{"product_id":"work-songs-hardcover","title":"Work Songs - Hardcover","description":"\u003cdiv\u003e\u003cp style=\"text-align: right;\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/reportcopyrightinfringement.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"\u003e\u003cb\u003eReport copyright infringement\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cp\u003eby \u003cb\u003eTed Gioia\u003c\/b\u003e (Author)\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAll societies have relied on music to transform the experience of work. Song accompanied the farmer's labors, calmed the herder's flock, and set in motion the spinner's wheel. Today this tradition continues. Music blares on the shop floor; song accompanies transactions in the retail store; the radio keeps the trucker going on the long-distance haul.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eNow Ted Gioia, author of several acclaimed books on the history of jazz, tells the story of work songs from prehistoric times to the present. Vocation by vocation, Gioia focuses attention on the rhythms and melodies that have attended tasks such as the cultivation of crops, the raising and lowering of sails, the swinging of hammers, the felling of trees. In an engaging, conversational writing style, he synthesizes a breathtaking amount of material, not only from songbooks and recordings but also from travel literature, historical accounts, slave narratives, folklore, labor union writings, and more. He draws on all of these to describe how workers in societies around the world have used music to increase efficiency, measure time, relay commands, maintain focus, and alleviate drudgery.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAt the same time, Gioia emphasizes how work songs often soar beyond utilitarian functions. The heart-wringing laments of the prison chain gang, the sailor's shanties, the lumberjack's ballads, the field hollers and corn-shucking songs of the American South, the pearl-diving songs of the Persian Gulf, the rich \u003ci\u003embube\u003c\/i\u003e a cappella singing of South African miners: Who can listen to these and other songs borne of toil and hard labor without feeling their sweep and power? Ultimately, \u003ci\u003eWork Songs\u003c\/i\u003e, like its companion volume \u003ci\u003eHealing Songs\u003c\/i\u003e, is an impassioned tribute to the extraordinary capacity of music to enter into day-to-day lives, to address humanity's deepest concerns and most heartfelt needs.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eBack Jacket\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eTed Gioia enriches and makes real the powerful message that music is, and has always been, an integral part of the toolkit that ordinary humans have used to navigate life. He shows that, far from being a pastime to fill idle moments or a distraction from everyday preoccupations, music addresses fundamental issues of human existence, survival, and liberation. Gioia's work offers hope to those who fear that the corporate mass media may have suffocated the age-old impulse of ordinary people to make music their own.--John Sloboda, author of \"Exploring the Musical Mind\"\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eAuthor Biography\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eTed Gioia, pianist, composer, and one of the founders of Stanford University's Jazz Studies program, is the author of Healing Songs, also published by Duke University Press, as well as several celebrated books, including \u003ci\u003eWest Coast Jazz: Modern Jazz in California, 1945-1960\u003c\/i\u003e. His book \u003ci\u003eThe History of Jazz\u003c\/i\u003e was selected as one of the best books of the year by Jonathan Yardley in the \u003ci\u003eWashington Post\u003c\/i\u003e, chosen as a notable book of the year by the \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e, and honored with the Bay Area Book Reviewers' award for best nonfiction work of the year. His book \u003ci\u003eThe Imperfect Art \u003c\/i\u003ewon the ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award and was named a Jazz Book of the Century by the \u003ci\u003eJazz Educators Journal\u003c\/i\u003e. He has recorded several compact discs as a leader, including \u003ci\u003eThe End of the Open Road\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eTango Cool\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eNumber of Pages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 368\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eDimensions:\u003c\/strong\u003e 1.2 x 9.5 x 6.5 IN\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublication Date:\u003c\/strong\u003e April 13, 2006\u003c\/div\u003e\n            ","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":53100605571379,"sku":"9780822337263","price":47.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0300\/5595\/6612\/files\/NzBy57uYad9780822337263.webp?v=1772486349","url":"https:\/\/www.vysn.com\/en-ca\/products\/work-songs-hardcover","provider":"VYSN","version":"1.0","type":"link"}