Singing the City is an eloquent tribute to a way of life largely disappearing in America, using Pittsburgh as a lens. Graham is not blind to the damage industry has done—both to people and to the environment, but she shows us that there is also a rich human story that has gone largely untold, one that reveals, in all its ambiguities, the place of the industrial landscape in the heart. Singing the City is a celebration of a landscape that through most of its history has been unabashedly industrial. Convinced that industrial landscapes are too little understood and appreciated, Graham set out to investigate the city's landscape, past and present, and to learn the lessons she sensed were there about living a good life. The result, told in both her voice and the distinctive voices of the people she meets, is a powerful contribution to the literature of place. Graham begins by showing the city as an outgrowth of its geography and its geology—the factors that led to its becoming an industrial place. She describes the human investment in the area: the floods of immigrants who came to work in the mills in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, their struggles within the domains of Andrew Carnegie and Henry Clay Frick. She evokes the superhuman aura of making steel by taking the reader to still functioning mills and uncovers for us a richness of tradition in ethnic neighborhoods that survives to this day.

Austin’s famed South by Southwest is far more than a festival celebrating indie music. It’s also a big networking party that sparks the imagination of hip, creative types and galvanizes countless pilgrimages to the city. Festivals like SXSW are a lot of fun, but for city halls, media corporations, cultural institutions, and community groups, they’re also a vital part of a complex growth strategy. In Music/City, Jonathan R. Wynn immerses us in the world of festivals, giving readers a unique perspective on contemporary urban and cultural life. Wynn tracks the history of festivals in Newport, Nashville, and Austin, taking readers on-site to consider different festival agendas and styles of organization. It’s all here: from the musician looking to build her career to the mayor who wants to exploit a local cultural scene, from a resident’s frustration over corporate branding of his city to the music executive hoping to sell records. Music/City offers a sharp perspective on cities and cultural institutions in action and analyzes how governments mobilize massive organizational resources to become promotional machines. Wynn’s analysis culminates with an impassioned argument for temporary events, claiming that when done right, temporary occasions like festivals can serve as responsive, flexible, and adaptable products attuned to local places and communities.

and I knew him as well as anyone could purport to know him. Yet the thing was no less a mystery to me than to others at the time, and until now, it has remained a mystery. Like the rest, I sometimes thought that he and Ebbonly had designed it all between them as a huge, insoluble hoax; that they were still alive, somewhere, and laughing at the world that was so sorely baffled by their disappearance. And, until I at last decided to visit Crater Ridge and find, if I could, the two boulders mentioned in Angarth's narrative, no one had uncovered any trace of the missing men or heard even the faintest rumor concerning them....

Go-go is the conga drum–inflected black popular music that emerged in Washington, D.C., during the 1970s. The guitarist Chuck Brown, the "Godfather of Go-Go," created the music by mixing sounds borrowed from church and the blues with the funk and flavor that he picked up playing for a local Latino band. Born in the inner city, amid the charred ruins of the 1968 race riots, go-go generated a distinct culture and an economy of independent, almost exclusively black-owned businesses that sold tickets to shows and recordings of live go-gos. At the peak of its popularity, in the 1980s, go-go could be heard around the capital every night of the week, on college campuses and in crumbling historic theaters, hole-in-the-wall nightclubs, backyards, and city parks. Go-Go Live is a social history of black Washington told through its go-go music and culture. Encompassing dance moves, nightclubs, and fashion, as well as the voices of artists, fans, business owners, and politicians, Natalie Hopkinson's Washington-based narrative reflects the broader history of race in urban America in the second half of the twentieth century and the early twenty-first. In the 1990s, the middle class that had left the city for the suburbs in the postwar years began to return. Gentrification drove up property values and pushed go-go into D.C.'s suburbs. The Chocolate City is in decline, but its heart, D.C.'s distinctive go-go musical culture, continues to beat. On any given night, there's live go-go in the D.C. metro area.

The fascinating history of bell music The carillon, the world’s largest musical instrument, originated in the 16th century when inhabitants of the Low Countries started to produce music on bells in church and city towers. Today, carillon music still fills the soundscape of cities in Belgium and the Netherlands. Since the First World War, carillon music has become popular in the United States, where it adds a spiritual dimension to public parks and university campuses. Singing Bronze opens up the fascinating world of the carillon to the reader. It tells the great stories of European and American carillon history: the quest for the perfect musical bell, the fate of carillons in times of revolt and war, the role of patrons such as John D. Rockefeller Jr. and Herbert Hoover in the development of American carillon culture, and the battle between singing bronze and carillon electronics. Richly illustrated with original photographs and etchings, Singing Bronzetells how people developed, played, and enjoyed bell music. With this book, a fascinating history that is yet little known is made available for a wide public.

It's 1855 in Oregon City. Twelve year-old Biddy has survived an intolerable life of indenture by remembering two things: adults can't be trusted, and it's best to be invisible. Due to an early trauma, she's mute with no memory of her past. The man who holds her contract for indenture has evil plans for her, and he will stop at nothing to ensure his schemes come to fruition. Things look hopeless for Biddy until she meets two school teachers, Brenna and Emily. From that moment on, these three lives become intricately entwined. Biddy's new champions take desperate measures to ensure her safety. Life and death choices are made and these accelerate into an unanticipated conclusion. As is often the case in life, what was wished for is granted in a most unexpected way. Victoria Murata has again embraced history to tell an enduring story of love and loss in our country's not too distant past.

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 responsorial performance-style represent an extension of pan-South Asian traditions of rāga- and tāla-based devotional song, but at the same time embody distinctive characteristics of Newar culture. This culture is of unique importance as an urban South Asian society in which many traditional models survive into the modern age. There are few book-length studies of non-classical vocal music in South Asia, and none of dāphā. Richard Widdess describes the music and musical practices of dāphā, accounts for their historical origins and later transformations, investigates links with other South Asian traditions, and describes a cultural world in which music is an integral part of everyday social and religious life. The book focusses particularly on the musical system and structures of dāphā, but aims to integrate their analysis with that of the cultural and historical context of the music, in order to address the question of what music means in a traditional South Asian society.

Every aspect of singing and a singing life is addressed by leading experts from across the industry - from essential aspects of vocal technique and health to choosing a mic, running a sound system, mastering vocal effects, growing a fan base and achieving unforgettable performances and recordings. 136 Music Industry Experts on Every Aspect of a Singing Life Focused Actions in 18 Chapters to Move Your Career Head Answers to 187 REAL Questions asked by Singers Leading Experts Speak to Singers The contributors to “The Ultimate Guide to Singing” have, between them, 92 Grammys and Grammy nominations, 193 books, 1,772 albums and nearly 300 Million YouTube views. A host of famous artists including Kimbra, Beardyman, Joey Belladonna and many others join forces with leading doctors, surgeons, producers, coaches, technologists and social media experts for the most comprehensive and user-friendly manual available for today’s singers. Focused Actions for the Voice There are 18 chapters packed with specific actions for singers promoting their voice, developing their technique, improving their heath, mastering their live or recorded sound and dealing with money and marketing. Each action has been especially crafted to be relevant and easy to read. Real FAQs The book contains 187 Frequently Asked Questions –real questions asked by real singers of rock, pop, soul, metal, jazz – all contemporary genres. Each question has been carefully matched to an expert in the field. Now singers have at their fingertips insights on everything from rescuing their voice to promoting their music. The Ultimate How-To Manual for Singers With 18 information-packed chapters, focused actions and myriads of questions answered and leading experts, The Ultimate Guide to Singing promises to be the leading resource for singers who want to develop their voice and their career. What Others Are Saying: “In an ever-changing industry, to succeed, singers and bands have to know HOW. This book is IT.” —Jeannie Deva, Celebrity Voice and Performance Coach “Finally: a book which will help you on ALL levels to be the singer you’ve always wanted to be.” —Mary Hammond, Leading educator and vocal coach for Coldplay and many other star acts “Most singing books I’ve read have been annoyingly out of date, but I’m excited to have this modern “vocalists’ bible” to refer to whenever I’m facing a real day-to-day problem as a professional voice artist.” —Shlomo, World Loopstation Champion and Guinness World Record holder Contributors Include: Kimbra – Grammy Award winning artist David Frangioni – engineer to Ozzy Osbourne, Steven Tyler and more... Brian Felsen – President of CD Baby Al Schmitt – Engineer and Producer with more than 150 gold and platinum albums Divinity Roxx – artist with Kanye West, Jay-Z and Destiny’s Child... Robert Bastian – leading surgeon, named as one of “America’s Top Doctors” PLUS Over 100 more from every area of the Music Industry. Content That Moves Your Voice Forward This is the only book you’ll ever need to stay in control of every area of your singing life. From finding fans to using the flange effect – it’s all here. Chapters include: Vocal Technique in the Trenches Recording Your Voice Your Vocal Effects Creating an Unforgettable Vocal Connection Promotion and Social Media Making Money at Live Gigs

The City of Singing Flame by Clark Ashton Smith – two stories of adventure into parallel universes. Despite its weird beauty, and its function as a portal to the Inner Dimension, the Singing Flame of Ydmos must be destroyed. The City of Singing Flame (1931) – In the city of strange wonders, the lure of the flame drew them on and on . . . . destruction loomed ahead . . . . Foreword The Journal A Plunge Into Nothingness An Amazing World The Lure of the Flame Beyond The Singing Flame (1931) – Into the land where distance and time melted away, he saw the enemies of Ydmos destroy the Singing Flame . . . . Chapter I Chapter II Into the Flame Chapter III The Inner Dimension