Music and the Play of Power in the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia, ed. Laudan Nooshin, City University London

What is it about the history, geographical position and cultures of the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia that has made music such a potent and powerful agent? This volume presents the first direct look at the complex relationship between music and power across a range of musical genres and countries. Discourses of power in the region centre on some of the most contested social issues, most notably in relation to nationhood, gender and religion. Individual chapters examine the ways in which music serves as a forum for playing out issues of power, ideology, resistance and subversion. How does music become a space for promoting - or conversely, resisting or subverting - particular ideologies or positions of authority? How does it accrue symbolic power in ways that are very particular, perhaps unique? And how does music become a site of social control or, alternatively, a vehicle for agency and empowerment, at times overt and at others highly subtle? What is it about music that facilitates, and sometimes disrupts, the exercise and flows of power? Who controls such flows, how and for what purposes? To download the eBook, click here.

Experiencing Ethnomusicology: Teaching and Learning in European Universities, by Simone Krüger, Liverpool John Moores University

Simone Krüger provides an innovative account of the transmission of ethnomusicology in European universities, and explores the ways in which students experience and make sense of their musical and extra-musical encounters. By asking questions as to what students learn about and through world musics (musically, personally, culturally), Krüger argues that musical transmission, as a reflector of social and cultural meaning, can impact on students' transformations in attitude and perspectives towards self and other. In doing so, the book advances current discourse on the politics of musical representation in university education as well as on ethnomusicology learning and teaching, and proposes a model for ethnomusicology pedagogy that promotes in students a globally, contemporary and democratically informed sense of all musics. To buy this book online, click here.

Cross Rhythms: Jazz Aesthetics in African-American Literature, by Keren Omry

The book adopts Theodor W. Adorno's theories on classical music in order to examine the shifting relations of jazz to ethnic identity, as incorporated into seminal texts of the twentieth century. The work uses close analysis of key African-American literary texts to investigate the links between the development of blues and jazz and the development of modern African-American literature. For further information, see the Bloomsbury Publishing website.

Music of the Chinese Sabah: The Keybord Culture, by David Wong

Music of the Chinese in Sabah: the Keyboard Culture is the first book on this topic. The author, David Wong, has provided a rich set of data from his own experience as a teacher and performer on the piano and the electronic organ, as well as from many other people with their own experience of teaching and performance to illustrate how music is an important aspect of life in Sabah. The book talks about music home tuition, and a wide variety of other musical activities: in primary and secondary schools (including the school marching bands), churches and commercial music schools. For further infromation, see link.