Understanding Music

With Understanding Music and The Aesthetics of Music (1997) Roger Scruton set a new standard of rigour and seriousness in the philosophy of music. This collection of wide-ranging essays covers all aspects of the theory and practice of music, showing the significance of music as an expression of the moral life. The book is split into two parts, the first is devoted to the aesthetics and theory of music and the second consists of critical studies of individual composers, thinkers and works including essays on Mozart, Wagner, Beethoven's Ninth, Janácek & Schoenberg, Szymanowski and Adorno. Understanding Music will appeal to specialists in philosophy and musicology and also to music lovers who wish to find deeper meaning in this mysterious art. The Bloomsbury Revelations edition includes a new preface from the author.

Music moves through time; it is not static. In order to appreciate music wemust remember what sounds happened, and anticipate what sounds might comenext. This book takes you on a journey of music from past to present, from the Middle Ages to the Baroque Period to the 20th century and beyond!

"Jeremy Yudkin's" book is a rich music appreciation program that supports the ultimate goal of teaching active listening. By focusing on music of the Western tradition in its social, historical, and global context, this book engages readers in an active listening experience of music through a lively narrative text and innovative activities. Topic coverage includes music around the world, the fundamentals of music, the art of listening, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the Baroque Era, the Classic Era, Beethoven, the Nineteenth Century, and the Twentieth Century. For those interested in developing active listening skills and a deeper appreciation for music.

Describes history and types of music, as well as musical instruments and beginning music theory.

This anthology provides an informative and timely introduction to ongoing research on music as a cognitive process, bringing a new coherence to the emerging science of musical activity. Following the foreword, which is based on a conversation with Marvin Minsky, 26 contributions explore musical composition, analysis, performance, perception, and learning and tutoring. Their goal is to discover how these activities can be interpreted, understood, modeled, and supported through the use of computer programs. Each chapter is put into perspective by the editors, and empirical investigations are framed by a discussion of the nature of cognitive musicology and of epistemological problems of modeling musical action. The contributions, drawn from two international workshops on AI and Music held in 1988 and 1989, are grouped in seven sections. Topics in these sections take up two views of the nature of cognitive musicology (Kugel, Laske), principles of modeling musical activity (Balaban, Bel, Blevis, Glasgow and Jenkins, Courtot, Smoliar), approaches to music composition (Ames and Domino, Laske, Marsella, Riecken), music analysis by synthesis (Cope, Ebcioglu, Maxwell), realtime performance of music (Bel and Kippen, Ohteru and Hashimoto), music perception (Desain and Honing, Jones, Miller and Scarborough, Linster), and learning/tutoring (Baker, Widmer).

Gateways to Understanding Music explores music in all the categories that constitute contemporary musical experience: European classical music, popular music, jazz, and world music. Covering the oldest forms of human music making to the newest, the chronological narrative considers music from a global rather than a Eurocentric perspective. Each of sixty modular "gateways" covers a particular genre, style, or period of music. Every gateway opens with a guided listening example that unlocks a world of music through careful study of its structural elements. Based on their listening experience, students are asked to consider how the piece came to be composed or performed, how the piece or performance responded to the social and cultural issues at the time and place of its creation, and what that music means today. Students learn to listen to, explain, understand, and ultimately value all the music they may encounter in their world. FEATURES Global scope—Presents all music as worthy of study, including classical, world, popular, and jazz. Historical narrative—Begins with small-scale forager societies up to the present, with a shifting focus from global to European to American influences. Modular framework—60 gateways in 14 chapters allow flexibility to organize chronologically or by the seven recurring themes: aesthetics, emotion, social life, links to culture, politics, economics, and technology. Listening-guided learning—Leads to understanding the emotion, meaning, significance, and history of music. Introduction of musical concepts—Defined as needed and compiled into a Glossary for reference. Consistent structure—With the same step-by-step format, students learn through repeated practice how to listen and how to think about music. In addition to streamed audio examples, the companion website hosts essential instructors’ resources.

Includes audio compact disc (cd).

In an age when our patterns of music consumption are changing rapidly, musical understanding has never been more relevant. Understanding Music provides readers with an ideal entry point to the topic, addressing 'both the music lover who has made listening to music an important part of his life and at the same time is willing to reflect on music and his encounter with it, as well as the more academically-minded enthusiast and the thoughtful expert.' Its author, Hans Heinrich Eggebrecht, was one of the most influential German musicologists of the twentieth century and yet he is almost unknown to English readers. His published work stretches from one end of the musicological spectrum to the other, with research on historical topics in early music, Bach, Beethoven reception, Mahler and music aesthetics all featuring. Understanding Music summarizes Eggebrecht's thoughts on the relationship between music and cognition. As he says in his preface, the purpose of his book is 'to direct the reader towards the fundamental issues and processes implied in understanding music. What does understanding mean when applied to music? How is the process to be described? What different kinds of understanding are to be distinguished here? What other concepts are implicit in and related to the concept of understanding? How is the relationship between music and the listener who understands it to be articulated? What might correct understanding of music mean given music's multiplicity of meaning and effect? Where are the limits of understanding and what lies beyond? What role do language and history play?'. Eggebrecht's answers to these and other questions amount to a compelling account of how the mind grasps the sounds of music in themselves and what other factors contribute to music's meaning so much to us as listeners.