Part 1 Foreword Part 2 Book One: 101 Ways of Hearing a Dog Bark Part 3 Book Two: Walking the Dog Part 4 Book Three: Strings, Surfaces, and Empty Spaces Part 5 Book Four: Reflections Part 6 Book Five: Sound Bites Chapter 7 Introduction Chapter 8 I Parts of Speech Chapter 9 II Echoes and Absence Chapter 10 III Precision Instruments Chapter 11 IV Teamwork Chapter 12 V Leadership Chapter 13 VI Time and Motion Part 14 Book Six: Impressions of Beethoven Part 15 Index Part 16 About the Author
Robin Maconie is a New Zealand born composer and musicologist who studied with Olivier Messiaen and Karlheinz Stockhausen. He is the author of The Second Sense (2002) and Other Planets: The Music of Karlheinz Stockhausen (2005), both published by Scarecrow Press.
This is a fascinating and highly stimulating approach to music,
based on the idea that the most fundamental aspect of any music is
not technical training in one tradition or another, but rather the
action of listening....The Way of Music offers pathways to lead a
thinking person or music student from that everyday attraction into
reflecting on the engrossing and interlocked worlds of ritual,
creativity, meaning, pattern, science, and philosophy of art which
music knits together. The book does not set out to demand
submissive agreement with its assertions, but more commendably to
engender in readers thought, discussion and a creative
response.
*Martin Lodge, Composer and Senior Lecturer in Music at the
University of Waikato at Hamilton*
Maconie, a composer and musicologist, provides a guide to music
appreciation that draws on his earlier text The Second Sense:
Language, Music, and Hearing. Intended for nonmusicians and upper
level nonmusic courses, this guide was conceived as a "paper
website" and sections can be studied individually. Sections, called
"books," consist of brief explanations of one idea and cover
attention training, aural skills, and musical meaning. Book Five
surveys 100 recorded examples of classical and world music; it is
meant to be read in conjunction with listening to the music. The
final section presents reactions from listeners from different
backgrounds to a movement of a Beethoven piano concerto.
*Reference and Research Book News, May 2007*
A very original and compelling (and accessible) piece of work.
*Michael Schmidt, Editor of PN Review*
Maconie's commentaries are lucid and immediate, and the reader is
offered some stunning descriptions of the music under
discussion....the book will prove extremely useful for music
teachers and lecturers...
*The Musical Times*
...a significant achievement. It deserves widespread circulation
and implementation.
*David Morriss*
Focusing on classical music, Maconie shows how readily the rich and
varied textures, structures, and rhetoric of classical music can be
learned and can satisfy and intrigue anyone, irrespective of their
previous background. ... Maconie brings both a more up-to-date
scientific perspective … and a more sympathetic awareness of how
the students are situated 'in-the-world' and need to be led into
this knowledge from their 'in-the-world' status, rather than just
be regarded as objects into which knowledge is poured by the
expert.
*Musicae Scientiae: The Journal Of Escom*
.... written primarily for the nonspecialist, and primarily in
nontechnical language. This text would be eminently suitable for an
introductory course in music appreciation inasmuch as these courses
are almost invariably designed as music history courses, albeit
somewhat less rigorous than the music history courses designed for
music majors.... Overall, Maconie's book is refreshingly different
from many musical appreciation texts, and this alone is a strength
that sets it apart from the mainstream of historically oriented
texts. It is based on universal, innate responses from the listener
and is not dependent on technical music training, although it
serves well as an introduction from which inclined students could
then ease into more technical instruction in music theory or
history. The interdisciplinary nature of the commentary,
necessitated by the desire to speak in terms of universals for an
audience of students, is a great strength and should lead to many
fruitful class discussions combining anthropology, sociology,
aesthetics, philosophy, religion, and music.
*Music Reference Services Quarterly, Volume 11 Number 22 (2008)*
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