MUSC 1300 Music: Its Language, History, and Culture (Cohen): Sheet Music and Books

Sonic Boom is a fascinating narrative of the controversy that's sending shock waves through the music industry. It reveals how even as the star-maker machinery of record companies remains in the hands of the old guard, innovators are finding ways to route around it. Part industry expose and part music history, Sonic Boom presents a candid and entertaining account of how digital compression technologies such as MP3 have brought out the best and worst in artists and consumers alike, and how the end result can be nothing less than a cultural and economic transformation. Peopled with a sensational cast of characters that includes rock stars, music moguls, teenagers, and Internet entrepreneurs, Sonic Boom exposes the recording industry's plight as a fascinating microcosm of the vast cultural, ethical, and legal issues that all industries face in the information age.

Ancient Greece was permeated by music, and the literature teems with musical allusions. For most readers the subject has remained a closed book. Here at last is a clear, comprehensive account that presupposes no special knowledge of music. Topics covered include the place of music in Greek life; instruments; rhythm; tempo; modes and scales; melodic construction; form; ancient theory and notation; and historical development. Thirty surviving examples of Greek music are presented in modern transcription with analysis, and the book is fully illustrated. A brief Epilogue sets Greek music in the wider context in a border zone between Afro-Asiatic and European culture.