Music in Japan: Book & CD

Music in Japan: Experiencing Music, Expressing Culture is one of the case study volumes in the Global Music Series, edited by Bonnie C. Wade and Patricia Shehan Campbell. This volume provides a vivid introduction to the music of contemporary Japan, a nation in which traditional music, Western music, and popular music thrive side by side. This text points out the centrality of Western and Popular musical idioms in Japanese cultural life, exploring how music in Japan has been profoundly affected by the interface with other cultures. Additionally, the text discusses the intertextuality of Japanese music, exploring how familiar themes, musical sounds, and structures have been maintained and transformed across the various traditions of Japanese performing arts through time. The text features eyewitness accounts of performances, interviews with performers, and a 70-minute CD containing examples of music discussed in the text.