Times A-Changin'

Flexible Meter as Self-Expression in Singer-Songwriter Music
Erscheinungsjahr 2023
ISBN: 978-0-19-763521-6
Verlag: Oxford University Press

Buch, Englisch, 216 Seiten, Format (B × H): 159 mm x 236 mm, Gewicht: 446 g

In 1960s and 1970s singer-songwriter music, some artists used malleable metric settings alongside other features of self-expression in performance. This resulted in songs with extremes of self-expressive timing flexibility that cannot be accounted for using a single conception of meter. This book proposes a theory of flexible meter that recasts metric structure as encompassing the variety of metric scenarios presented by the self-expressive performance practice of singer-songwriters, from metric regularity to metric ambiguity, and vacillations between these two possibilities. Author Nancy Murphy explores performances by Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Paul Simon, and Cat Stevens to investigate the individual metric style of each artist and how their flexible metric techniques contribute to the self-expressive rhetoric of the singer-songwriter performance tradition.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Murphy, Nancy

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Musikwissenschaft Musikgattungen Volksmusik

Inhaltsverzeichnis

- Abstract

- Table of Contents

- List of Figures and Captions

- Acknowledgements

- Chapter 1: The Self Expressive Rhetoric of Flexible Meter

- Self-Expressive Features

- Flexible Meter and "The Fiddle and the Drum"

- Self-Expression and the Singer-Songwriter

- Expectations for Singer-Songwriter Music

- Bob Dylan and The Folk Revival

- Flexible Meter as Self-Expression in Singer-Songwriter Music

- Chapter 2: The Theory of Flexible Meter

- Types of Flexible Meter

- Regular Meter

- Reinterpreted Meter

- Lost Meter

- Ambiguous Meter

- Metric Potential

- Chapter 3: Regular and Reinterpreted Meter

- Regular Meter

- Reinterpreted Meter

- Joni Mitchell's Rhapsodic Sentiments

- Paul Simon: Reinterpreted Meter Expressing Enigmatic Lyrics

- Cat Stevens's Introspection

- A Closer Look: Joni Mitchell's "Lesson in Survival"

- Chapter 4: Self-Expressive Innovations: Lost Meter

- Bob Dylan's "Only a Pawn in Their Game"

- Cat Stevens's "Time"

- Joni Mitchell's "Blue"

- Chapter 5: Intensifying "Imperfection": Ambiguous Meter

- Bob Dylan's "Down the Highway"

- Bob Dylan's "Restless Farewell"

- Joni Mitchell's "The Fiddle and the Drum"

- Buffy Sainte-Marie's "Sir Patrick Spens"

- Chapter 6: What Happens Next? Self-Expressive Flexible Meter

- Beyond 1982

- Future Singer-Songwriters

- Buffy Sainte-Marie's "My Country" (1966)

- "My Country" (1966, Rainbow Quest)

- "My Country" (2017, Medicine Songs)

- Conclusion: Flexible Meter as Self-Expression

- Index

Über Autor(innen)

Nancy Murphy is Assistant Professor of Music at the University of Michigan, previously teaching at the University of Houston and the University of Chicago. Her research studies singer-songwriter music, metric flexibility, self-expression, vocal production, and transcription. She has published articles and reviews in Music Theory Spectrum, Music Analysis, and Music Theory Online and serves on the editorial boards of Music Theory Online, Indiana Theory, and Engaging Students: Essays in Music Pedagogy (Associate Editor). She has reviewed journal submission for multiple peer-reviewed publications including Music Theory Spectrum, Popular Music, Music Theory Online, Analytical Approaches to World Music, Engaging Students, and Indiana Theory Review.