


Dāphā, or dāphā bhajan, is a genre of Hindu-Buddhist devotional singing, performed by male, non-professional musicians of the farmer and other castes belonging to the Newar ethnic group, in the towns and villages of the Kathmandu Valley, Nepal. The songs, their texts, and their characteristic responsorial performance-style represent an extension of pan-South Asian traditions of rāga- and tāla-based devotional song, but at the same time embody distinctive characteristics of Newar culture. This culture is of unique importance as an urban South Asian society in which many traditional models survive into the modern age. There are few book-length studies of non-classical vocal music in South Asia, and none of dāphā. Richard Widdess describes the music and musical practices of dāphā, accounts for their historical origins and later transformations, investigates links with other South Asian traditions, and describes a cultural world in which music is an integral part of everyday social and religious life. The book focusses particularly on the musical system and structures of dāphā, but aims to integrate their analysis with that of the cultural and historical context of the...


Greek Rebetiko from a Psychocultural Perspective: Same Songs Changing Minds examines the ways in which audiences in present-day Greece and Turkey perceive and use the Greek popular song genre rebetiko to cultivate specific cultural habits and identities. In the past, rebetiko has been associated chiefly with the lower strata of Greek society. But Daniel Koglin approaches the subject from a different perspective, exploring the mythological and ritual aspects of rebetiko, which intellectual elites on both sides of the Aegean Sea have adapted to their own world views in our age of globalized consumption. Combining qualitative and quantitative methods from ethnomusicology, ritual studies, conceptual history and music psychology, Koglin casts light on the role played by national perceptions in the processes of music production and consumption. His analysis reveals that rebetiko persistently oscillates between conceptual categories: it is a music both ours and theirs, marginal and mainstream, joyful and grievous, sacred and profane. The study culminates in the thesis that this semantic multistability is not only a key concept to understanding the ongoing popularity of rebetiko in...

Dr. Juan Carlos Ortiz narrates the story of how he went from the jungles to the cathedrals. Through the pages of this book, he leads the reader on his journey from his humble beginnings with an alcoholic father, to when Jesus, in the form of two missionaries, transformed his life. In spite of his mother’s resistance to waste any time on “nonsense”, their persistence to share the good news of the gospel paid off. They spoke the words her broken heart longed to hear. Jesus became their provider, their comforter, their joy. Although his mother couldn’t meet all their needs through her work, supernaturally they always had enough. The impossibility of him and his siblings to attend school was suddenly a possibility. As a young man, Dr. Ortiz feels the need to serve the One who changed their lives. He enters into the seminary beginning his journey into the ministry. Along the way he is influenced by great international leaders like Tommy Hicks, who leave a lasting impression on his life. Soon after, he becomes pastor of the Crystal Cathedral in California, one of the most important churches in the United States.




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