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 Joseph S.Kaminski
November 07, 2012
Based on the author's fieldwork in Ghana with the Asante and Denkyira ntahera trumpeters, this book draws on interviews, field recordings, oral traditions, written accounts, archaeological evidence, transcriptions and linguistic analyses to situate the Asante trumpet tradition in historical culture...
By Kalin S. Kirilov
January 13, 2016
An in-depth study of the Bulgarian harmonic system is long overdue. More than two decades since the Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares choir was awarded a Grammy (1990), there is no scholarly study of the captivating sounds of Bulgarian vertical sonorities. Kalin Kirilov traces the gradual formation of a...
By Richard Widdess
December 02, 2013
Dāphā, or dāphā bhajan, is a genre of Hindu-Buddhist devotional singing, performed by male, non-professional musicians of the farmer and other castes belonging to the Newar ethnic group, in the towns and villages of the Kathmandu Valley, Nepal. The songs, their texts, and their characteristic ...
By Andrew Killick
September 13, 2013
Anyone who knows anything of Korean music probably knows something of Hwang Byungki. As a composer, performer, scholar, and administrator, Hwang has had an exceptional influence on the world of Korean traditional music for over half a century. During that time, Western-style music (both classical ...
By Nicholas Gray
October 28, 2011
This book is an examination of the music of the Balinese gendér wayang, the quartet of metallophones - gendér - that accompanies the Balinese shadow puppet play - wayang kulit. The book focuses on processes of musical variation, the main means of creating new music in this genre, and the ...
By Simon Barker
April 14, 2015
For over a century, drummers have been turning to a variety of percussive traditions as prompts for the creation of new expressive possibilities on the drumset. In this book, Simon Barker sets out in detail the developmental processes he has followed creating an improvisational language for the ...
By Sara Manasseh
October 25, 2012
Sara Manasseh brings a significant, but less widely-known, Jewish repertoire and tradition to the attention of both the Jewish community (Ashkenazi, Sephardi, Oriental) and the wider global community. The book showcases thirty-one songs and includes English translations, complete Hebrew texts, ...
By Sun Zhuo
July 31, 2015
The zheng zither is one of the most popular instruments in contemporary China. It is commonly regarded as a solo instrument with a continuous tradition dating back to ancient times. But in fact, much of its contemporary solo repertory is derived from several different regional folk ensemble ...
By Rachel Harris
November 28, 2008
Throughout the course of the twentieth century, as newly formed nations sought ways to develop and formalise their national identity and acquire a range of identifiable national assets, we find new musical canons springing up across the world. But these canons are not arbitrary collections of works...
By Francesca R. Sborgi Lawson
December 28, 2010
In studying one of the world's oldest and most enduring musical cultures, academics have consistently missed one of the richest forms of Chinese cultural expression: performed narratives. Francesca R. Sborgi Lawson explores the relationships between language and music in the performance of four ...
By Sharon Meredith
March 31, 2016
Barbados is a small Caribbean island better known as a tourist destination rather than for its culture. The island was first claimed in 1627 for the English King and remained a British colony until independence was gained in 1966. This firmly entrenched British culture in the Barbadian way of life,...
By Terence A. Lancashire
November 28, 2016
Japanese folk performing arts incorporate a body of entertainments that range from the ritual to the secular. They may be the ritual dances at Shinto shrines performed to summon and entertain deities; group dances to drive away disease-bearing spirits; or theatrical mime to portray the tenets of ...