Listening to Music History

Abstract: This essay argues that recordings have changed the ways that musicians construct music and the ways that listeners perceive it. Because of the ubiquity of recorded music, the assumptions that we make about “music history” are often at odds with the ways that we experience music’s history through recordings. Using the perspectives inspired by recordings and their distribution, this essay provides alternative methods for thinking about, organizing, or “listening to” music history.

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Latin America and the Decolonization of Classical Music

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Jenny Lind and the Making of Mainstream American Popular Music