Music and Baseball Talks at Cooperstown

Abstract

Abstract This chapter summarizes seven public music theory presentations at the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. Topics include Charles Ives’s sketches and completed music about baseball and ballplayers, the popular song “Take Me Out to the Ball Game,” a seminar on historical and contemporary baseball music, Casey at the Bat for band and narrator, major league walk-up and entrance music, and branding ball clubs through music. The chapter describes ways to draw musical meaning from music analysis as a fulfilling way for music theorists to connect their work with public audiences through engagement with music from specific social and cultural contexts. These approaches involve both concert music and contemporary popular music and include music that illustrates or celebrates baseball situations as well as music heard at ballparks.