People around the world and throughout history have used music to
express their inner emotions, reach out to the divine, woo lovers,
celebrate weddings, inspire political movements, and lull babies to
sleep. In Music as Social Life, Thomas Turino explores why it is that
music and dance are so often at the center of our most profound personal
and social experiences.
Turino begins by developing tools to think about the special properties
of music and dance that make them fundamental resources for connecting
with our own lives, our communities, and the environment. These concepts
are then put into practice as he analyzes various musical examples among
indigenous Peruvians, rural and urban Zimbabweans, and American old-time
musicians and dancers. To examine the divergent ways that music can fuel
social and political movements, Turino looks at its use by the Nazi
Party and by the American civil rights movement. Wide-ranging,
accessible to anyone with an interest in music's role in society, and
accompanied by a compact disc, Music as Social Life is an illuminating
initiation into the power of music.