In Philosophy of Song and Singing: An Introduction, Jeanette Bicknell explores key aesthetic, ethical, and other philosophical questions that have not yet been thoroughly researched by philosophers, musicologists, or scientists. Issues addressed include: The relationship between the meaning of a song’s words and its music The performer’s role and the ensuing gender complications, social ontology, and personal identity The performer’s ethical obligations to audiences, composers, lyricists, and those for whom the material holds particular significance The metaphysical status of isolated solo performances compared to the continuous singing of opera or the interrupted singing of stage and screen musicals Each chapter focuses on one major musical example and includes several shorter discussions of other selections. All have been chosen for their illustrative power and their accessibility for any interested reader and are readily available.

The Philosophy of Modern Song is Bob Dylan’s first book of new writing since 2004’s Chronicles: Volume One—and since winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2016. Dylan, who began working on the book in 2010, offers his extraordinary insight into the nature of popular music. He writes over sixty essays focusing on songs by other artists, spanning from Stephen Foster to Elvis Costello, and in between ranging from Hank Williams to Nina Simone. He analyzes what he calls the trap of easy rhymes, breaks down how the addition of a single syllable can diminish a song, and even explains how bluegrass relates to heavy metal. These essays are written in Dylan’s unique prose. They are mysterious and mercurial, poignant and profound, and often laugh-out-loud funny. And while they are ostensibly about music, they are really meditations and reflections on the human condition. Running throughout the book are nearly 150 carefully curated photos as well as a series of dream-like riffs that, taken together, resemble an epic poem and add to the work’s transcendence. In 2020, with the release of his outstanding album Rough and Rowdy Ways, Dylan became the first artist to have an album hit the Billboard Top 40 in each decade since the 1960s. The Philosophy of Modern Song contains much of what he has learned about his craft in all those years, and like everything that Dylan does, it is a momentous artistic achievement.

Music has extraordinary power to move us, but how and why does it affect us? What is going on, emotionally, physically and cognitively when listeners have strong emotional responses to music? This is a highly readable, original and philosophically important book for anyone who has ever been moved by music.

This volume presents a new collection of essays on music by Jerrold Levinson, one of the most prominent philosophers of art today. The essays are wide-ranging and represent some of the most stimulating work being done within analytic aesthetics. Three of the essays are previously unpublished, and four of them focus on music in the jazz tradition.

In fourteen short biographies Faith Cook brings home the reality of the faith which carries Christians victoriously through trials.

This is the first comprehensive book-length introduction to the philosophy of Western music that fully integrates consideration of popular music and hybrid musical forms, especially song. Its author, Andrew Kania, begins by asking whether Bob Dylan should even have been eligible for the Nobel Prize in Literature, given that he is a musician. This motivates a discussion of music as an artistic medium, and what philosophy has to contribute to our thinking about music. Chapters 2-5 investigate the most commonly defended sources of musical value: its emotional power, its form, and specifically musical features (such as pitch, rhythm, and harmony). In chapters 6-9, Kania explores issues arising from different musical practices, particularly work-performance (with a focus on classical music), improvisation (with a focus on jazz), and recording (with a focus on rock and pop). Chapter 10 examines the intersection of music and morality. The book ends with a consideration of what, ultimately, music is. Key Features Uses popular-song examples throughout, but also discusses a range of musical traditions (notably, rock, pop, classical, and jazz) Explains both philosophical and musical terms when they are first introduced Provides publicly accessible Spotify playlists of the musical examples discussed in the book Each chapter begins with an overview and ends with questions for testing comprehension and stimulating further thought, along with suggestions for further reading