SOAS Studies in Music
About the Book Series
The SOAS Studies in Music Routledge Book Series is one of the world’s leading series in the discipline of ethnomusicology and global music studies. Our core mission is to produce high-quality, ethnographically rich studies of music-making worldwide, with particular interests in Asia and Africa. We publish monographs, edited volumes, and translations that explore musical repertories and performance practice, critical issues in ethnomusicology, sound studies, historical and analytical approaches to music across the globe. We recognize the value of applied, interdisciplinary and collaborative research, and our authors draw on current approaches from musicology, anthropology, history, and digital humanities.
Series Editors
- Dr Richard Williams (SOAS University of London)
Editorial Board
- Dr Marié Abe (University of Berkeley California)
- Professor Kwasi Ampene (University of Michigan)
- Professor Linda Barwick (University of Sydney)
- Professor Rachel Harris (SOAS University of London)
- Professor Angela Impey (SOAS University of London)
- Dr Peter McMurray (University of Cambridge)
- Dr Moshe Morad (Tel Aviv University)
- Professor Suzel Reily (Universidade Estadual de Campinas)
- Professor Henry Spiller (University California Davis)
Asante Court Music and Verbal Arts in Ghana: The Porcupine and the Gold Stool
1st Edition
By Kwasi Ampene
February 01, 2022
Asante Court Music and Verbal Arts in Ghana is a comprehensive portrait of Asante court musical arts. Weaving together historical narratives with analyses of texts performed on drums, ivory trumpets, and a cane flute, the book includes a critical assembly of ancient song texts, the poetry of bards ...
Music, Health, and Power: Singing the Unsayable in The Gambia
1st Edition
By Bonnie McConnell
December 13, 2021
Music, Health, and Power offers an original, on-the-ground analysis of the role that music plays in promoting healthy communities. The book brings the reader inside the world of kanyeleng fertility societies and HIV/AIDS support groups, where women use music to leverage stigma and marginality into ...
Performing Faith: Christian Music, Identity and Inculturation in Indonesia
1st Edition
By Marzanna Poplawska
December 13, 2021
This book is a study of music inculturation in Indonesia. It shows how religious expression can be made relevant in an indigenous context and how grassroots Christianity is being realized by means of music. Through the discussion of indigenous expressions of Christianity, the book presents multiple...
The Indian Drum of the King-God and the Pakhāvaj of Nathdwara
1st Edition
By Paolo Pacciolla
December 13, 2021
The book studies the evolution of the ancient drum m¿da¿ga into the pakhavaj, crossing more than 2,000 years of history. While focusing on the Nathdwara school of pakhavaj, the author joins ethnographic, historical, religious and iconographic perspectives to argue a multifaceted interpretation of ...
The Sound State of Uzbekistan: Popular Music and Politics in the Karimov Era
1st Edition
By Kerstin Klenke
December 13, 2021
The Sound State of Uzbekistan: Popular Music and Politics in the Karimov Era is a pioneering study of the intersection between popular music and state politics in Central Asia. Based on 20 months of fieldwork and archival research in Tashkent, this book explores a remarkable era in Uzbekistan’s ...
Music in Conflict: Palestine, Israel and the Politics of Aesthetic Production
1st Edition
By Nili Belkind
October 16, 2020
Music in Conflict studies the complex relationship of musical culture to political life in Palestine-Israel, where conflict has both shaped and claimed the lives of Palestinians and Jews. In the context of the geography of violence that characterizes the conflict, borders and boundaries are ...
Becoming a Garamut Player in Baluan, Papua New Guinea: Musical Analysis as a Pathway to Learning
1st Edition
By Tony Lewis
August 14, 2020
The garamut is a log idiophone that is found in many of the coastal and island areas of Papua New Guinea. The instrument’s primary use is as a speech surrogate and in some regions the garamut is also used in large ensembles to play complex music for dancing. In Baluan Island, within the Manus ...
Studies on a Global History of Music: A Balzan Musicology Project
1st Edition
Edited
By Reinhard Strohm
August 14, 2020
The idea of a global history of music may be traced back to the Enlightenment, and today, the question of a conceptual framework for a history of music that pays due attention to global relationships in music is often raised. But how might a historical interpretation of those relationships proceed?...
Korea and the Western Drumset: Scattering Rhythms
1st Edition
By Simon Barker
July 10, 2020
For over a century, drummers have been turning to a variety of percussive traditions as prompts for the creation of new expressive possibilities on the drumset. In this book, Simon Barker sets out in detail the developmental processes he has followed creating an improvisational language for the ...
The Chinese Zheng Zither: Contemporary Transformations
1st Edition
By Sun Zhuo
July 10, 2020
The zheng zither is one of the most popular instruments in contemporary China. It is commonly regarded as a solo instrument with a continuous tradition dating back to ancient times. But in fact, much of its contemporary solo repertory is derived from several different regional folk ensemble ...
Tuk Music Tradition in Barbados
1st Edition
By Sharon Meredith
July 10, 2020
Barbados is a small Caribbean island better known as a tourist destination rather than for its culture. The island was first claimed in 1627 for the English King and remained a British colony until independence was gained in 1966. This firmly entrenched British culture in the Barbadian way of life,...
Arnold Bake: A Life with South Asian Music
1st Edition
By Bob Van Der Linden
June 30, 2020
Arnold Bake (1899–1963) was a Dutch pioneer in South Asian ethnomusicology, whose research impressed not only the most renowned Indologists of his time but also the leading figures in the emerging field of ethnomusicology. This long overdue biography sheds light on his knowledge of the theory and ...