David Metzer
Biographic Data
| ID | 1602960 |
|---|---|
| NAME | David Metzer |
| GIVEN NAMES | David |
| FAMILY NAME | Metzer |
| SIGNATURE | METZER D |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of British Columbia |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 10 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 5 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 10 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1992 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
My Daddy Rocks Me
Frankie “Half Pint” Jaxon was a Black, queer musician active from the 1910s through the 1930s. His work is characterized by captivating transformations of both musical elements and the gender and sexual dimensions of songs. A discussion of his recording of “My Daddy Rocks Me” reveals Jaxon not only reimagining the song but also raising the voice of the sissy character in the blues and presenting queer desire as rapturous and transgressive. While …
Prisoners’ Voices
Frederic Rzewski composed Coming Together and Attica in response to the 1971 uprising at the Attica Correctional Facility. The texts for the works draw upon testimonies of two men who participated in the riot: Samuel Melville and Richard X. Clark, respectively. Rzewski condemns the government crackdown on the uprising through representations of both prisoners and prison. In these and other works, the prisoner is a figure of suffering. Both Melvil…
The Ballad in American Popular Music
While ballads have been a cornerstone of popular music for decades, this is the first book to explore the history and appeal of these treasured songs. David Metzer investigates how and why the styles of ballads have changed over a period of more than seventy years, offering a definition of the genre and discussing the influences of celebrated performers including Frank Sinatra, Aretha Franklin, and Whitney Houston. The emotional power of the ball…
Ballad in American Popular Music
Kolb, Barbara
The power ballad
The power ballad has become a mainstay of popular music since the 1970s. This article offers a history of the songs and discusses their place in the larger field of popular music genres. The songs are defined by the use of both a musical formula based on constant escalation and an expressive formula that combines the euphoric uplift created by rousing music with sentimental themes and ploys. Contrary to views that power ballads first appeared in …
Musical Decay
Restoration and reproduction have served as two of the primary means by which the present has approached the past. These practices are the focus of Luciano Berio's Rendering and John Cage's Europera 5 , two recent works that draw upon earlier compositions. In Rendering , Berio ‘restores ’ the drafts for what would have been Schubert's Tenth Symphony. Contrary to conventional restorations, Berio not only builds up the sketch materials but also fra…
The League of Composers
Modernism often appears as a movement of individual iconoclasts: the visionary Pablo Picasso, the aloof Gertrude Stein, the isolated Charles Ives, among others. Often overlooked are the various groups that supported modernist styles during the early decades of the century. Collective organization especially shaped the production of new music, as many composers realized the necessity of solidarity in confronting the increased marginalization of th…
Shadow Play
On the Seventh Day, God created the spiritual. The Garden of Eden: a lawn outside an antebellum Southern white church, where a group of slaves has secretly gathered to hear a Sunday morning church service. Huddled there, they passed the Word of God around in whispers.... Noiselessly ... they'd inch a bit closer.... When the great white voice inside rang out in Triumph ... the blacks outside would grunt subdued approval. When the whites inside lif…
American Experimental Music, 1890-1940
Introduction: the new and the experimental 2. In Re Con Moto Et Al: experimentalism in the works of Charles Ives 3. 'On Dissonant Counterpoint': the development of a new polyphony, primarily by Charles Seeger, Carl Ruggles and Ruth Crawford 4. New Musical resources: radical innovation in the music of Henry Cowell 5. 'The Future of Music: Credo': the development of a philosophy of experimentation in the early works of John Cage 6. Conclusion: unit…
The power ballad
The power ballad has become a mainstay of popular music since the 1970s. This article offers a history of the songs and discusses their place in the larger field of popular music genres. The songs are defined by the use of both a musical formula based on constant escalation and an expressive formula that combines the euphoric uplift created by rousing music with sentimental themes and ploys. Contrary to views that power ballads first appeared in …
American Experimental Music, 1890-1940
Introduction: the new and the experimental 2. In Re Con Moto Et Al: experimentalism in the works of Charles Ives 3. 'On Dissonant Counterpoint': the development of a new polyphony, primarily by Charles Seeger, Carl Ruggles and Ruth Crawford 4. New Musical resources: radical innovation in the music of Henry Cowell 5. 'The Future of Music: Credo': the development of a philosophy of experimentation in the early works of John Cage 6. Conclusion: unit…
The League of Composers
Modernism often appears as a movement of individual iconoclasts: the visionary Pablo Picasso, the aloof Gertrude Stein, the isolated Charles Ives, among others. Often overlooked are the various groups that supported modernist styles during the early decades of the century. Collective organization especially shaped the production of new music, as many composers realized the necessity of solidarity in confronting the increased marginalization of th…
Shadow Play
On the Seventh Day, God created the spiritual. The Garden of Eden: a lawn outside an antebellum Southern white church, where a group of slaves has secretly gathered to hear a Sunday morning church service. Huddled there, they passed the Word of God around in whispers.... Noiselessly ... they'd inch a bit closer.... When the great white voice inside rang out in Triumph ... the blacks outside would grunt subdued approval. When the whites inside lif…
Musical Decay
Restoration and reproduction have served as two of the primary means by which the present has approached the past. These practices are the focus of Luciano Berio's Rendering and John Cage's Europera 5 , two recent works that draw upon earlier compositions. In Rendering , Berio ‘restores ’ the drafts for what would have been Schubert's Tenth Symphony. Contrary to conventional restorations, Berio not only builds up the sketch materials but also fra…
The power ballad
The power ballad has become a mainstay of popular music since the 1970s. This article offers a history of the songs and discusses their place in the larger field of popular music genres. The songs are defined by the use of both a musical formula based on constant escalation and an expressive formula that combines the euphoric uplift created by rousing music with sentimental themes and ploys. Contrary to views that power ballads first appeared in …
Kolb, Barbara
The Ballad in American Popular Music
While ballads have been a cornerstone of popular music for decades, this is the first book to explore the history and appeal of these treasured songs. David Metzer investigates how and why the styles of ballads have changed over a period of more than seventy years, offering a definition of the genre and discussing the influences of celebrated performers including Frank Sinatra, Aretha Franklin, and Whitney Houston. The emotional power of the ball…
Ballad in American Popular Music
Prisoners’ Voices
Frederic Rzewski composed Coming Together and Attica in response to the 1971 uprising at the Attica Correctional Facility. The texts for the works draw upon testimonies of two men who participated in the riot: Samuel Melville and Richard X. Clark, respectively. Rzewski condemns the government crackdown on the uprising through representations of both prisoners and prison. In these and other works, the prisoner is a figure of suffering. Both Melvil…
My Daddy Rocks Me
Frankie “Half Pint” Jaxon was a Black, queer musician active from the 1910s through the 1930s. His work is characterized by captivating transformations of both musical elements and the gender and sexual dimensions of songs. A discussion of his recording of “My Daddy Rocks Me” reveals Jaxon not only reimagining the song but also raising the voice of the sissy character in the blues and presenting queer desire as rapturous and transgressive. While …
Art (7 works) · Music History and Culture (6 works) · Musical (6 works) · Literature (5 works) · Aesthetics (4 works) · History (4 works) · Art history (3 works) · Law (3 works) · Musicology and Musical Analysis (3 works) · Philosophy (3 works)