SOAS Studies in Music is today one of the world’s leading series in the discipline of ethnomusicology. Our core mission is to produce high-quality, ethnographically rich studies of music-making in the world’s diverse musical cultures. We publish monographs and edited volumes that explore musical repertories and performance practice, critical issues in ethnomusicology, sound studies, historical and analytical approaches to music across the globe. We recognize the value of applied, interdisciplinary and collaborative research, and our authors draw on current approaches in musicology and anthropology, psychology, media and gender studies. We welcome monographs that investigate global contemporary, classical and popular musics, the effects of digital mediation and transnational flows.
Series Editors:
Professor Rachel Harris (SOAS University of London)
Dr Richard Williams (SOAS University of London)
Editorial Board
Professor Kwasi Ampene (University of Michigan)
Professor Linda Barwick (University of Sydney)
Professor Angela Impey (SOAS University of London)
Dr Peter McMurray (University of Cambridge)
Dr Moshe Morad (Tel Aviv University)
Professor Suzel Reily (Universidade Estadual de Campinas)
Professor Henry Spiller (University California Davis)
By Matthew Machin-Autenrieth
February 05, 2019
Flamenco, Regionalism and Musical Heritage in Southern Spain explores the relationship between regional identity politics and flamenco in Andalusia, the southernmost autonomous community of Spain. In recent years, the Andalusian Government has embarked on an ambitious project aimed at developing ...
By Owen Wright
October 08, 2018
The Safavid era (1501–1722) is one of the most important in the history of Persian culture, celebrated especially for its architecture and art, including miniature paintings that frequently represent singers and instrumentalists. Their presence reflects a sophisticated tradition of music making ...
By Graham Harvey, Karen Ralls-MacLeod
November 23, 2017
Celebrating the diversity of indigenous nations, cultures and religions, the essays which comprise this volume discuss the musics performed by a wide variety of peoples as an integral part of their cultural traditions. These include examinations of the various styles of Maori, Inuit and Australian ...
By Bob Van Der Linden
July 19, 2018
Arnold Bake (1899–1963) was a Dutch pioneer in South Asian ethnomusicology, whose research impressed not only the most renowned Indologists of his time but also the leading figures in the emerging field of ethnomusicology. This long overdue biography sheds light on his knowledge of the theory and ...
Edited
By Barley Norton, Naomi Matsumoto
July 19, 2018
As economic, technological and cultural change gathers pace across the world, issues of music heritage and sustainability have become ever more pressing. Discourse on intangible cultural heritage has developed in complex ways in recent years, and musical practices have been transformed by ...
By Tony Lewis
April 18, 2018
The garamut is a log idiophone that is found in many of the coastal and island areas of Papua New Guinea. The instrument’s primary use is as a speech surrogate and in some regions the garamut is also used in large ensembles to play complex music for dancing. In Baluan Island, within the Manus ...
Edited
By Reinhard Strohm
March 13, 2018
The idea of a global history of music may be traced back to the Enlightenment, and today, the question of a conceptual framework for a history of music that pays due attention to global relationships in music is often raised. But how might a historical interpretation of those relationships proceed?...
By Laudan Nooshin
February 12, 2018
Questions of creativity, and particularly the processes which underlie creative performance or ’improvisation’, form some of the central areas of interest in current musicology. Yet the predominant discourses on which musicological thought in this area are based have rarely been challenged. In this...
By Frances Wilkins
January 31, 2018
Following three years of ethnomusicological fieldwork on the sacred singing traditions of evangelical Christians in North-East Scotland and Northern Isles coastal communities, Frances Wilkins documents and analyses current singing practices in this book by placing them historically and ...
Edited
By Razia Sultanova, Megan Rancier
January 31, 2018
The Turkic soundscape is both geographically huge and culturally diverse (twenty-eight countries, republics and districts extending from Eastern Europe through the Caucasus and throughout Central Asia). Although the Turkic peoples of the world can trace their linguistic and genetic ancestries to ...
By Stephen Cottrell
November 28, 2004
Professional Music-Making in London is an engaging yet innovative study which examines the lives and work of Western art musicians from an ethnographic perspective. Drawing in part on his own professional experience, Stephen Cottrell considers to what extent musicians in Western society conform to ...
Edited
By Rachel Harris, Martin Stokes
November 22, 2017
This volume of original essays is dedicated to Owen Wright in recognition of his formative contribution to the study of music in the Islamic Middle East. Wright’s work, which comprises, at the time of writing, six field-defining volumes and countless articles, has reconfigured the relationship ...