Writing Music by Jeff Ousborne - First Edition, 2018 from Macmillan Student Store

Writing Music

A Bedford Spotlight ReaderFirst Edition ©2018 Jeff Ousborne

Writing Music explores questions around the central topic of music: What is music—and why do we love It? How does music express and shape the self? How do we make and consume music? How does music negotiate race and ethnicity? What does music reveal about sexuality and gender?

Read more
Students - Buy or Rent
Writing Music by Jeff Ousborne - First Edition, 2018 from Macmillan Student Store

A brief and versatile reader about music at an affordable price

Writing Music explores questions around the central topic of music: What is music—and why do we love It? How does music express and shape the self? How do we make and consume music? How does music negotiate race and ethnicity? What does music reveal about sexuality and gender? Readings by musicians, psychologists, philosophers, economists, and others take up these issues and more. Questions and assignments for each selection provide a range of activities for students, while the website for the Spotlight Series offers instructor support with additional teaching resources at macmillanlearning.com/spotlight.

The Bedford Spotlight Reader Series is an exciting line of single-theme readers, each featuring Bedford’s trademark care and quality. An Editorial Board of more than a dozen compositionists at schools focusing on specific themes assists in the development of the series. The readers in the series collect thoughtfully chosen readings sufficient for an entire writing course—about 35 selections—to allow instructors to provide carefully developed, high-quality instruction at an affordable price. Bedford Spotlight Readers are designed to help students make inquiries from multiple perspectives, opening up topics such as language, humor, monsters, borders, subcultures, happiness, money, food, sustainability, and gender to critical analysis. The readers are flexibly arranged in thematic chapters, each focusing in depth on a different facet of the central topic.

Features

Bedford care and quality in every volume. Each volume in the Bedford Spotlight series is developed with attention to design, pedagogy, and compelling readings that work in the classroom.

Affordable, and an ideal package option.  Each Spotlight Reader offers plenty of material for a composition course while keeping the price low. Package any Spotlight Reader with  Critical Thinking, Reading, and Writing:  A Bedford Spotlight Rhetoric, by Jeff Ousborne, at no additional cost, or combine a Spotlight Reader with a Bedford/St. Martin's rhetoric or handbook for a significant discount.

Multiple perspectives on music and its cultures, discourses, and contexts. In order to foster student engagement, five chapters, built around central questions on the subject of music, offer numerous entry points for inquiry and discussion. A mix of genres as well as accessible and challenging selections allows instructors to tailor their approach to each classroom. For instance:

  • Leonid Perlovsky, in Music and Consciousness, seeks to answer the essential questions of musics importance, role, and purpose in our lives.

  • Damon Krukowsi, in Making Cents, laments the financial realities of those trying to earn money from music in an age of streaming.

  • Tamara Winfrey Harris, in All Hail the Queen?, examines Beyonce's status as a feminist in the context of race, femininity, and celebrity.

Thoughtful support for writers and instructors. A general introduction, chapter introductions, and headnotes provide context. Prompts and assignments offer suggestions for discussion, informal writing, research, ways to connect selections, and research projects. A website for the series offers support for teaching the themes in each volume at macmillanlearning.com/spotlight.

An appendix, "Sentence Guides for Academic Writers." This section helps with an essential skill: working with and responding to others.

New to This Edition

"I've taught composition courses focused on music for many years, and this is by far the most comprehensive and useful text on the subject that I've encountered....An engaging, stimulating collection."
Jay Udall, Nicholls State University

"We are long overdue for a composition reader that focuses on music. Thank you for putting together these thoughtful pieces to inspire student participation and depth in writing."
Cheryl Cardoza, Truckee Meadows Community College

Digital Options

EPUB3_EBOOK icon

E-book

Read online (or offline) with all the highlighting and notetaking tools you need to be successful in this course.

Table of Contents

About the Bedford Spotlight Reader Series

Preface for Instructors

Contents by Discipline

Contents by Theme

Contents by Rhetorical Purpose

Introduction for Students

1. What Is Music and Why Do We Love It?

Barry Parker, Making Music

Brad Mehldau, Blank Expressions: Brad Mehldau and the Essence of Music

Stephen A. Diamond, Why We Love Music and Freud Despised It

Leonid Perlovsky, Music and Consciousness

St. Basil, from The Homily on the First Psalm

Oliver Sacks, Brainworms, Sticky Music, and Catchy Tunes

Jan Swafford, The Most Beautiful Melody in the World

Justin Davidson, Beethovens Kapow

2. How Does Music Express and Shape the Self?

Rob Sheffield, Left of the Dial

Aristotle, from Politics

Frederick Douglass, from My Bondage and My Freedom

Robert O'Meally, Lady Day

Laina Dawes, Hardcore Persona

Judy Berman, Concerning the Spiritual in Indie Rock

Will Wilkinson, Country Music, Openness to Experience, and the Psychology of the Culture War

Jeff Ousborne, Songs of Myself? Not Quite

Zach Moldof, Humble Trappings: Blue-Collar Hip-Hop and Recasting the Drug Dealer's Myth

Jeremy Gordon, I Listen to Everything, Except Rap and Country Music

3. How Do We Make and Consume Music?

Mark Oppenheimer, Stop Forcing Your Kids to Learn a Musical Instrument

Gracy Olmstead, Loving Through Pain: Why Learning an Instrument Matters

Meghan Daum, Music Is My Bag

Lessley Anderson, Seduced By Perfect Pitch: How Auto-Tune Conquered Pop Music

Robert J. Oxoby, On the Efficiency of AC/DC: Bon Scott versus Brian Johnson

Tom Jacobs, When Things Look Dark, Country Music Gets Sunnier

Damon Krukowski, Making Cents

George Howard, Why Artists Should Stop Chasing Spotify's Pennies and Focus on Top Fans

4. How Does Music Negotiate Race and Ethnicity?

Eugene Holley, My Bill Evans Problem: Jaded Visions of Jazz and Race

Samantha Ainsley, Black Rhythm, White Power

Heben Nigatu, In Defense of Kanye's Vanity: The Politics of Black Self-Love

Sasha Frere-Jones, A Paler Shade of White: How Indie Rock Lost Its Soul

Deborah Pacini Hernandez, To Rock or Not to Rock: Cultural Nationalism and Latino Engagement with Rock 'n' Roll

Chris Kjorness, Latin Music Is American Music

Kat Chow, How the 'Kung Fu Fighting' Melody Came to Represent Asia

Jeff Chang, It's a Hip-Hop World

5. What Does Music Reveal about Sexuality and Gender?

Tamara Winfrey Harris, All Hail the Queen?

Susan Hiwatt, Macho Rock: Men Always Seem to End Up on Top

Hannah Steinkopf-Frank, They've Got the Beat

Amy Clements-Cortes, The Role of Pop Music and Pop Singers in the Construction of a Singer's Identity in Three Early Adolescent Females

Madison Moore, Tina Theory: Notes on Fierceness


Sentence Guides for Academic Writers

Index of Authors and Titles

Jeff Ousborne

Jeff Ousborne (PhD, Boston College) has taught literature and writing at St. John’s University, Boston University, and Suffolk University. He is the editor of Reading Pop Culture: A Portable Anthology (Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2015), the author of Critical Reading and Writing: A Bedford Spotlight Rhetoric (Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2014), and editor of Writing Music: A Bedford Spotlight Reader. The former music editor at Details magazine, his scholarly articles and other writing have appeared Studies in Popular Culture, Clues: A Journal of Detection, The Boston Phoenix, Talking Writing, Life, Men's Fitness, Entertainment Weekly, CMJ Music Monthly, Boston Magazine, and other publications.

Instructor Resources

Need instructor resources for your course?

Unlock Your Resources

Instructor Resources

Download Resources

You need to sign in to unlock your resources.

request locked icon

Sample Syllabi and Suggested Further Reading and Listening