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The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Brass Instruments. Ed. by Trevor Herbert, Arnold Myers, and John Wallace

Adler-McKean, Jack LU (2020) In Music and Letters p.757-760
Abstract
Creating a work today that claims to be encyclopedic is a daunting task. In the age of instant access to online resources and the pervasive reach of Wikipedia, what purpose can an old-fashioned encyclopedia seek to fulfil? In the case of The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Brass Instruments (part of an ongoing series of musical encyclopedias from CUP), the answer is evident after any casual conversation with the average musicologist, organologist, or composer: their general level of awareness, experience, and confidence with brass instruments will normally be significantly lower than with other instrumental families. Brass instrumentalists are, of course, not entirely blameless in this situation; in the predecessor to this work, the Cambridge... (More)
Creating a work today that claims to be encyclopedic is a daunting task. In the age of instant access to online resources and the pervasive reach of Wikipedia, what purpose can an old-fashioned encyclopedia seek to fulfil? In the case of The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Brass Instruments (part of an ongoing series of musical encyclopedias from CUP), the answer is evident after any casual conversation with the average musicologist, organologist, or composer: their general level of awareness, experience, and confidence with brass instruments will normally be significantly lower than with other instrumental families. Brass instrumentalists are, of course, not entirely blameless in this situation; in the predecessor to this work, the Cambridge Companion to Brass Instruments (Cambridge, 1997), Simon Wills refers to ‘inward looking societies’ of brass players that have created ‘ghettos of interest’ (p. 176). This new book is a powerful attempt to bridge this divide, a highly ambitious undertaking to cover the usage of brass instruments across the world from ancient times to the present day in one volume. That such a project even came to fruition is indeed impressive; however, much like its open-sourced competitor, the resulting publication has great responsibility thrust upon it. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
in
Music and Letters
pages
757 - 760
publisher
Oxford University Press
ISSN
0027-4224
DOI
10.1093/ml/gcz078
language
English
LU publication?
no
id
52033c4e-7927-46c5-8724-24ee809ed132
date added to LUP
2024-03-28 00:52:03
date last changed
2024-04-02 09:45:28
@misc{52033c4e-7927-46c5-8724-24ee809ed132,
  abstract     = {{Creating a work today that claims to be encyclopedic is a daunting task. In the age of instant access to online resources and the pervasive reach of Wikipedia, what purpose can an old-fashioned encyclopedia seek to fulfil? In the case of The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Brass Instruments (part of an ongoing series of musical encyclopedias from CUP), the answer is evident after any casual conversation with the average musicologist, organologist, or composer: their general level of awareness, experience, and confidence with brass instruments will normally be significantly lower than with other instrumental families. Brass instrumentalists are, of course, not entirely blameless in this situation; in the predecessor to this work, the Cambridge Companion to Brass Instruments (Cambridge, 1997), Simon Wills refers to ‘inward looking societies’ of brass players that have created ‘ghettos of interest’ (p. 176). This new book is a powerful attempt to bridge this divide, a highly ambitious undertaking to cover the usage of brass instruments across the world from ancient times to the present day in one volume. That such a project even came to fruition is indeed impressive; however, much like its open-sourced competitor, the resulting publication has great responsibility thrust upon it.}},
  author       = {{Adler-McKean, Jack}},
  issn         = {{0027-4224}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  month        = {{04}},
  note         = {{Review}},
  pages        = {{757--760}},
  publisher    = {{Oxford University Press}},
  series       = {{Music and Letters}},
  title        = {{The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Brass Instruments. Ed. by Trevor Herbert, Arnold Myers, and John Wallace}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/ml/gcz078}},
  doi          = {{10.1093/ml/gcz078}},
  year         = {{2020}},
}