Directions in the musical avant-garde in the past fifty years seem as numerous and diverse as the composers and their works. Yet these directions have historical motives and aesthetic values, traceable and uniquely observable due to their singularly radical nature. This book explores the history, philosophy, composers, and works of the avant-garde since the late 1940s, emphasizing works departing radically from tradition. Outstanding features include extensive bibliographies of written works and recordings; interviews with important avant-garde composers, showing readers firsthand the thought behind their works; in-depth analyses of specific works relevant to each chapter; and addresses, with websites, of publishers of avant-garde music.

Managing Stress in Music Education presents research, theory, possible pitfalls, and strategies for music teachers looking to navigate the challenging climate of potential stressors. Covering a wide range of topics such as sleep, physical movement, nutrition, happiness, gratitude, and mindfulness, this book offers music educators the tools to thrive in a work environment that can often lead to stress and burnout. Readers will examine vignettes of challenged and successful music teachers, and consider new techniques and classic reminders for a healthy enjoyment of work and life. Grounded in research and written in an accessible and concise manner, Managing Stress in Music Education is an excellent addition to any music teacher’s bookshelf.

Computing is transforming how we interact with music. New theories and new technologies have emerged that present fresh challenges and novel perspectives for researchers and practitioners in music and human-computer interaction (HCI). In this collection, the interdisciplinary field of music interaction is considered from multiple viewpoints: designers, interaction researchers, performers, composers, audiences, teachers and learners, dancers and gamers. The book comprises both original research in music interaction and reflections from leading researchers and practitioners in the field. It explores a breadth of HCI perspectives and methodologies: from universal approaches to situated research within particular cultural and aesthetic contexts. Likewise, it is musically diverse, from experimental to popular, classical to folk, including tango, laptop orchestras, composition and free improvisation.

This volume brings together a group of analytical chapters exploring traditional genres and styles of world music, capturing a vibrant and expanding field of research. These contributors, drawn from the forefront of researchers in world music analysis, seek to break down barriers and build bridges between scholarly disciplines, musical repertoires, and cultural traditions. Covering a wide range of genres, styles, and performers, the chapters bring to bear a variety of methodologies, including indigenous theoretical perspectives, Western music theory, and interdisciplinary techniques rooted in the cognitive and computational sciences. With contributors addressing music traditions from Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas, this volume captures the many current directions in the analysis of world music, offering a state of the fi eld and demonstrating the expansion of possibilities created by this area of research.

A Different Paradigm in Music Education is a "let’s consider some possibilities" book. Instead of a music methods book, it is a look at where the music education profession is and how music teachers might improve what it is we do. It is about change. It is about questioning the current music education paradigm, especially regarding its exclusive role as the only model. The intent is to help pre-service and in-service music educators consider new modes of pedagogical thought that will allow us to broaden our reach in schools and better help students develop as creative musicians across their lifespan. The book includes an overview of several opportunities and course examples that would make music education more relevant and meaningful, especially for students that are not interested in our traditional performance offerings. The author wishes to stimulate discussions, with the goal for the music education profession to grow and mature.

Eudaimonia: Perspectives for Music Learning asserts the fertile applications of eudaimonia—an Aristotelian concept of human flourishing intended to explain the nature of a life well lived—for work in music learning and teaching in the 21st century. Drawing insights from within and beyond the field of music education, contributors reflect on what the "good life" means in music, highlighting issues at the core of the human experience and the heart of schooling and other educational settings. This pursuit of personal fulfillment through active engagement is considered in relation to music education as well as broader social, political, spiritual, psychological, and environmental contexts. Especially pertinent in today’s complicated and contradictory world, Eudaimonia: Perspectives for Music Learning is a concise compendium on this oft-overlooked concept, providing musicians with an understanding of an ethically-guided and socially-meaningful music-learning paradigm.