Customer Reviews

The Sounds of Music: Perception and Notation

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4 star:		(2)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book explain the theory behind many aspects of music ,focusing on the perceptual ,"sound" aspect, rather than presetning theory in a completely abstract way. It lacks only deeper explanations and references when it presents harmony and it's relation to frequencies.A little more mathematical treatment or just some references to those interested in going deeper in the subject would be good,even thoguh it's not the main goal of the book. The best part is that the "sound" section of the book wich is just marvellous, inciting insights in the very essence of music.The tritone subject had excellent coverag,and provided me a needed knowledge. It helped me a lot in understanding music and widening my perception. Almost every musician can make a good deed to himself reading this book.

The title of this book is a little daunting and, before I opened it, I was expecting an arid, technical work of interest only to serious students of music. This is not the case. The book addresses itself to anyone who wants to develop their understanding of this medium and assumes no prior knowledge. It begins with a laudably succinct chapter on world music which discusses musical traditions and variation. It then goes on to deal with musical concepts such as timbre, tone and pitch. Discussion of the various modes and structure of music follow, including introductions to melody, rhythm and meter. The narrative - which is fluent and engaging throughout - is linked to a CD full of examples to illustrate points made in the text. The book is remarkably user-friendly and, with its A4 format and margin notes, reminded me of the way the Open University present their course material. It took me just under a month to work my way through it but I'm glad I took the time. I can now pontificate with some authority about the technicalities of a medium I've always wanted to know more about (but was afraid to ask!). There's bound to be a market for this impressive achievement.

Reviewer: Paul MacDonald, New Hope International Review

In relation to theory, this is a good book; however,it needs a better diagrams that describe the theory ,plus is a good idea to put some practice diagrams so the person can practice at the same time with the book.

I can't imagine anyone trying to learn music from this weighty tome. I was ready to open a vein slogging through the confusion. One gets the sense that the author is trying very hard to show just how gol dang smart he is, and I suspect the glowing reviews are from his friends. This book is anything but reader friendly. Fine books on learning music abound-- sadly this isn't one of them.