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Now in paperback to celebrate the centenary of Pierre Boulez's birth in 2025. A groundbreaking group of writings by French composer Pierre Boulez, his yearly lectures prepared for the Collège de France. 

Music Lessons marks the first publication in English of Pierre Boulez’s Collège de France lectures, written while he held the chair of Invention, Technique and Language in Music at the Collège between 1976 and 1995. Representing Boulez’s most significant writings from the period, the lectures offer a sustained intellectual engagement with one of the dominant figures of twentieth-century music, a consummate composer-conductor who remained central to the conversation around contemporary music until his death in 2016. Boulez explores, among other topics, the process through which a musical idea is realized in a full-fledged composition, the complementary roles of craft and inspiration and the degree to which the memory of other musical works can influence and change the act of creation. Boulez also gives a penetrating account of problems in classical music that are still present today, such as the conservatism of a musical community fixated on the repertory of the past. Woven into the discussion are stories of his own compositions and those of fellow composers whose work he engaged with in his many roles as teacher, thinker, and conductor: from Stravinsky to Stockhausen and Varèse, from Bartók to Berg, Debussy to Mahler and Wagner, and all the way back to his beloved J. S. Bach.

Including a foreword by semiologist Jean-Jacques Nattiez, who was for years close to the composer, this edition is also enriched by an illuminating preface by Jonathan Goldman. With an authoritative translation retaining Boulez’s fierce convictions, cutting opinions and signature wit, Music Lessons is an essential and entertaining volume.

In recent decades, increased specialization has sharply separated music theory from historical musicology. Music Theory and the Exploration of the Past brings together a group of essays—written by theorists and musicologists—that seek to bridge this gap. This collection shows that music theory can join forces with historical musicology to produce a more humanistic form of musical scholarship.

In nineteen essays dealing with musical theories from the twelfth to the twentieth century, two recurring themes emerge. One is the need to understand the historical circumstances of the writing and reception of theory, a humanistic approach that gives theory a place within social and intellectual history. The other is the advantages of applying contemporaneous theory to the music of a given period, thus linking theory to the history of musical styles and structures. The periods given principal attention in these essays are the Renaissance, the years around 1800, and the twentieth century.

Abundantly illustrated with musical examples, Music Theory and the Exploration of the Past offers models of new practical applications of theory to the analysis of music. At the same time, it raises the broader question of how historical knowledge can deepen the understanding of an art and of systematic writings about that art.

Ritual trance has always been closely associated with music—but why, and how? Gilbert Rouget offers and extended analysis of music and trance, concluding that no universal law can explain the relations between music and trance; they vary greatly and depend on the system of meaning of their cultural context.

Rouget rigorously examines a worldwide corpus of data from ethnographic literature, but he also draws on the Bible, his own fieldwork in West Africa, and the writings of Plato, Ghazzali, and Rousseau. To organize this immense store of information, he develops a typology of trance based on symbolism and external manifestations. He outlines the fundamental distinctions between trance and ecstasy, shamanism and spirit possession, and communal and emotional trance. Music is analyzed in terms of performers, practices, instruments, and associations with dance. Each kind of trance draws strength from music in different ways at different points in a ritual, Rouget concludes. In possession trance, music induces the adept to identify himself with his deity and allows him to express this identification through dance.

Forcefully rejecting pseudo-science and reductionism, Rouget demystifies the so-called theory of the neurophysiological effects of drumming on trance. He concludes that music's physiological and emotional effects are inseparable from patterns of collective representations and behavior, and that music and trance are linked in as many ways as there are cultural structures.

Music as Metaphor was first published in 1960. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions.

A professor of music for many years, Mr. Ferguson here sets forth his theories on how music conveys meaning to its listeners. He identifies and discusses the elements of musical expression - tonal stress and rhythm - and correlates them with the nervous tensions and motor impulses which characterize human emotion. Through this correlation, he shows how music portrays universally understood emotional states and ideas. He relates these principles to music criticism, proposing a new system for such criticism.

An edited volume that examines the data and statistics that are key to the music industry.

The music industries are fueled by statistics: sales targets, breakeven points, success ratios, royalty splits, website hits, ticket revenues, listener figures, piracy abuses, and big data. Statistics are of consequence. They influence the music that consumers get to hear, they determine the revenues of music makers, and they shape the policies of governments and legislators. Yet many of these statistics are generated by the music industries themselves, and their accuracy can be questioned. Music by Numbers sets out to explore this shadowy terrain.

This edited collection provides the first in-depth examination of the use and abuse of statistics in the music industry. Written by noted music business scholars and practitioners in the field, the book addresses five key areas in which numbers are employed: sales and awards; music industry policy; live music; music piracy; and digital solutions. The authors address these subjects from a range of perspectives: some of them test the veracity of this data and explore its tactical use by music businesses; others help to generate these numbers by developing surveys and online projects and offering candid observations.

The aim of this collection is to expose the culture and politics of data. Music industry statistics are pervasive, but despite this ubiquity they are underexplored. This book offers a corrective by providing new ways by which to learn music by numbers.