The author constructs a new concept of music education, one designed to stimulate, guide, and support the efforts of pre-service and practicing music teachers as they tackle the many theoretical and practical issues involved in music education. He provides rigorous reflections on the "why, what, and how" of music teaching and learning that serve as catalysts for critical thinking and individual-philosophy building.

Why is music significant in life and education? What shall we teach? How? To whom? Where and when? The praxial philosophy espoused in Music Matters: A Philosophy of Music Education offers an integrated sociocultural, artistic, participatory, and ethics-based concept of the natures and values of musics, education, musicing and listening, community music, musical understanding, musical emotions, creativity, and more. Embodied-enactive concepts of action, perception, and personhood weave through the book's proposals. Practical principles for curriculum and instruction emerge from the authors' praxial themes.

Listen to David Hesmondhalgh discuss the arguments at the core of 'Why Music Matters' with Laurie Taylor on BBC Radio 4's Thinking Allowed here: www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b03q9q2n/Thinking_Allowed_Why_Music_Matters_Bhangra_and_Belonging/ In what ways might music enrich the lives of people and of societies? What prevents it from doing so? Why Music Matters explores the role of music in our lives, and investigates the social and political significance of music in modern societies. First book of its kind to explore music through a variety of theories and approaches and unite these theories using one authoritative voice Combines a broad yet theoretically sophisticated approach to music and society with real clarity and accessibility A historically and sociologically informed understanding of music in relation to questions of social power and inequality By drawing on both popular and academic talk about a range of musical forms and practices, readers will engage with a wide musical terrain and a wealth of case studies

Patti Smith arrived in New York City at the end of the Age of Aquarius in search of work and purpose. What she found—what she fostered—was a cultural revolution. Through her poetry, her songs, her unapologetic vocal power, and her very presence as a woman fronting a rock band, she kicked open a door that countless others walked through. No other musician has better embodied the “nothing-to-hide” rawness of punk, nor has any other done more to nurture a place in society for misfits of every stripe. Why Patti Smith Matters is the first book about the iconic artist written by a woman. The veteran music journalist Caryn Rose contextualizes Smith’s creative work, her influence, and her wide-ranging and still-evolving impact on rock and roll, visual art, and the written word. Rose goes deep into Smith’s oeuvre, from her first album, Horses, to acclaimed memoirs operating at a surprising remove from her music. The portrait of a ceaseless inventor, Why Patti Smith Matters rescues punk’s poet laureate from “strong woman” clichés. Of course Smith is strong. She is also a nuanced thinker. A maker of beautiful and challenging things. A transformative artist who has not simply entertained but also empowered millions.

Revised 2013 About the Book Achieving "hit writer" status has always been a formidable goal for any songwriter. Never more so however than in the 21st century. Catching the ear of the monumentally distracted, fragmented listener has never been more difficult. Getting their attention, inviting them in to your song and keeping them there for long enough for your song to become "their song" requires more than being just a "good" songwriter. Murphy's Laws of Songwriting "The Book" arms the songwriter for success by demystifying the process and opening the door to serious professional songwriting. Hall of fame songwriter Paul Williams said in his review of the book "If there was a hit songwriters secret handshake Da Murphy would probably have included it." About the Author Ralph Murphy, songwriter, has been successful for five decades. Consistently charting songs in an ever-changing musical environment makes him a member of that very small group of professionals who make a living ding what they love to do. Add to that the platinum records as a producer, the widely acclaimed Murphy's Laws of Songwriting articles used as part of curriculum at colleges, universities, and by songwriter organizations, his success as the publisher and co-owner of the extremely successful Picalic Group of Companies and you see a pattern of achievement based on more than luck.

Black Music Matters: Jazz and the Transformation of Music Studies is one of the first books to promote the reform of music studies with a centralized presence of jazz and black music to ground American musicians in a core facet of their true cultural heritage. Ed Sarath applies an emergent consciousness-based worldview called Integral Theory to music studies while drawing upon overarching conversations on diversity and race and a rich body of literature on the seminal place of black music in American culture. Combining a visionary perspective with an activist tone, Sarath installs jazz and black music in as a foundation for a new paradigm of twenty-first-century musical training that will yield an unprecedented skill set for transcultural navigation among musicians. Sarath analyzes prevalent patterns in music studies change discourse, including an in-depth critique of multiculturalism, and proposes new curricular and organizational systems along with a new model of music inquiry called Integral Musicology. This jazz/black music paradigm further develops into a revolutionary catalyst for development of creativity and consciousness in education and society at large. Sarath’s work engages all those who share an interest in black-white race dynamics and its musical ramifications, spirituality and consciousness, and the promotion of creativity throughout all forms of intellectual and personal expression.

"... takes a project-based approach to cover performing and composing, listening and appraising..." -- Back cover.

In the '60s and '70s, America's music scene was marked by raucous excess, reflected in the tragic overdoses of young superstars such as Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin. At the same time, the uplifting harmonies and sunny lyrics that propelled Karen Carpenter and her brother, Richard, to international fame belied a different sort of tragedy—the underconsumption that led to Karen's death at age thirty-two from the effects of an eating disorder. In Why Karen Carpenter Matters, Karen Tongson (whose Filipino musician parents named her after the pop icon) interweaves the story of the singer’s rise to fame with her own trans-Pacific journey between the Philippines—where imitations of American pop styles flourished—and Karen Carpenter’s home ground of Southern California. Tongson reveals why the Carpenters' chart-topping, seemingly whitewashed musical fantasies of "normal love" can now have profound significance for her—as well as for other people of color, LGBT+ communities, and anyone outside the mainstream culture usually associated with Karen Carpenter’s legacy. This hybrid of memoir and biography excavates the destructive perfectionism at the root of the Carpenters’ sound, while finding the beauty in the singer's all too brief life.

An artist in every sense of the word, Lhasa de Sela wowed audiences around the globe with her multilingual songs and spellbinding performances, mixing together everything from Gypsy music to Mexican rancheras, Americana and jazz, chanson française, and South American folk melodies. In Canada, her album La Llorona won the Juno Award and went gold, and its follow-up, The Living Road, won a BBC World Music Award. Tragically, de Sela succumbed to breast cancer in 2010 at the age of thirty-seven after recording her final album, Lhasa. Tracing de Sela’s unconventional life and introducing her to a new generation, Why Lhasa de Sela Matters is the first biography of this sophisticated creative icon. Raised in a hippie family traveling between the United States and Mexico in a converted school bus, de Sela developed an unquenchable curiosity, with equal affinities for the romantic, mystic, and cerebral. Becoming a sensation in Montreal and Europe, the trilingual singer rejected a conventional path to fame, joining her sisters’ circus troupe in France. Revealing the details of these and other experiences that inspired de Sela to write such vibrant, otherworldly music, Why Lhasa de Sela Matters sings with the spirit of this gifted firebrand.

In lucid and engaging prose, the book explores the sources of classical music's power in a variety of settings, from concert performance to film and TV, from everyday life to the historical trauma of September 11. Addressed to a wide audience, this book will appeal to aficionados and skeptics alike.