
Guide Questions
Chapter Ten
Music and Consumer Culture
The Case of Popular Music\
Hybrid Advertising in Popular Music
Music and Marketing in the Age of Social Media
Chapter Summary
Guide Questions
PART FOUR: CRITICAL CONTEXTS
Chapter Eleven
Album and Track-by-Track Reviews
Album Review in the Age of Streaming
Track By Track Review
Writing for a Specific Publication
Chapter Summary
Guide Questions
Chapter Twelve
Program Notes and the Live Concert Review
Program Notes as Guide
Live Review
Chapter Summary
Guide Questions
Biography
Katherine Walker is Associate Professor of Music at Hobart & William Smith Colleges.
