Interpreting Music, Engaging Culture

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. Over the course of the book, readers develop a vocabulary and framework for criticizing music of all kinds and for various media while learning how to connect music to its cultural, social, and political contexts. Excerpts from primary sources throughout provide a wide range of writing examples, while Chapters address the distinct challenges of describing and interpreting music for various media and in diverse formats. Along the way, the book explores questions at the core of music and its criticism, such as what constitutes a musical work and what makes a piece of music "authentic"; it also 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.

Katherine Walker is Associate Professor of Music at Hobart & William Smith Colleges.

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