Skip to Main Content

The Oxford Handbook of Community Singing

Online ISBN:
9780197612491
Print ISBN:
9780197612460
Publisher:
Oxford University Press
Book

The Oxford Handbook of Community Singing

Kay Norton (ed.),
Kay Norton
(ed.)
Musicology, Arizona State University
Find on

Kay Norton is Professor of Musicology at Arizona State University. She synthesizes musicology with research in the health sciences in Singing and Wellness: Ancient Wisdom, Modern Proof (Routledge, 2016) and “How Music-Inspired Weeping Can Heal” (Journal of Medical Humanities, 2011). Norton is a Clinical Professor of Medical Humanities in the Creighton University School of Medicine (Phoenix). She also publishes on American sacred music and is currently at work on a monograph about Black gospel pioneer Sallie Martin. She is a lifelong singer.

Esther M. Morgan-Ellis (ed.)
Esther M. Morgan-Ellis
(ed.)
Music History, University of North Georgia
Find on

Esther M. Morgan-Ellis is Associate Professor of Music History at the University of North Georgia, where she also directs the orchestra and coaches the old-time string band. She studies participatory music-making traditions of the past and present, employing both historical and ethnographic methodologies. She has published on the American community singing movement, mediated sing-alongs, Sacred Harp singing, old-time string band music, and music history pedagogy, and is also active as a cellist, fiddler and fiddle teacher, and singer.

Published online:
22 May 2024
Published in print:
24 May 2024
Online ISBN:
9780197612491
Print ISBN:
9780197612460
Publisher:
Oxford University Press

Abstract

The Oxford Handbook of Community Singing shows in abundant detail that singing with others is thriving. Using an array of interdisciplinary methods, the chapters prioritize participation rather than performance and provide finely grained accounts of group singing in community, music therapy, religious, and music education settings. Themes associated with protest, incarceration, nation, hymnody, group bonding, identity, and inclusivity infuse the 47 chapters. Written almost wholly during the 2020–2021 COVID-19 pandemic, the Handbook features a section dedicated to collective singing facilitated by audiovisual or communications media (mediated singing), some of it quarantine-mandated. The last of eight substantial sections is a repository of new theories about how group singing practices work. Throughout, the chapters problematize the limitations inherited from the western European choral music tradition and report on workable new remedies to counter those constraints.

Contents
Close
This Feature Is Available To Subscribers Only

Sign In or Create an Account

Close

This PDF is available to Subscribers Only

View Article Abstract & Purchase Options

For full access to this pdf, sign in to an existing account, or purchase an annual subscription.

Close