Aaron Copland What to Listen for in Music Mass Market Paperback

This listing is for Aaron Copland What to Listen for in Music Mass Market Paperback.  

Publisher: Signet Classics (1999)

Language: English

Mass Market Paperback: 266 pages

ISBN-10: 0451628802

ISBN-13: 978-0451628800

Featuring an introduction by William Schuman, as well as a foreword and epilogue by Alan Rich, an indispensable guide from one of America's foremost composers teaches readers how to develop a deeper sense of musical appreciation and contains chapters on contemporary music and film music, recommended recordings for each chapter, and more.

This is a TERRIFIC book about music for music laypeople -- those of us who love music but don't know much about it, who want to learn more in order to enjoy it more. There is lots and lots written about music history, what composer wrote when and who influenced whom. But there isn't that much that I have found about the music itself which really helps me understand what is going on in a particular piece. Copland does this, by taking the reader through the building blocks of music. He starts with what he calls the four elements: rhythm, melody, harmony and tone color, Then he proceeds to musical texture, to musical structure, and then to five fundamental forms: sectional, variational, fugal, sonata, and free. After this, he concludes with brief surveys of opera, film music, and what was then contemporary serious music. Each chapter is followed with a list of suggested pieces of music to listen to. The book's advanced age has remarkably little impact on its usefulness, except for the fact that the "listening lists" refer to old recordings. The book first appeared in 1939 and was revised in 1957; the Signet edition that I read has a short chapter on music since Copland. Copland was a teacher of music as well as a composer, and it shows -- I would love to take a class for which this was the text. This book does, however, demand lots of effort, and lots of listening, at least for us "I don't know much about music, but I know what I like" types. What Copland wants the listener to do is go beyond pure sensuous enjoyment and use his or her brain to follow the music as it unfolds -- to listen, not just hear. Doing this requires listening again and again to pieces he discusses. Like some other reviewers, I wish very much that some kind person would put out a CD (or set up a website) with the specific passages Copland cites, as well as his broader listening list. Even without this, however, I have learned a great deal from this book. I expect to learn more, since I will be reading again and again as I listen. I doubt that the book would be nearly so useful to people who already know a lot about how music works, but for the groundlings, Copland's book is masterful

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