Mariachi Music in America: Experiencing Music, Expressing Culture describes the social, cultural, and economic circumstances surrounding mariachi music in the United States. Massive immigrations of Mexicans to the U.S., the power of the international recording industry, and the fluid travel of mariachi musicians back and forth between the two countries have maintained a strong base of musical continuity across the political border. Based on his extensive fieldwork and research, Sheehy explains how mariachi music is at once a folk music rooted in over 150 years of tradition, a commodity governed by market considerations, and a dynamic, evolving musical stream of activity, shaped and expanded by musical innovation and social meaning.

Music in America: Experiencing Music, Expressing Culture is an overview of the diverse traditions of the American musical landscape. Taking a holistic approach to American musical culture, this volume presents social, political, and economic issues as reflected through the study of American music. Seeking to answer the complex question "what does American music sound like?," this text explores the ways in which the many different sounds from diverse cultural origins come to share a national identity. Rather than chronologically tracing the history of American music, this text explores how musical culture is shaped by space, time, geography, and history, and by the people who use music to express themselves within a community.

Music in China: Experiencing Music, Expressing Culture offers a unique exploration of the rich, dynamic, and multifaceted Chinese musical landscape. In contrast with previous scholarship—which focused almost exclusively on the role of music in elite culture—this volume takes a balanced look at a variety of traditional and modern genres, including those performed among local and regional folk musicians, in academia, in the media, and on concert stages both inside and outside of China. Using the interrelated themes of identity, modernization, and ideology as a narrative framework, author Frederick Lau discusses the musical features of the selected genres, the processes through which they came into existence, and related sociopolitical issues. Lau draws on his own extensive fieldwork and performance experience in both mainland China and its diasporic communities to show how the ever-changing Chinese musical tradition takes on particular meanings in China, in overseas Chinese communities, and in diverse international settings.

Music in East Africa: Experiencing Music, Expressing Culture introduces readers to the various ways in which historical musical traditions and present-day musical performances either collide, fuse, or remain mutually exclusive in contemporary East Africa. Through descriptions of performances and case studies that detail the lives of individual musicians, Gregory Barz shows how people in Uganda, Kenya, and Tanzania create, dance to, and interact with traditional East African music. Focusing on specific contexts in which music is integrated into the everyday lives of individuals and communities, Music in East Africa: Experiencing Music, Expressing Culture considers the significance of music for people as they negotiate the world around them. It looks at the defining principle of musical performance in East Africa - how drumming, singing, dancing, and drama are deeply connected to traditional cultures. This book highlights the importance of individual musicians as specialized members of communities and describes the role of musical performance in such social systems as popular entertainment and religious rituals. It also shows how traditional East African music and performance has responded to modernization, colonization, commercialism, and nationalism.

Music in Japan: Experiencing Music, Expressing Culture provides a vivid introduction to the music of contemporary Japan, a nation in which traditional music, western music, and popular music thrive side by side. This text points out the centrality of Western and popular musical idioms in Japanese cultural life, exploring how music in Japan has been profoundly affected by the interface with other cultures, both the Asian (continental and island) and European (Europe and the Americas) cultural spheres. Wade discusses how the nature of the interface has been shaped by a process of learning from other cultures, followed by assimilation and indigenization of ideas and items. Additionally, the text explores the intertextuality of Japanese music, and how familiar themes, musical sounds, and structures have been have been maintained and transformed across the various traditions of Japanese performing arts through time. The text features eyewitness accounts of performances, interviews with performers, and a 70-minute CD containing examples of music discussed in the text.

Music in West Africa: Experiencing Music, Expressing Culture introduces the musical and performance traditions of West Africa, particularly Kpelle music of Liberia. The text discusses the diversity, motifs, and structure of West African music within the larger patterns of West African culture and practice, highlighting those aspects of Kpelle music that are common to many other traditions throughout West Africa. Framed as a "journey" through Liberia, the text describes how music and dance in West Africa are tied to the fabric of everyday social and political life. The text explains the form, structure, and performance context of Kpelle music and also integrates examples from other musical traditions.

Native American Music in Eastern North America is one of the first books to explore the contemporary musical landscape of indigenous North Americans in the north and east. It shows how performance traditions of Native North Americans have been influenced by traditional social values and cultural histories, as well as by encounters and exchanges with other indigenous groups and with newcomers from Europe and Africa. Drawing on her extensive fieldwork and on case studies from several communities—including the Iroquois, the Algonquian-speaking nations of the Atlantic seaboard, and the Inuit of the far north—author Beverley Diamond discusses intertribal celebrations, popular music projects, dance, art, and film. She also considers how technology has mediated present-day cultural communication and how traditional ideas about social roles and gender identities have been negotiated through music.

Developed in conjunction with Thinking Musically and the culture case studies in the Global Music Series, Teaching Music Globally provides teachers and students of music with ideas and techniques for engaging in the study of the world's musical cultures. Offering a large selection of exercises and activities of varying difficulty, this text is a guide for teachers of elementary through university level students--in band, choir, general music, orchestra, and any other school music classes--who seek to establish a comprehensive musical understanding for students living in a global era.

Designed for undergraduates and general readers with little or no background in music, Thinking Musically incorporates music from many diverse cultures—including the Americas, Asia, Africa, Oceania, and Europe—and establishes the framework for exploring the practice of music around the world. Thinking Musically explores the importance of musical instruments and discusses the fundamental elements of music—including rhythm, pitch in melodic and harmonic relationships, and form—and examines how they vary in different musical traditions. The author considers the effects of cultural factors such as gender and ethnicity on the perception, interpretation, and performance of music, as well as the forces of nationalism, cultural encounters, and westernization.