Follow a multi-faceted journey by an improviser and a musicosopher, Eric Antoni, from the cobbled streets of Paris to the Far East. Musical Mosaic lays coherent excursus of the author’s thought-provoking collection of anecdotes. With the absence of lengthy verbiage of a political-social-economic nature, the book is full of compassionate truthful descriptions of persons and experiences and written with total objectivity, brevity, originality, and musical creativity as inspired by t...

Are you a musician? Here are the easiest ways to learn music by heart, explained systematically. Build a repertoire of memorized pieces that you can play any time!Written mainly for people who play the piano or other keyboard, these techniques can also be successfully employed by those who play other instruments.The subjects treated include (among others):Three basic types of music memorization"Finger memory" and all that is involved in itMemorizing ...

The perfect music gift from one of the most trusted names in continuing education. Learn how to better appreciate music in this guide that will unlock the knowledge you need to understand “the most abstract and sublime of all the arts.”Whether you're listening in a concert hall or on your iPod, concert music has the power to move you. The right knowledge can deepen the ability of this music to edify, enlighten, and stir the soul. In How to Listen to Great Music...

Extending the inquiry of his early groundbreaking books, Christopher Small strikes at the heart of traditional studies of Western music by asserting that music is not a thing, but rather an activity. In this new book, Small outlines a theory of what he terms "musicking," a verb that encompasses all musical activity from composing to performing to listening to a Walkman to singing in the shower.Using Gregory Bateson's philosophy of mind and a Geertzian thick description of a typical...

Over three decades, Paul Griffiths's survey has remained the definitive study of music since the Second World War; this fully revised and updated edition re-establishes Modern Music and After as the preeminent introduction to the music of our time. The disruptions of the war, and the struggles of the ensuing peace, were reflected in the music of the time: in Pierre Boulez's radical reformation of compositional technique and in John Cage's development of zen music; in Milton Babbit...

A fresh guide to classical music from the acclaimed creator of NPR's "What Makes It Great"™Rob Kapilow has been helping audiences hear more in great music for two decades with his What Makes It Great? series on NPR's Performance Today, at Lincoln Center, and in concert halls throughout the US and Canada. In this book, he focuses on short masterpieces by major composers to help you understand the essence of each composer's genius and how each piece...

In these writings, available here in English for the first time, the distinguished Japanese composer Toru Takemitsu reflects on his contemporaries, including John Cage, Olivier Messiaen, and Merce Cunningham; on nature, which has profoundly influenced his composition; on film and painting; on relationships between East and West; on traditional Japanese music; and on his own compositions.

First published in French in 1998, revised in 2010, and appearing here in English for the first time, Michel Chion's Sound addresses the philosophical, interpretive, and practical questions that inform our encounters with sound. Chion considers how cultural institutions privilege some sounds above others and how spurious distinctions between noise and sound guide the ways we hear and value certain sounds. He critiques the tenacious tendency to understand sounds in relation to thei...

In the latest of his books exploring a lifetime's passion for music, bestselling author and philosopher Roger Scruton brings his immense critical faculties to bear on a panoply of different musical genres, both contemporary and classical.Music as an Art begins by examining music through a philosophical lens, engaging in discussions about tonality, music and the moral life, music and cognitive science and German idealism, as well as recalling the author's s...

During the years of instruction he received from master George Enescu, Serge Blanc collected and marked technical and interpretive indications for what Enescu called "The Himalayas of violinists" : the Sonatas & Partitas for solo violin by Johann Sebastian Bach.This exceptional document brings together these notes which regard sonority, phrasing, tempo, fingering, and expression, the culmination of the life’s work of a master considered as one of the greatest interpreters of this w...

Opera's Second Death is a passionate exploration of opera - the genre, its masterpieces, and the nature of death. Using a dazzling array of tools, Slavoj Zizek and coauthor Mladen Dolar explore the strange compulsions that overpower characters in Mozart and Wagner, as well as our own desires to die and to go to the opera.

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 compo...