- File Size: 3668 KB
- Print Length: 219 pages
- Publisher: University of California Press (May 9, 2000)
- Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
- Language: English
- ASIN: B003DQP7OM
With her usual combination of erudition, innovation, and spirited prose,
Susan McClary reexamines the concept of musical convention in this
fast-moving and refreshingly accessible book. Exploring the ways that
shared musical practices transmit social knowledge, Conventional Wisdom
offers an account of our own cultural moment in terms of two dominant
traditions: tonality and blues.McClary looks at musical history from new
and unexpected angles and moves easily across a broad range of
repertoires--the blues, eighteenth-century tonal music, late Beethoven,
and rap. As one of the most influential trailblazers in contemporary
musical understanding, McClary once again moves beyond the borders of
the "purely musical" into the larger world of history and society, and
beyond the idea of a socially stratified core canon toward a musical
pluralism.
Those who know McClary only as a feminist writer will discover her many other sides, but not at the expense of gender issues, which are smoothly integrated into the general argument. In considering the need for a different way of telling the story of Western music, Conventional Wisdom bravely tackles big issues concerning classical, popular, and postmodern repertoires and their relations to the broader musical worlds that create and enjoy them.
Those who know McClary only as a feminist writer will discover her many other sides, but not at the expense of gender issues, which are smoothly integrated into the general argument. In considering the need for a different way of telling the story of Western music, Conventional Wisdom bravely tackles big issues concerning classical, popular, and postmodern repertoires and their relations to the broader musical worlds that create and enjoy them.
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