Genre and Hollywood provides a comprehensive introduction to the study of genre. In this important new book, Steve Neale discusses all the major concepts, theories and accounts of Hollywood and genre, as well as the key genres which theorists have written about, from horror to the Western. He also puts forward new arguments about the importance of genre in understanding Hollywood cinema.Neale takes issue with much genre criticism and genre theory, which has provided only a partial and misleading account of Hollywood's output. He calls for broader and more flexible conceptions of genre and genres, for more attention to be paid to the discourses and practices of Hollywood itself, for the nature and range of Hollywood's films to be looked at in more detail, and for any assessment of the social and cultural significance of Hollywood's genres to take account of industrial factors.In detailed, revisionist accounts of two major genres - film noir and melodrama - Neale argues that genre remains an important and productive means of thinking about both New and old Hollywood, its history, its audiences and its films.

Genre and Hollywood

Entrainment, broadly defined, is a phenomenon in which two or more independent rhythmic processes synchronize with each other. To illuminate the significance of entrainment for various directions of music research and promote a nuanced understanding of the concept among ethnomusicologists, this publication opens with an exposition of entrainment research in various disciplines, from physics to linguistics and psychology, while systematically introducing basic concepts that are directly relevant to musical entrainment. Topics covered include consideration of self-synchrony and interpersonal synchrony in musical performance, humans’ innate propensities to entrain, the influence of cultural and personal factors on entrainment, the numerous functions of musical entrainment in individual health, socialization, and cultural identification, and a presentation of methodologies and analytical techniques. Finally, some case studies illustrating one methodological strand, that of chronometric analysis, exemplify how the application of the entrainment concept might lead to an understanding of music making and music perception as an integrated, embodied and interactive process.

The concept of entrainment and its significance for ethnomusicology

This article presents the implications, objectives and initial results of a current ethnographic research project on music lovers. It looks at problems of theory and method posed by such research if it is not conceived only as the explanation of external determinisms, relating taste to the social origins of the amateur or to the aesthetic properties of the works. Our aim is, on the contrary, from long interviews and observations undertaken with music lovers, mostly in the classical field, to concentrate on gestures, objects, mediums, devices and relations engaged in a form of playing or listening, which amounts to more than the actualization of a taste `already there', for they are redefined during the action, with a result that is partly uncertain. This is why amateurs' attachments and ways of doing things can both engage and form subjectivities, rather than merely recording social labels, and have a history, irreducible to that of the taste for works.

https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-00193124/document

Music Lovers: Taste as performance

and general in order to be able to be performed on a wide variety of new inputs. The inputs may be an inventory of notes based upon key, style, et cetera. (Pressing’s cognitive model calls this the “referent.”) My taxonomy is a way of making those inputs clear. 184 Since improvisation (and composition) is fundamentally cognitive and motor selection, then this presupposes a set of things from which to select. One can only select if there are options, choices. Now, it seems that whether a person (agent) is aware (conscious or cognizant of the options (all or even some)), one may always post facto reconstruct the set of choices which were available or present to the agent at the time of selection. By this I mean the set of choices that were available to the agent from an objective point of view. This set has little to do with the actual, individual conscious states of the agent; however, it does involve many specific conditions of the agent and the agent’s environment. For example, a musician S may say that “it never occurred to me to play that B-flat after the A,” even though objectively that choice was available to S. Sometimes, however, we describe others, and even ourselves, as just doing something—no other options presented themselves to consciousness. So, “selection” may seem like an inappropriate term or concept for what is going on in improvisation. It may, however, seem more accurate in composition. When humans perform actions in quick succession, consciously it does not seem like a choice or decision is being made for each separate action. In fact, in some cases it may be difficult to individuate the rapid succession of actions into discrete units. It seems to be a unitary flow of movements. These are half-intentional actions. Beside the (SCI) case, examples of this kind of phenomenon are playing sports, talking, and just mundane actions like walking to the market. From a phenomenological perspective, in some moments the choice or decision aspect can be discerned, while other moments “feel” automatic. Consequently, it is in these seemingly automatic moments that selection may be an erroneous description. But there are several pieces of evidence that suggest that in both cases similar or the same processes are realized. First, it would be impossible to account for talent and skill if some sense of choice or selection or decision was not involved. Indeed, psychologists and others 185 indicate that some people are better than others (usually in some specific domain of behavior) in their speed of thinking, choosing, and moving in situations that require rapidity. In other words, if we cannot attribute responsibility to selection or choice, even in an attenuated sense, training and effort would be diminished or demolished. Why would one train if one could not control the automatic thinking or moving? What would be our understanding of talent and expertise? Second, there is reductio ad absurdam argument that can be given here, analogous to the one Thomas Nagel presents in the classic “Moral Luck” article. One could argue that artistic agents are never responsible for anything they do; they have no agency because all novel thoughts impinge. Humans do not cause their thoughts and selection. My only response is that creativity is still a mystery, and we are not yet epistemically entitled to run this argument to the point of absurdity. Furthermore, cognitive science has informed us that even in these moments sub-conscious motor and kinetic programs or mechanisms are running. Some of these were delineated for improvisation above. This is one reason why a phenomenology needs to be appended to cognitive models and the like. One should also be interested in what is present to the consciousness of the agent, and what is consciously occurring while playing (if anything), not only the underlying processes posited by a cognitive theory, nor what could be going on as argued for in a philosophical theory. David Sudnow is perhaps the best example of a phenomenological approach to improvising. By introspecting on his improvised piano playing and his learning how to play 62 For example, see Sian Beilock, Choke: What the Secrets of the Brain Reveal about Getting It Right When You Have To (New York: Free Press, 2010). 63 Thomas Nagel, “Moral Luck” in Mortal Questions, Canto Classics Series (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1979), 24-38. 64 David Sudnow, Ways of the Hand: The Organization of Improvised Conduct (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1978), and David Sudnow, Ways of the Hand: A Rewritten Account, foreword by Hubert L. Dreyfus (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2001). 186 paino and improvise, Sudnow gives excellent descriptions of the process and actions. One of the most important insights he gives is that selection in jazz piano improvisation is in large part about fingering and the way one’s hands and fingers move across the keys. I can attest that the same is true for stringed instruments, like guitar. Often, when I improvise, my attention is on finger patterns that I know work (with embellishments) over certain “changes.” How strongly the phenomenology of playing an instrument comes to play in thinking about creativity and improvisation in particular comes to the fore in this extraordinary account of a conversation with the famous, brilliant pianist Bill Evans. ... I [Gene Lees] kidded him [Bill Evans] about his rocking a finger on a key on a long note at the end of a phrase. After all, the hammer has already left the string: one has no further physical contact with the sound. ‘Don’t you know the piano has no vibrato?’ I said. ‘Yes,’ Bill responded, ‘but trying for it affects what comes before it in the phrase.’ Evans reveals that there are motor selections that do not enter into the perceivable product (in this case sounds) but yet affect properties of that product. Not all selections will be perceivable in the final product (e.g., performance, recording). One should also be aware that selection may be coerced in both a literal and metaphorical sense. External factors such as authorities may constrain what artists do, thereby eliminating or reducing choices. I may only have the resources to learn one instrument. If I only know how to play saxophone, I am not going to pick up a trumpet. At any given time t, the agent (improviser, player, performer) has twelve pitches available in the range physically determined by the instrument. This range is vague because 65 Gene Lees, “The Poet Bill Evans,” in Reading Jazz: A Gathering of Autobiography, Reportage, and Criticism from 1919 to Now, ed. Robert, Gottlieb (New York: Pantheon, 1996), 424. 187 given certain techniques, which some musicians are able to do and others not, and physical enhancements to instruments, the range can be extended, both to the top and bottom of the frequency or pitch range. But it would wrong to suppose that this complete selection options set is fully available every time, in every context to an improviser. What decreases the possibilities of the selection options group are the constraints that are given and/or accepted by the player, the genre, context, et cetera. Now, the agent may at any point deviate from these constraints (intentionally or otherwise), but she may not deviate from the complete selection options group, unless she changes instrument or technique. The idealized selection options group is coextensive with the set of all physically realizable pitches and all possible durations. This set may be expressed in many ways. For instance, one could simply give the Hertz (Hz) cycles (frequency) of the pitch indexed to a timed duration, such as eight seconds or two seconds. Obviously, this is an infinite set, because the duration of a produced pitch could be infinitely long, and the sound waves, although severely limited by human audibility capacity (even non-human animal audibility) could be infinitely low or high, although there are frequencies which we cease to call sounds. Practically, in Western music theory, the accepted range of pitches is the human audition range (called audio or sonic), 66 I am assuming the agent is using the Western Equal Temperament (ET) tempered system. On the drawbacks of the exclusive use of the ET system that was more or less codified in the eighteenth century, see Ross W. Duffin, How Equal Temperament Ruined Harmony (and Why You Should Care) (New York: W. W. Norton, 2007). Scholars have identified at least 150 different temperament tuning systems in Western art music. Of course, ET does not apply to many non-Western music systems. The locus classicus is J. Murray Barbour, Tuning and Temperament: A Historical Survey, Dover Books on Music Series (n.d., n.p., 1951; reprint ed., New York: Dover, 2004). 188 which is approximately from 20 50 Hz (the lowest pipe organ sounds) to 20,000 30,000 Hz; while the accepted range of durations caps out at 128 notes. Selection is the process of choosing an output. The output may be physically realized or produced sound, or a notation for a realizable sound, or both. A single selection is actually an array of various factors as explicated in Pressing’s cognitive model. In using the term “choosing,” or “choice,” again I make no commitment to a theory of free will. This theory and taxonomy may remain neutral. If free will is false, then the selection process will be a product of some set of causal laws. Those causal laws will still have to operate within the taxonomy. Moreover, ideally a selection may be viewed as a choice of each discrete unit with relevant arrays, even though phenomenologically one may not be aware of all of the arrays. A musical phrase or lick may be played wherein the agent chose to play the lick as a whole. The entire phrase, then, which may consist of several pitches of different durations, dynamics, rhythms, and attacks, is the unit of selection—not each discrete pitch et cetera. Following are the selection options sets for musical sound generation (

The metaphysics of improvisation

Dematerialization of artefacts and material objects is a relevant issue in consumer studies, especially when we consider the ongoing changes regarding the consumption of cultural goods. This article adopts a theory-of-practice approach to analyse the consequences of dematerialization on the practices of digital music consumption. From an empirical point of view, the article is based on data collected during research into the appropriation of digital music technologies and based on 25 in-depth narrative semi-structured interviews with young Italian digital music consumers. The analysis mainly focuses on the appropriation of three specific technologies involved into the contemporary consumption of music: the iPod, the external hard drive and the vinyl disc. In order to understand the role of materiality in the age of dematerialization, the article adopts the ‘circuit of practice’, an explicative model that enables empirical analysis and that is aimed at highlighting the changing relationships between materi...

When materiality ‘bites back’: Digital music consumption practices in the age of dematerialization

Performing Rites: On the Value of Popular Music

Wanted Dead or Alive: The American West in Popular Culture

(1998). Images of women in popular song lyrics: A bibliography. Popular Music and Society: Vol. 22, No. 4, pp. 79-89.

Images of women in popular song lyrics: A bibliography

I'll walk alone because to tell you the truth I'll be lonely, I don't mind being lonely, When my heart tells me you are lonely too... Martha Tilton, "I'll Walk Alone" (1944) Much has been written about the patriotic influence of commercial recordings during the First and Second World Wars. There are also several studies that explore the caustic lyrical debate over military activities, political leadership, and social disruption during the Vietnam War. Yet in all of these books and articles, the primary domestic issue of separation of loved ones caused by forced military service is treated in a cursory, secondary fashion. The flag-waving, self-sacrificing, supporting roles of mothers, wives, sisters, and sweethearts are uniformly depicted in passive homefront images of loyalty, patience, and prayer. Similarly, soldiers are stereotyped as being more than willing to march off to battle for God, country, and their best girls. Most studies of war-time music explore themes including: (1) admiration for the valor of U.S. soldiers; (2) anticipation of soldiers returning safely to civilian life; (3) the idealism of establishing a world free of warfare; (4) humor mocking enemy soldiers and their political leaders; (5) boredom over the mundane nature of non-combative military existence; (6) promotion of public enthusiasm and patriotic support for the war effort; (7) personal reactions to the draft system or to voluntary enlistment for military service; (8) religious support for military participants; and (9) repetition of symbols of military honor, patriotic fervor, and national unity. See Table A for illustrations. This essay suggests that the role of popular recordings during American military involvement in World War II (1941-1945) had far greater personal significance than previously reported. While patriotic justifications for opposing the totalitarian governments of Germany, Italy, and Japan and salutes to G.I. honor and valor were undoubtedly helpful in boosting stateside morale, homefront heartbreak and overseas depression were averted by the plethora of personalized romantic pledges repeated time and again on popular recordings. Radio broadcasts of love songs continuously reinforced the validity and vitality of temporarily divided relationships. As letters crisscrossed the Atlantic and the Pacific bearing understandable sentiments of fear, anguish, boredom, loneliness, and pain, music of the early '40s afforded a persistent pattern of lyrical support between soldier and sweetheart, husband and wife, brother and sister, son and mother. The root of this psychological support system was the traditional love ballad. Many of the most influential, sustaining, enthralling, and memorable songs of World War II functioned as commercial substitutes for personal letters. Not unlike 17th and 18th century epistolary novels, popular recordings served as public artistic devices embodying personal dreams, hopes, and desires. The absence of a printed motif was insignificant; the simple, oft-repeated verbal imagery of caring meant everything. Popular culture's traditional formula-driven system of producing courtship recordings took on special meaning during the four-year period of forced, fearful separation. Lyrics conceived and presented in an I/you format became even more personalized during a time of distanced love. Epistolary tendencies were reinforced through radio repetition. The following pages speculate on the peculiar nature of war-time love songs as audio letters and, through a variety of specific recorded illustrations, trace specific tunes that are still hailed as the songs that got Americans through World War II. I. I memorize every line, And I kiss the name that you sign. I'm not alone in the night, When I can have all the love you write. Dick Haymes, "Love Letters" (1945) Conventional wisdom dictates that personal letters have very little in common with sound recordings. …

From 'love letters' to 'miss you': popular recordings, epistolary imagery, and romance during war time, 1941-1945.

(1997). Wise men never try: A discography of fool songs, 1945–1995. Popular Music and Society: Vol. 21, No. 2, pp. 115-131.

B. Lee Cooper

Papers

Performing Rites: On the Value of Popular Music

Wanted Dead or Alive: The American West in Popular Culture

Images of women in popular song lyrics: A bibliography

From 'love letters' to 'miss you': popular recordings, epistolary imagery, and romance during war time, 1941-1945.

Wise men never try: A discography of fool songs, 1945–1995