Customer Reviews

Music: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions)

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This Very Short Introduction is notable as much for what it isn't as for what it is: it is not an introduction to any repertoire, Western classical or otherwise; it will not tell you about scales, chords, instruments, or sonata forms; it is not a buyer's guide or a "rough guide to..."; it is not a music appreciation textbook along the lines of (say) Copeland's "What to Listen for in Music." And this is a very good thing. Instead Cook presents a thought- and self-examination-provoking discussion of music as part of culture, daily life, and human experience. This extremely readable book is a valuable introduction to these issues that reach beyond the more familiar territories of the program note, album review, or newspaper diatribe about the corrupting influence of popular music.

As a musician (and the book may cause you to rethink what that word actually means), this book revealed many ideas which had been festering in my subconscious without my ever really taking the time to think them through fully. This is not so much a history or introduction to music as it is a presentation of both recent thought in musicology and a framework in which to conceive and comprehend music as a human process in general and its relation to all of culture. Naturally the last several pages focus on particular "gender-related" issues because that is the recent thought in musicology, but the book does a good job of not presenting this recent view as definitive and of placing this view within a large historical context of thinking about music. The entire book is sharp, well-written, and articulate. It touches on the must fundamental questions of musical meaning in all its forms, yet it requires virtually no formal knowledge of music or an acquaintance with any particular body of music, classic, popular, or otherwise. Of course, the author assumes a general knowledge (you have heard of Beethoven, the Beatles, and so on...) and of course the more you know of music, the more you will take away from the book, but nothing in particular is assumed. The author does a good job of explaining the working myths most people have about music, without technical jargon. For instance, what does it really mean to say, "I just heard 'Beethoven's 9th?'"? Is Beethoven's 9th the sound waves I heard, (whether live or recorded), or is it the body of all past performances of the symphony, or is it the jumble of symbols and notation which Beethoven wrote down 200 years ago? Why does popular music often lack such a specific reference to "musical works" such as "Beethoven's 9th"? Why is popular music freer to deviate from notation, as opposed to classical music, which always insists on "adherence to the composer's original score"? Why is "authorship" and "authenticity" valued in both classical and popular music, although in different ways? Does music exist independently of humans and express eternal truths and beauties, or is music inextricably bound up with culture, commerce, society, and the world? How are the three commonly used categories of "composition, performance, and criticism" related, and are the boundaries between them really so clear? How do notation and symbolism affect the way music is constructed and experienced? How do we give meaning to music? Why is it that the "purest" of "pure music", is often surrounded by the most commentary, criticism, and words, those things whose very absense are said to give it its very "purity"? Why does music matter to us? Why do we care? If these questions sound interesting to you, you will like this book.

This book is not what you think it is. It does not cover the rudiments of music or the history of Western music (or any other music). It is not about composers or any specific musical works. It is, instead, a look at the concept of music in Western society. It attempts to show that the standard idea of "serious" Western music is based on "ideology" and a certain amount of mythology. Cook argues against the general notion that composers (as typified by Beethoven) represent the height of musical expression and that performers are the next level down with listeners at the bottom of the artistic pecking order. There is a certain amount of fashionable academic blather and deconstructionism present here, but, overall, the book is thought provoking and well worth reading.

If you've wondered what Beethoven has to do with the Beatles or Bach with Bali then this little dandy is the book for you. Given the title of the Oxford series a Very Short Review would be "Get this book!".Written beautifully by a British musicologist it explains not some music but all music. More important it opens the windows so we can hear the beat for the first time. Even when we thought we never could, would or want to. Get this book.

Whatever the merits of the book itself, it is certainly not an introduction to music. It is an introduction to musicology. To be more precise, it's an introduction to how musicologists now question a lot of what musicologists used to take for granted. So it is not even a book about music. It is a book about competing models for understanding music.

Once I actually understood what the book was about, I found that it was a very smart introduction to seven topics. Through most of it, Cook is a neutral narrator. In the last paragraph, he lets us have his controlling thesis: "Music has unique powers as an agent of ideology." Or should that be "Music professors have unique powers as agents of ideology."

Music is often considered the least representational and the most abstract art form. Despite of (or perhaps because of) that, it is still the most widely appreciated and enjoyed of all the arts, and the music industry has remained one of the most robust branches of the pop culture economy. Nonetheless, it is often hard to describe what it is about music that we like, or to verbally share our own appreciation with others. Understanding music can be a very worthwhile effort, and can endow listeners with deeper and more refined appreciation of music. Music schools continue to cater to healthy numbers of music majors, and music appreciation courses are a staple of many undergraduate liberal arts curricula. Even if you are no longer in college, investing a bit of your time into learning about music at a much deeper level could potentially be a very worthwhile effort, and this very short introduction aims to bring the better understanding of music to the wide general audience. Unfortunately, this book falls way short of that intended aim.

This book is primarily a critique of various approaches to the understanding and thinking about music, and it presupposes at least a general familiarity on the part of the reader with the schools of thought and the general pedagogical methods that have over centuries been applied to the study of music and music education. Musicians, composers, musical styles and almost any other topic that one would expect to find in an introductory book on music are treated only in passing at best. The author is much more interested in "problematizing" our understanding of music then actually imparting any sort of concrete information. The book feels like its primary audience would be graduate students in a seminar in one cultural studies department or another. While reading this book I was seriously concerned that my appreciation of music would actually be diminished. Fortunately, all it took to assuage that fear was listening to my favorite tunes for a few minutes. Even though it is rather well written and provides the reader with some interesting insights, this book fails as an introductory book on music.

Music is endless. That Oxford University Press thought it could make even the smallest progress towards explaining it in their series A Very Short Introduction initially seems ridiculous. But instead of trying to describe the entire history of human expression through sound, Nicholas Cook's little book focuses on identifying and challenging the preconceptions that Western readers might ascribe to the term "music".

What preconceptions, for example? The distinction between musicians and non-musicians is a product of Western culture; in other cultures, all members of a community may participate. The phenomenon of classical music where a core repertoire is venerated like objects in a museum arose in the 19th century. That music must spring from the heart, must be "authentic" arose with the 20th-century ascendency of popular music.

The last 50 pages are a description of the field of musicology, especially the shakeups of the 1980s that led musicologists to believe any writing on music is inextricably biased. The music and gender debate (e.g. McClary's claim that Beethoven's Ninth expresses the desires of a rapist) closes the book.

Well, Cook's point that there is more to music than a typical English-language reader might think is all well and good, but I wish he had gone on to say something about the possibilities of music outside our preconceptions. At least a mention of non-Western scales that might sound dissonant and grating to us but smooth and pleasant within their native culture, or the frequent link between music and tribal ritual. There are some factual errors (like saying that György Ligeti was born in Hungary) and distortions like the myth of serial tyranny after World War II.

Readers with an wide interest in music probably won't find much here. The key point is made just a few pages in and from there it's simply repeated.

It is indicative of the state of play in education when a Cambridge Professor is writing tripe like this. It is an opinion piece, not an Introduction, and as an opinion piece it disparages any values: we are not to suppose there is such a thing as genius, or great art, or "high" and "low". There is a smug self-satisfied tone running through this book as well as a cold insolence that "knows best" because music is really a species of political judgement (didn't you know that?). At the same time, not even ironically, but stupidly, the author takes consumerism uncritically, as a given, and the book is written from a consumerist point of view as if this is a state of nature. Instead of thoughtful insights into music based on aesthetic experience, we have the protocols of "political correctness" in action. The fact is that music - particularly great music - has nothing to do with political correctness and who is "privileging" who, and what is being "privileged" by saying something this way or that. It would be foolish to Introduce yourself or anyone else to music with this book.

Another book which i ordered as a text for my music degree and found to be a fascinating read. He sure packs a lot into a small parcel!

This book provided with a very useful insight into the world of music. When I read it I was relatively new to the subject of music and this explained the concepts of it simply and easily so that even I could understand it. A brilliant book to get you started in the world of music!