Scarecrow Press imprint: 1180 books

Shpil: The Art of Playing Klezmer is both a history of this popular form of traditional Jewish music and an instructional book for professional and amateur musicians. Since the revival of klezmer music in the United States in the mid-1970s, Yiddish songs and klezmer dance melodies have served as the...

Joan Peyser offers a history of twentieth century music through the lives and works of its greatest composers in To Boulez and Beyond. Peyser provides historical context and suggests psychological insight for these masters, including Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern of the Second Viennese School; their...

To see a Broadway musical is to experience how a drama, using melody, harmony, and rhythm, evokes the emotion needed to perpetuate a story line. Without music, many of these plays would not succeed, failing to convey the intended message. This new edition of Swain's classic text, winner of the 1991...

Now available in paperback! Béla Bartók's Mikrokosmos is a collection of 153 pieces for piano designed by the composer as a series graded according to difficulty. The pieces were written between 1926 and 1939, and have become by far the best-known series of teaching pieces by a major composer in...

"Russian folk songs are a living history of the Russian people, rich, vivid and truthful, revealing their entire life," wrote the great Russian writer Nikolai Gogol. Russian folk songs have always played an essential part in Russian life, culture, and music. They have played an important...

The International Sweethearts of Rhythm, a popular women's jazz band of the 1940s, has earned a reputation as the 'best all-women's swing band ever to perform.' This revised and updated edition provides fascinating reading for jazz enthusiasts and students of American history, music, and women's history....

Anthony Minghella's 1996 film The English Patient won nine Academy Awards™, including one for Best Original Score. Though Gabriel Yared had previously composed scores for several films, including Betty Blue, Camille Claudel, and Vincent & Theo, his work on The English Patient launched him into...

Steel Drums and Steelbands: A History is a vivid account of the events that led to the “accidental” invention of the steel drum: the only acoustic musical instrument invented in the 20th century. Angela Smith walks readers through the evolution of the steel drum from an object of scorn and tool...

No art can survive without an understanding of, and dedication to, the values envisioned by its creators. No culture over time has existed without a belief system to sustain its survival. Black music is no different. In Cultural Codes: Makings of a Black Music Philosophy, William C. Banfield engages...

In Musicologia—meaning "musical reasoning" as distinct from a mere love of music—author and composer Robin Maconie takes aim against the fashionable misconception that music is empty of meaning, or "auditory cheesecake." Fresh and penetrating insights draw attention to the...

The late Berton Coffin's considerable research in areas related to the art of singing has resulted in these reviews, with interpretations of vocal pedagogy classics in light of contemporary observations and findings. This volume contains a series of eighteen book reviews of the master singing teachers from Tosi (1723) to L. Lehmann (1914). Paperback edition available 2002.

Few bands in the past three decades have proven as affecting or exciting as the Misfits, the ferocious horror punk outfit that lurked in the shadows of suburban New Jersey and released a handful of pivotal underground recordings during their brief, tumultuous time together. Led by Glenn Danzig, a...

Peggy Gilbert, born Margaret Fern Knechtges (1905-2007), arrived into a musical family and grew up hearing music in her house every day. Her father was a violinist who played in theatre pit bands in Sioux City, Iowa, and her mother sang for touring opera companies whenever they appeared in town. Margaret...

Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, and David Bowie are among three of the most influential figures in twentieth-century popular music and culture, and innumerable scholars and biographers have explored the history of their influence. However, critical historiography reminds us that such scholarship is responsible...