3,663 research outputs found
Introduction: the mediations of music and alcohol
No full textThis is the introduction to a special edition of Popular Music focused on the theme of 'Popular Music and Alcohol' edited by Keith Negus and John Street
Creativity, Communication and Musical Experience
No full textCreativity is one of the most important yet unexplored issues in the study of popular music. Its significance is routinely noted, usually in passing, and its value often taken for granted. Its conceptual status in music studies is that of an unquestioned commonplace. Most of all, it is raised in reference to what is taken to be in opposition to it, to what is held as restricting or obstructing its realisation and potential. This may be the obtuseness of executive managers, the interference of moral guardians, the financial imperatives driving the global entertainment industry, or any number of other factors or forces. Creativity is then invoked as a lucky talisman in a critical argument about something else. What it involves in its own right or what meanings it is made to carry are seldom subject to any critical attention. This neglect may be due, at least in part, to the difficulties associated with the term, for as soon as we start to look at all closely at the idea of creativity, we quickly become aware of a plethora of contradictory images and associations, assertions and judgements. If these are part of the problem, they cannot be negotiated simply by turning away and passing on to what are deemed to be more pressing concerns. In this chapter we want to begin grappling with all that is caught up in the concept of musical creativity, however difficult this may be.
Theoretical frameworks for the learning of geometrical reasoning
No full textWith the growth in interest in geometrical ideas it is important to be clear about the nature of geometrical reasoning and how it develops. This paper provides an overview of three theoretical frameworks for the learning of geometrical reasoning: the van Hiele model of thinking in geometry, Fischbein’s theory of figural concepts, and Duval’s cognitive model of geometrical reasoning. Each of these frameworks provides theoretical resources to support research into the development of geometrical reasoning in students and related aspects of visualisation and construction. This overview concludes that much research about the deep process of the development and the learning of visualisation and reasoning is still needed
The Work of Cultural Intermediaries and the Enduring Distance between Production and Consumption
No full textThis article raises some critical questions about cultural intermediaries as both a descriptive label and analytic concept. In doing so, it has two main aims. First, it seeks to provide some clarification, critique and suggestions that will assist in the elaboration of this idea and offer possible lines of enquiry for further research. Second, it is argued that whilst studying the work of cultural intermediaries can provide a number of insights, such an approach provides only a partial account of the practices that continue to proliferate in the space between production and consumption. Indeed, in significant ways, a focus on cultural intermediaries reproduces rather than bridges the distance between production and consumption. The paper focuses on three distinct issues. First, some questions are raised about the presumed special significance of cultural intermediaries within the production/consumption relations of contemporary capitalism. Second, how 'creative' and active cultural intermediaries are within processes of cultural production is discussed. Third, specific strategies of inclusion/exclusion adopted by this occupational grouping are highlighted in order to suggest that access to work providing 'symbolic goods and services' is by no means as fluid or open as is sometimes claimed
Bob Dylan
No full textIn this study Keith Negus takes issue with those authors who treat Bob Dylan as a poet and who obsess over his lyrics on the page, and instead treats him first and foremost as a musician and his songs as music – the words sounds, rhythms and tunes in the air. This book explores those dimensions of Dylan songs that are so readily apparent to listeners but which have received little attention, stressing the importance of Dylan’s melodies, rhythms, instrumental textures, and the musicality of his performing voice. The book explores the way Dylan musical sensibility has been shaped by blues and folk ballad traditions, his songs quite often deliberately constructed from existing elements. Although appreciated according to the criteria of rock criticism with its emphasis on the apparent originality of musicians who write their own songs, this book emphasises how Dylan has always followed a songwriting philosophy drawn from folk music, working with and re-using existing songs, forms and styles. Dylan has created a unique performing identity by intensely personalising borrowed musical and lyrical phrases, the tunes and riffs. Negus stresses how performance is central to Dylan’s life as a musician and songwriter, indicating the way Dylan has created distinct musical textures through his arrangements and productions on studio recordings, as well as detailing the way Dylan has treated his songs as continually open to change and re-arrangement in live shows
Music Genres and Corporate Cultures
No full textMusic Genres and Corporate Cultures explores the seemingly haphazard workings of the music industry, tracing the uneasy relationship between economics and culture. Keith Negus examines the contrasting strategies of major labels. Through in-depth case studies of three major genres; rap, country, and salsa, Negus explores the way in which the music industry recognises and rewards certain sounds, and how this influences both the creativity of musicians, and their audiences. He examines the tension between raps public image as the spontaneous `music of the streets' and the practicalities of the market, and asks why country labels and radio stations promote top-selling acts like Garth Brooks over hard-to-classify artists like Mary Chapin-Carpenter, and how the lack of soundscan systems in Puerto Rican record shops affects salsa music's position on the US Billboard chart. Drawing on over seventy interviews with music industry personnel in Britain and the United States, Music Genres and Corporate Cultures shows how the creation, circulation and consumption of popular music is shaped by record companies and corporate business styles while stressing that music production takes within a broader culture, not totally within the control of large corporations
Jersey Homesteads -- A Triple Co-operative
No full textChapter 11, pages 256-276, of
Title: "Tomorrow a new world: the New Deal communuity program."
Publisher: Ithaca, NY, Published for the American Historical Association (by) Cornell University Press, 1959.
Author; Conkin, Paul Keith
The shaping of student knowledge: learning with dynamic geometry software
No full textThe focus of this paper is a software genre usually referred to as ‘dynamic geometry’ because of the ability of the user to dynamically manipulate geometrical figures created with the software tool. Using data from a longitudinal study of 12-13 students’ use of dynamic geometry software, the focus of the analysis is on the interpretations the students make of geometrical objects and relationships when using this form of software. The analysis suggests that the students’ mathematical reasoning is shaped by their interactions with the software in that their ability to explain geometrical facts and relationships evolves from imprecise, ‘everyday’ expressions, through reasoning that is overtly mediated by the software environment, to mathematical explanations of the geometric situation that transcend the particular tool being used. Such findings suggest that curriculum initiatives that encourage the use of dynamic geometry software are appropriate but that the incorporation of such software into classroom practices is unlikely to be straightforward
Art, Biography, Sexuality: Patrick Procktor and Keith Vaughan
No full textThis critical review forms a reflection on the research published within the following publications:
Patrick Procktor: Art and Life (Unicorn Press, 2010)
Keith Vaughan: The Mature Oils 1946-1977, (Sansom & Co., 2012)
The research is on two artists, Patrick Procktor (1936-2003), and Keith Vaughan (1912-1977). The monograph on Procktor – previously one of the least documented of the generation of artists who came to prominence in London in the Sixties – positions him in a history of art from which he had been notably absent. The research on Vaughan asserts a new reading of his work, one that is both deeper and more nuanced in its analysis of the ways in which personal experience and sexuality are encoded autobiographically within his work. Crucially, in both artists biography and work are symbiotically linked; the research therefore examines the links between life and art.
Revisionary in intent, the work examines trajectories of experience of gay British (or rather, English) artists in the twentieth century, artists who sought to express themselves and forge careers within the constraints of a heteronormative society, albeit one in which attitudes to sexuality were undergoing change. As gay men, both were constrained by the social mores of their times, and each used painting as a means to affirm personal and sexual identities. A key research interest is in the ways in which sexuality and persona are reflected in critical responses to the artist’s work: in Vaughan, Procktor and other gay male artists of the period. The writing on both Procktor and Vaughan examines the relationship between their personal and professional/artistic lives, framed within a broader socio-political and art historical context. It asserts the place of biography as a means to understand and form new readings of the work. The work adds substantially to the literature and wider discourse on post-war British painting and social history
The spontaneity drain: the social pressures that shaped and then exiled Keith Johnstone's improvisation
No full textKeith Johnstone’s Improvisation had an oppositional relationship to the social and historical conditions of 1950s Britain under which it developed. Its structure and performative dynamic were protests against the normalising forces exerted by the social elite upon the broader population and by civilised society upon the individual. Within this context, the Royal Court Theatre acted as an incubator that allowed Johnstone to develop his subversive theories of performance, drawing on elements of professional wrestling to break down the regimented conventions of the theatre space and enliven the spectator-performer relationship. Eventually Johnstone entered a self-imposed exile from the society that shaped this form of performance and established The Loose Moose Theatre in Calgary, Canada.
This paper will analyse three relationships vital to this narrative: The oppositional reaction of Johnstone's improvisation to the social pressures of 1950's Britain, the creative glasshouse that The Royal Court Theatre provided for Johnstone within this broader cultural context, and the effects that the new social situation of Calgary, Canada had on Johnstone's practice.
At the conclusion of the paper I will draw out the consequences of these analyses for contemporary British society and attempt to identify the normalising forces at work within this context, how our arts institutions and creative incubators might foster novel reactions to these pressures, and how public policy might be shaped in order to encourage artists to remain in Britain so that we might benefit from their continued contribution to our cultural discourses
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