Introduction to four poems written by Langston Hughes during the Spanish Civil War, published in the Little-Known Documents section of PMLA.

The introduction alongside the text of the four poems can be found on the PMLA’s site: https://doi.org/10.1632/pmla.2019.134.3.562.

This is a ‘study of a choir’; the author joined the choir for three months and participated in every aspect, from rehearsals, dinners, a meeting to a gig. They chatted to the members, sang with them and talked to the choir leader and manager about everything from the ethos of the choir, to whether meat was served often enough at dinner. It was the…[Read more]

This article seeks to explore into the impact of 9/11 tragedy on the private lives of ordinary people and individuals and into the associated theme of identity crisis, as reflected in four important post-9/11 poems – “Someone Says They Looked Like Cartwheeling Birds” by Lyn Lifshin, “Making Love After September 11, 2001” by Aliki Barnstone…[Read more]

Brass bands are, of course, musical organisations first and foremost, and the bulk of their heritage is bound up in the hundreds of thousands of concerts, marches, contests and other performances they have provided their audiences with over the years. Very few of these live performances were ever recorded, at least until recent years, and we must…[Read more]

During the 1890s and early parts of the 20th century a type of band arose using kazoo-type instruments. Zobo instruments, based on kazoo principles, were invented and developed in the USA in the early 1890s, rapidly becoming a new craze for a while. When the instruments spread to the UK the bands that were formed using them were largely “comic”…[Read more]

(v9 – August 2019) [c. 6,740 entries] A comprehensive list of books, articles, theses and other material covering the brass band movement, its history, instruments and musicology; together with other related topics

Travelling musicians and entertainers had been a part of European life for centuries. In the German speaking countries of Europe during the German Empire there arose a large number of “Damen Kapellen”, troupes of musical and variety entertainers consisting largely of women, usually led by a man, and occasionally including males as players. Thi…[Read more]

This dissertation examines aspects of the creative practice of Muhal Richard Abrams, composer, improviser, pianist, and cofounder of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM). Abrams’s work intersects with various facets of creative music. I focus on free improvisation, both as a stand-alone performance and in conjunction w…[Read more]

Review of ‘The History of European Jazz: The Music, Musicians and Audience in Context’, ed. by Francesco Martinelli (Sheffield: Equinox, 2018), SAMPLES – Online-Publikationen der Gesellschaft für Popularmusikforschung, 17 (June 2019).
Published online 12 June 2019.

This review essay approaches Ranjan Ghosh and J. Hillis Miller’s Thinking Literature across Continents (2016) from a set of questions about what it means to read in the age of hyperarchival accumulation. Written against the background of events in the United States and elsewhere during the fall of 2017, the essay tracks and assesses Ghosh and…[Read more]

This review essay approaches Ranjan Ghosh and J. Hillis Miller’s Thinking Literature across Continents (2016) from a set of questions about what it means to read in the age of hyperarchival accumulation. Written against the background of events in the United States and elsewhere during the fall of 2017, the essay tracks and assesses Ghosh and…[Read more]

ABSTRACT
What is musical time? Where is it manifested? How does it show up in our experience, and how do we capture it in our analyses? “Enacting Musical Time” offers several answers to these questions by considering musical time as the form of the listener’s interaction with music. Building on evidence from music theory, phenomenology, c…[Read more]

Since the first Pokémon game launched in Japan in 1996, the series has been a balancing act between casual and hardcore gaming. While the first iteration and “core” series has emphasized a modified, accessible version of traditional JRPG mechanics, other titles have frequently emphasized so-called casual play; most recently, Pokémon Go lured in a…[Read more]