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  2. In Concert: Performing Musical Persona

In Concert: Performing Musical Persona

Philip Auslander 2021
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The conventional way of understanding what musicians do as performers is to treat them as producers of sound; some even argue that it is unnecessary to see musicians in performance as long as one can hear them.  But musical performance, counters Philip Auslander, is also a social interaction between musicians and their audiences, appealing as much to the eye as to the ear. In Concert: Performing Musical Persona he addresses not only the visual means by which musicians engage their audiences through costume and physical gesture, but also spectacular aspects of performance such as light shows.

Although musicians do not usually enact fictional characters on stage, they nevertheless present themselves to audiences in ways specific to the performance situation.  Auslander's term to denote the musician's presence before the audience is musical persona.  While presence of a musical persona may be most obvious within rock and pop music, the book's analysis extends to classical music, jazz, blues, country, electronic music, laptop performance, and music made with experimental digital interfaces. The eclectic group of performers discussed include the Beatles, Miles Davis, Keith Urban, Lady Gaga, Nicki Minaj, Frank Zappa, B. B. King, Jefferson Airplane, Virgil Fox, Keith Jarrett, Glenn Gould, and Laurie Anderson.

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ISBN(s)
  • 978-0-472-05471-8 (paper)
  • 978-0-472-07471-6 (hardcover)
  • 978-0-472-12839-6 (ebook)
Subject
  • Theater and Performance
  • American Studies
  • Music
  • Media Studies
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  • Table of Contents

  • Resources

  • Stats

  • Cover
  • Title Page
  • Copyright Page
  • Dedication
  • Contents
  • Introduction: Genre, Frame, Persona
  • Part I: Preliminaries
    • Chapter One. Performance Analysis and Popular Music
    • Chapter Two. Music as Performance
    • Chapter Three. Sound and Vision
    • Chapter Four. Lucille Meets GuitarBot
  • Part II: The Interactionist Turn
    • Chapter Five. Musical Personae
    • Chapter Six. Everybody’s in Showbiz
    • Chapter Seven. Jazz Improvisation as a Social Arrangement
  • Part III: Contexts of Performance
    • Chapter Eight. Beatlemania
    • Chapter Nine. Good Old Rock and Roll
    • Chapter Ten. Barbie in a Meat Dress
  • Acknowledgments
  • Notes
  • Bibliography
  • Index

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Figure 14. Miles Davis looks off to his right as if distracted while playing the composed section of the piece, suggesting that doing so requires little concentration.

Miles Davis performs "So What" on CBS TV's The Sound of Miles Davis in 1959

From Chapter 7

Figure 14. When playing the theme of “So What,” Miles Davis looks off to the right as if to suggest that doing so requires little effort or concentration. Still from The Sound of Miles Davis, CBS Television, April 1959.

Figure 15. Miles Davis, seen in close up, plays the trumpet with his eyes wide open and fixed on a point in infinity to show that he is focused on improvising his solo.

Miles Davis performs "So What" on CBS TV's The Sound of Miles Davis in 1959 - 2

From Chapter 7

Figure 15. When improvising, Davis looks off into infinity, suggesting deep concentration on his solo. Still from The Sound of Miles Davis, CBS Television, April 1959.

Figure 16. An image of the entire Miles Davis ensemble annotated to show different regions of the performance space: the “Batter’s Box,” where the current soloist stands; the “On Deck Circle,” where the next soloist waits; and the “Dugout,” where musicians who are not currently playing stand and observe.

Different areas of the stage in Miles Davis's performance of "So What"

From Chapter 7

Figure 16. The different areas of the stage. the “dugout,” the “offstage” area where musicians withdraw from playing; the “on-deck circle,” where they stand while waiting to take a solo; and the “batter’s box,” where the soloist is positioned. Annotated still from The Sound of Miles Davis, CBS Television, April 1959.

Figure 17. Saxophonist John Coltrane, seen behind Miles Davis, listens intently to Davis’s improvised solo with his eyes closed.

John Coltrane listens to Miles Davis's solo during "So What" on The Sound of Miles Davis, CBS TV, 1959

From Chapter 7

Figure 17. John Coltrane concentrates on Miles Davis’s improvised solo. Still from The Sound of Miles Davis, CBS Television, April 1959.

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