Religious Listening

By: Joshua Kalin Busman (University of North Carolina, Pembroke) // A 2012 Pew Research Center survey found that nearly 40 percent of religiously unaffiliated people identify as “spiritual, but not religious.” In 2010, USA Today reported that nearly 72 percent of millennials would describe themselves as “more spiritual than religious.” By all accounts, the “spiritual, but …

Autistic and Epileptic, In a Rock Concert

By: Amy Sequenzia (Rockledge, Florida) // Being in a loud rock concert—where there are blinking lights, no places to sit, and a lot of people very close to each other—can be very overwhelming for most Autistic people. Many will avoid such events. And loud noises and lights can trigger seizures in those with epilepsy.   …

Bespoke Opera: Handel, Fach, and Gender

By: Andrew Dell’Antonio (University of Texas at Austin) // Twenty-first century opera singers obtain—and train for—principal roles in “warhorse” works worldwide according to a system of voice-types, widely known as the “fach” system (using a German word that means “classification”). Casting directors, teachers, and the stars themselves have become accustomed to linking singers to roles …

Top 40: More Hits More Often

By: Ben Fong-Torres (San Francisco Chronicle) // From What’s That Sound? An Introduction to Rock and its History, Fourth Edition, by John Covach and Andrew Flory (W. W. Norton & Company, 2015) It’s hard to imagine, but there was a time, not long ago, when radio was declared dead. In the early 1950s, television was …

Selma’s Music: The Politics of Commemorating Bloody Sunday

By: Felicia Miyakawa (Round Rock, TX) // In 1965, documentary filmmaker Stefan Sharff captured the historic march from Selma to Montgomery, led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Sharff’s style is sonically sparse: in the entire 17-minute film, we hear only the chopping of helicopter blades; the voice of Dr. King, taken from a recording of …

Audible Interiors: Music and Emotion in the Hollywood Film Score

By: Stephan Prock (New Zealand School of Music) // Music in film has the power to make audible the emotions, thoughts, and desires of characters on screen. During the silent film era, music was often continuously performed to convey the feeling of a scene because, though their words might be displayed on the screen, characters could …

Becoming an American B(r)and: Pre-Existing Popular Music in Television Commercials

By: Joanna Love (University of Richmond) // From What’s That Sound? An Introduction to Rock and its History, Fourth Edition, by John Covach and Andrew Flory (W. W. Norton & Company, 2015) Relationships between the American advertising and popular music industries date back to the turn of the twentieth century. Songs like “In My Merry …

Sweet Torment over Four Centuries

By: Andrew Dell’Antonio (The University of Texas at Austin) // In 1623 Carlo Milanuzzi, a Venetian musician, released a “greatest hits” songbook—or at least a book of songs he hoped would be recognized as popular, since this was long before broadcasters established Top 10 lists. A highlight of the collection was a tune attributed to …

Avid Listening

By: Andrew Dell'Antonio (University of Texas, Austin) // Our bodies hunger for sound. Listening is so important to our self-definition that American Deaf culture has developed the concept LISTEN-EYES to describe the process of receiving and interpreting through sight information that would otherwise be acquired through sound. The rhythm of a song and its flow …