Beyond Exoticism

Western Music and the World

Nonfiction, Entertainment, Music, Theory & Criticism, Ethnomusicology
Cover of the book Beyond Exoticism by Timothy D. Taylor, Charles McGovern, Ronald Radano, Duke University Press
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Timothy D. Taylor, Charles McGovern, Ronald Radano ISBN: 9780822389972
Publisher: Duke University Press Publication: March 5, 2007
Imprint: Duke University Press Books Language: English
Author: Timothy D. Taylor, Charles McGovern, Ronald Radano
ISBN: 9780822389972
Publisher: Duke University Press
Publication: March 5, 2007
Imprint: Duke University Press Books
Language: English

In Beyond Exoticism, Timothy D. Taylor considers how western cultures’ understandings of racial, ethnic, and cultural differences have been incorporated into music from early operas to contemporary television advertisements, arguing that the commonly used term “exoticism” glosses over such differences in many studies of western music. Beyond Exoticism encompasses a range of musical genres and musicians, including Mozart, Beethoven, Jean-Philippe Rameau, Maurice Ravel, Charles Ives, Henry Cowell, Bally Sagoo, and Bill Laswell as well as opera, symphony, country music, and “world music.” Yet, more than anything else, it is an argument for expanding the purview of musicology to take into account not only composers’ lives and the formal properties of the music they produce but also the larger historical and cultural forces shaping both music and our understanding of it.

Beginning with a focus on musical manifestations of colonialism and imperialism, Taylor discusses how the “discovery” of the New World and the development of an understanding of self as distinct from the other, of “here” as different from “there,” was implicated in the development of tonality, a musical system which effectively creates centers and margins. He describes how musical practices signifying nonwestern peoples entered the western European musical vocabulary and how Darwinian thought shaped the cultural conditions of early-twentieth-century music. In the era of globalization, new communication technologies and the explosion of marketing and consumption have accelerated the production and circulation of tropes of otherness. Considering western music produced under rubrics including multiculturalism, collaboration, hybridity, and world music, Taylor scrutinizes contemporary representations of difference. He argues that musical interpretations of the nonwestern other developed hundreds of years ago have not necessarily been discarded; rather they have been recycled and retooled.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

In Beyond Exoticism, Timothy D. Taylor considers how western cultures’ understandings of racial, ethnic, and cultural differences have been incorporated into music from early operas to contemporary television advertisements, arguing that the commonly used term “exoticism” glosses over such differences in many studies of western music. Beyond Exoticism encompasses a range of musical genres and musicians, including Mozart, Beethoven, Jean-Philippe Rameau, Maurice Ravel, Charles Ives, Henry Cowell, Bally Sagoo, and Bill Laswell as well as opera, symphony, country music, and “world music.” Yet, more than anything else, it is an argument for expanding the purview of musicology to take into account not only composers’ lives and the formal properties of the music they produce but also the larger historical and cultural forces shaping both music and our understanding of it.

Beginning with a focus on musical manifestations of colonialism and imperialism, Taylor discusses how the “discovery” of the New World and the development of an understanding of self as distinct from the other, of “here” as different from “there,” was implicated in the development of tonality, a musical system which effectively creates centers and margins. He describes how musical practices signifying nonwestern peoples entered the western European musical vocabulary and how Darwinian thought shaped the cultural conditions of early-twentieth-century music. In the era of globalization, new communication technologies and the explosion of marketing and consumption have accelerated the production and circulation of tropes of otherness. Considering western music produced under rubrics including multiculturalism, collaboration, hybridity, and world music, Taylor scrutinizes contemporary representations of difference. He argues that musical interpretations of the nonwestern other developed hundreds of years ago have not necessarily been discarded; rather they have been recycled and retooled.

More books from Duke University Press

Cover of the book Ethnography in Unstable Places by Timothy D. Taylor, Charles McGovern, Ronald Radano
Cover of the book Natural and Moral History of the Indies by Timothy D. Taylor, Charles McGovern, Ronald Radano
Cover of the book Improvisation and Social Aesthetics by Timothy D. Taylor, Charles McGovern, Ronald Radano
Cover of the book On Melville by Timothy D. Taylor, Charles McGovern, Ronald Radano
Cover of the book The Brink of Freedom by Timothy D. Taylor, Charles McGovern, Ronald Radano
Cover of the book Archiveology by Timothy D. Taylor, Charles McGovern, Ronald Radano
Cover of the book Dialogues/Dialogi by Timothy D. Taylor, Charles McGovern, Ronald Radano
Cover of the book Indian Nation by Timothy D. Taylor, Charles McGovern, Ronald Radano
Cover of the book The Cinema of Naruse Mikio by Timothy D. Taylor, Charles McGovern, Ronald Radano
Cover of the book Markets of Sorrow, Labors of Faith by Timothy D. Taylor, Charles McGovern, Ronald Radano
Cover of the book Becoming Undone by Timothy D. Taylor, Charles McGovern, Ronald Radano
Cover of the book Rock Over the Edge by Timothy D. Taylor, Charles McGovern, Ronald Radano
Cover of the book Tijuana Dreaming by Timothy D. Taylor, Charles McGovern, Ronald Radano
Cover of the book Still Life in Real Time by Timothy D. Taylor, Charles McGovern, Ronald Radano
Cover of the book Stringing Together a Nation by Timothy D. Taylor, Charles McGovern, Ronald Radano
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy