Books about Disparate from Amazon.com

The study of American, microtonal composer Harry Partch (1901-1974) is complicated by specious autobiographical accounts, contradictory theoretical positions, and a methodology predicated on a vague concept of \'intuition\'. These complications are exacerbated by his use of a forty-three-tone scale, non-Western sources of inspiration, novel terms for preexisting ideas, and an integration of music, drama, and dance. In addition, his use of ratios to represent pitch, and the unique tablature notations for his nearly forty invented instruments create a seemingly insurmountable barrier to the analysis of his music. Yet while these complexities are initially overwhelming, they actually work to obscure the simplicity of Partch?s core ideas and compositional technique. At the foundation of all his ideas was an individualistic concept he called One Voice. One Voice was the process by which Partch projected his self image through his works. In doing so, he created a model that aimed to inspire others toward individual expression and artistic investigation..
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Based on a decade the author spent among the African-Caribbean "Creole" people on Nicaragua's southern Caribbean coast, Disparate Diasporas is a study of identity formation and politics in that community Edmund Gordon lived in Bluefields, Nicaragua, during most of the 1980s, a turbulent period during which he participated in the community's search for solutions to problems ranging from a crumbling economic base to the mutual mistrust and animosity between most Creole people and the Sandinista revolutionary government. Disparate Diasporas is not a conventional ethnography. Rather than being just an observer, Gordon actively participated in the life of the community, intent on contributing to its political processes. A basic premise of his book is that engagement and activity can enhance ethnographic insights and sharpen theoretical understanding. Disparate Diasporas shows how a particular "Black" community can evolve distinct types of diasporic consciousness, and, depending on the historical moment, how different types of memories, consciousness, and politics come to predominate. The author uses the Gramscian notion of "common sense" to understand the Creole community's history of shifting politics and ideologies, focusing on the period of the 1970s and 1980s. His work explains the inability of the Sandinistas to come to terms with the racial and cultural challenge to the Nicaraguan nation posed by the Creole community..
Price: $94.06 [Notify me when price goes down.]