Index

Performance Practice

 

Week 6: Crooners and Swing Bands

  1. Essay titles

  2. In what ways did the performance methods of 1950s swing-band musicians differ from those of mainstream classical musicians? Consider such matters as rhythm, instruments and instrumentation, tone colour, balance (including amplification), and the relevant socio-economic conditions.

  3. Discuss the performing techniques of Bing Crosby. In what ways were they geared to advances in media technologies?

  4. Reading

  5. George T. Simon, The Big Bands, 4th edn (London: Collier Macmillan, 1981) (library)

  6. Mark White, The Observer’s Book of Big Bands (London: F. Warne, 1978) (library)

  7. Ted Heath, Listen to My Music (London: F. Muller, 1958) (library)

  8. Henry Pleasants, The Great American Popular Singers (London: Gollancz, 1974) (library) (web)

  9. Michael R. Pitts, Frank W. Hoffmann, Dick Carty, Jim Bedoian and Ian Whitcomb, The Rise of the Crooners (Lanham MD: Scarecrow Press, 2002) (web)

  10. Ruth Prigozy and Walter Raubicheck (eds), Going My Way: Bing Crosby and American Culture (Rochester NY: Boydell & Brewer, 2007) (library)

  11. Bing Crosby, Call me Lucky (London: F. Muller, 1953) (library)