We are thrilled to announced the release of a new book by UBC Assistant Professor, Music Theory Anabel Maler. Seeing Voices: Analyzing Sign Language Music published by Oxford University Press, looks at music creation and understanding by the Deaf community and what this can teach us about how humans engage with music.
From Oxford University Press: We often think of music in terms of sounds intentionally organized into patterns, but music performed in signed languages poses considerable challenges to this sound-based definition. Performances of sign language music are defined culturally as music, but they do not necessarily make sound their only–or even primary–mode of transmission. How can we analyze and understand sign language music? And what can sign language music tell us about how humans engage with music more broadly?
“Maler’s groundbreaking analysis redefines music by challenging modality chauvinism and reframing music as movement through a study of deaf musicking. In presenting provocative questions about the essence of music, she demonstrates how deaf perspectives enrich our understanding of human expression. Seeing Voices is an essential contribution to music theory, history, applied linguistics, and Deaf Studies.” –Octavian Robinson, author of Crip Linguistics Manifesto
“This book will make you think deeply about questions you thought you already knew the answer to. What is music? Against the traditional understanding of music as organized sound, Maler’s magisterial study of sign language music shows that music is better understood as organized movement. That permits her to offer compelling analyses of music produced within the deaf community, using American Sign Language, to create undeniably musical melody, rhythm, meter, form, and meaning. Along the way, she elucidates and validates deaf ways of knowing music and creating distinctive and engaging visual and tactile forms of music-making.” –Joseph Straus, author of Broken Beauty: Musical Modernism and The Representation of Disability
Use promotional code AUFLY30 to save 30% off at Oxford University Press link below.
