Folk Song Style and Culture / Edition 1

by Alan Lomax

Overview

Song and dance style—viewed as nonverbal communications about culture—are here related to social structure and cultural history. Patterns of performance, theme, text and movement are analyzed in large samples of films an recordings from the whole range of human culture, according to the methods explained in this volume. Cantometrics, which means song as a measure of man, finds that traditions of singing trace the main historic distributions of human culture and that specific traits of performance are communications about identifiable aspects of society. The predictable and universal relations between expressive communication and social organization, here established for the first time, open up the possibility of a scientific aesthetics, useful to planners.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780878556403
Publisher:	Transaction Publishers
Publication date:	01/30/1978
Edition description:	1st pbk. ed
Pages:	386
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Alan Lomax is Director, Cantometrics and Choreometrics Projects at Columbia University.

Table of Contents

1. The Stylistic Method, 2. The Cantometrics Experiment, 3. The Cantometric Coding Book, 4. The World Song Style Map, 5. Consensus on Cantometric Parameters, 6. Song as a Measure of Culture, 7. Social Solidarity, 8. Self-Assertion, Sex Role, and Vocal Rasp, 9. Effects of Infantile Stimulation on Musical Behavior, 10. Dance Style and Culture, 11. Choreometric Profiles, 12. The Choreometric Coding Book, 13. Folk Song Texts as Culture Indicators, 14. Cantometrics in Retrospect, Appendix 1. Data Systems and Programming, Appendix 2. Statistical Notes, Appendix 3. Summodal Profiles for Nine World Song Style Regions, Bibliography, Folk Song Text Sources, Film Sources, Index

Editorial Reviews

"A milestone in comparative music research and a . . . substantial contribution to comparative ethology." —American Anthropologist "It leaps ahead with vision and insight and enriches our understanding of music as human behavior and a part of human culture." —Journal of American Folklore "A major contribution to the field of nonverbal behavior." —Archives of General Psychiatry "This volume will stand as a monument to our time." —Science

From the Publisher