Music, Disability, and Society - Hardcover

Lubet, Alex

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1439900256 ISBN 13: 9781439900253

Publisher: Temple University Press, 2010

Synopsis

"With a clear and personal voice, Alex Lubet illuminates the confluence of music and disability. His insights range from classical to popular music, from the specific demands made on one-handed classical pianists to the startling uniqueness of Bob Dylan's voice, from the magical, impaired jazz guitar of Django Reinhardt to the harmonies of blind musical culture. Here is a book designed for musicians and students of disability alike---a perfect fusion of musical knowledge and disability studies unlikely to be duplicated any time soon."---Tobin Siebers, University of Michigan

"Music, Disability, and Society is a provocative, interesting, and significant book. Lubet's work is unique in its scope and trajectory. Moreover, the overtly personal nature of the text ensures a unique take on its subject matter. This is a book that brings new and fresh perspectives to scholarly considerations of music, culture, and disability studies, as well as to the myriad points at which they intersect in contemporary (and occasionally historical) societies. It will make a significant impact on disability studies, ethnomusicology, and related fields."---Michael B. Bakan, Florida State University

"In Music, Disability, and Society Alex Lubet identifies the utility of bringing a disability studies perspective to the field of music studies. His book helps to demonstrate not only the significance of disabled people's presence in the history of music, but, even more importantly, the difference that disability makes in the production of the art form itself. The work will help to spur new work in this interdisciplinary arena for years to come."---David Mitchell, Temple University

About this title

Book Description:

Musical talent in Western culture is regarded as an extraordinary combination of technical proficiency and interpretative sensitivity. In Music, Disability, and Society, Alex Lubet challenges the rigid view of technical skill and writes about music in relation to disability studies. He addresses the ways in which people with disabilities are denied the opportunity to participate in music.

Elaborating on the theory of "social confluence," Lubet provides a variety of encounters between disability and music to observe radical transformations of identity. Considering hand-injured and one-handed pianists; the impairments of jazz luminaries Django Reinhardt, Horace Parlan, and "Little" Jimmy Scott; and the "Blind Orchestra" of Cairo, he shows how the cultural world of classical music contrasts sharply with that of jazz and how musicality itself is regarded a disability in some religious contexts. Music, Disability, and Society also explains how language difference can become a disability for Asian students in American schools of music, limiting their education and careers.

Lubet offers pungent criticism of the biases in music education and the music profession, going so far as to say that culture disables some performers by adhering to rigid notions of what a musician must look like, how music must be played, who may play it, and what (if any) is the legitimate place of music in society. In Music, Disability, and Society, he convincingly argues that where music is concerned, disability is a matter of culture, not physical impairment.

About the Author:

Alex Lubet is Morse Alumni/Graduate and Professional Distinguished Teaching Professor of Music, at the University of Minnesota, with additional appointments in Jewish Studies and American Studies. He is co-editor (with Matthew Bribitzer-Stull and Gottfried Wagner) of Richard Wagner for the New Millennium: Essays in Music and Culture.

About this edition

• Publisher: Temple University Press
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 1439900256
• ISBN 13: 9781439900253
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 208