[Smt-talk] whether to laugh or cry?

[Horlacher, Gretchen G.]

I recall the Talking Heads movie was called "Stop Making Sense."  Just a thought.

Gretchen

Gretchen Horlacher
Associate Prof. of Music Theory
Jacobs School of Music
Indiana University
________________________________
From: smt-talk-bounces at lists.societymusictheory.org [smt-talk-bounces at lists.societymusictheory.org] on behalf of nancygarniez at tonalrefraction.com [nancygarniez at tonalrefraction.com]
Sent: Friday, February 22, 2013 2:10 PM
To: Chris Bonds
Cc: smt-talk at lists.societymusictheory.org
Subject: Re: [Smt-talk] whether to laugh or cry?

Try "The Sense of Music" by Viktor Zuckerkandl, published by Princeton Univ. Press.  This was used as the text for the music course at St. John's College in Maryland.  Though in some respects dated its distilled descriptions of some musical elements are not only accurate but also dynamic.

I liken it to Ezra Pound's "ABC of Reading."

Nancy Garniez
http://nancygarniez.blogspot.com
www.tonalrefraction.net

-----Original Message-----
From: Chris Bonds [mailto:chbonds1 at willy.wsc.edu]
Sent: Thursday, February 21, 2013 10:02 PM
To: smt-talk at lists.societymusictheory.org
Subject: Re: [Smt-talk] whether to laugh or cry?



On 2/21/2013 6:39 PM, Richard Cohn wrote:
David Byrne's best-selling book "How Music Works", on the front-table in many book-stores, has a quasi-learned discourse, with dutiful refs. to Pythagoras etc., on "diachronic scales."

My best guess:
^1 sounds in the 14th century;
^2 sounds in the 15th century
.....the 20th century has the leading tone
and here we are now on the tonic. Finally.

Which makes them maximally even, as they should be.


If someone knows of  an intelligently-written book on "how music works" that the lay person can learn from, and yet will not be an embarrassment to the professional, let me know!

Christopher Bonds
Wayne State College, Emeritus


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.societymusictheory.org/pipermail/smt-talk-societymusictheory.org/attachments/20130222/2e54b331/attachment-0003.htm>