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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

  • Professor Rachel Harris (SOAS University of London)
  • Dr Richard Williams (SOAS University of London)

Editorial Board

  • Professor Kwasi Ampene (University of Michigan)
  • Professor Linda Barwick (University of Sydney)
  • 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)
  • Dr Marié Abe (University of Berkeley California)

79 Series Titles


Hindi Film Songs and the Cinema

Hindi Film Songs and the Cinema

1st Edition

By Anna Morcom
March 03, 2016

Since their beginnings in the 1930s, Hindi films and film songs have dominated Indian public culture in India, and have also made their presence felt strongly in many global contexts. Hindi film songs have been described on the one hand as highly standardized and on the other as highly eclectic. ...

Music Theory in Mamluk Cairo The ġāyat al-maṭlūb fī ‘ilm al-adwār wa-’l-ḍurūb by Ibn Kurr

Music Theory in Mamluk Cairo: The ġāyat al-maṭlūb fī ‘ilm al-adwār wa-’l-ḍurūb by Ibn Kurr

1st Edition

By Owen Wright
July 02, 2014

The ġāyat al-maṭlūb fī ‘ilm al-adwār wa-'l-ḍurūb by Ibn Kurr is the only theoretical text of any substance that can be considered representative of musicological discourse in Cairo during the first half of the fourteenth century CE. Indeed, nothing comparable survives from the whole Mamluk period, ...

Dāphā: Sacred Singing in a South Asian City Music, Performance and Meaning in Bhaktapur, Nepal

Dāphā: Sacred Singing in a South Asian City: Music, Performance and Meaning in Bhaktapur, Nepal

1st Edition

By Richard Widdess
December 02, 2013

Dāphā, or dāphā bhajan, is a genre of Hindu-Buddhist devotional singing, performed by male, non-professional musicians of the farmer and other castes belonging to the Newar ethnic group, in the towns and villages of the Kathmandu Valley, Nepal. The songs, their texts, and their characteristic ...

Hwang Byungki: Traditional Music and the Contemporary Composer in the Republic of Korea

Hwang Byungki: Traditional Music and the Contemporary Composer in the Republic of Korea

1st Edition

By Andrew Killick
September 13, 2013

Anyone who knows anything of Korean music probably knows something of Hwang Byungki. As a composer, performer, scholar, and administrator, Hwang has had an exceptional influence on the world of Korean traditional music for over half a century. During that time, Western-style music (both classical ...

Icelandic Men and Me Sagas of Singing, Self and Everyday Life

Icelandic Men and Me: Sagas of Singing, Self and Everyday Life

1st Edition

By Robert Faulkner
April 15, 2013

A sparsely populated island in the North Atlantic recently made worldwide headlines in the Global Financial Crisis and for volcanic eruptions that caused unprecedented chaos to international air travel. Large contemporary audiences have formed very different images of Iceland through the vocal ...

Asante Ntahera Trumpets in Ghana Culture, Tradition, and Sound Barrage

Asante Ntahera Trumpets in Ghana: Culture, Tradition, and Sound Barrage

1st Edition

By Joseph S.Kaminski
November 07, 2012

Based on the author's fieldwork in Ghana with the Asante and Denkyira ntahera trumpeters, this book draws on interviews, field recordings, oral traditions, written accounts, archaeological evidence, transcriptions and linguistic analyses to situate the Asante trumpet tradition in historical culture...

Shbahoth – Songs of Praise in the Babylonian Jewish Tradition From Baghdad to Bombay and London

Shbahoth – Songs of Praise in the Babylonian Jewish Tradition: From Baghdad to Bombay and London

1st Edition

By Sara Manasseh
October 25, 2012

Sara Manasseh brings a significant, but less widely-known, Jewish repertoire and tradition to the attention of both the Jewish community (Ashkenazi, Sephardi, Oriental) and the wider global community. The book showcases thirty-one songs and includes English translations, complete Hebrew texts, ...

Improvisation and Composition in Balinese Gendér Wayang Music of the Moving Shadows

Improvisation and Composition in Balinese Gendér Wayang: Music of the Moving Shadows

1st Edition

By Nicholas Gray
October 28, 2011

This book is an examination of the music of the Balinese gendér wayang, the quartet of metallophones - gendér - that accompanies the Balinese shadow puppet play - wayang kulit. The book focuses on processes of musical variation, the main means of creating new music in this genre, and the ...

The Narrative Arts of Tianjin: Between Music and Language

The Narrative Arts of Tianjin: Between Music and Language

1st Edition

By Francesca R. Sborgi Lawson
December 28, 2010

In studying one of the world's oldest and most enduring musical cultures, academics have consistently missed one of the richest forms of Chinese cultural expression: performed narratives. Francesca R. Sborgi Lawson explores the relationships between language and music in the performance of four ...

Touraj Kiaras and Persian Classical Music: An Analytical Perspective

Touraj Kiaras and Persian Classical Music: An Analytical Perspective

1st Edition

By Owen Wright
August 26, 2009

In this book Owen Wright analyses a single recording of classical Persian music made by Touraj Kiaras, a distinguished singer, accompanied by four noted instrumentalists. The format of the recording is typical of a public concert performance, and thus includes instrumental compositions as well as a...

The Making of a Musical Canon in Chinese Central Asia: The Uyghur Twelve Muqam

The Making of a Musical Canon in Chinese Central Asia: The Uyghur Twelve Muqam

1st Edition

By Rachel Harris
November 28, 2008

Throughout the course of the twentieth century, as newly formed nations sought ways to develop and formalise their national identity and acquire a range of identifiable national assets, we find new musical canons springing up across the world. But these canons are not arbitrary collections of works...

The Ashgate Research Companion to Japanese Music

The Ashgate Research Companion to Japanese Music

1st Edition

Edited By Alison McQueen Tokita, David W. Hughes
October 28, 2008

Music is a frequently neglected aspect of Japanese culture. It is in fact a highly problematic area, as the Japanese actively introduced Western music into their modern education system in the Meiji period (1868-1911), creating westernized melodies and instrumental instruction for Japanese children...

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