(Part 2) Reddit mentions: The best music appreciation books

No problem. Some might say that these are "modified" or "non-traditional" Schenkerian sketches, and I've met some folks who prefer the neutral "voice leading sketch" or "reduction" over "Schenkerian sketch" to avoid association with Schenker's harmonic theory and grant themselves some freedom in their application of the principles of reductive analysis.

An important thing to recognize about Schenkerian analysis is that the notes in the analysis do not really exist (or rather, they are "tones"; see Rothstein). I mean, they're there, you can play them, but the analysis is meant to be a short hand for what's going on in the music rather than a summation of the musical foreground itself. As Steve Larson puts it in Musical Forces:Motion, Metaphor, and Meaning in Music:

>A Schenkerian analysis is a diachronic event hierarchy. Each node of a Schenkerian analysis is concrete in the sense that it is a musical note of specific pitch and corresponds to a certain duration of the piece it represents. However, each node in the higher levels of a Schenkerian analysis is also more abstract than the leaves. In a Schenkerian “voice-leading graph,” one note of the analysis may stand for many notes in the passage analyzed. That note stands for other notes—it is not selected from those notes. Thus a given level may not be regarded as a literal subset of the level closer to the leaves. For instance, in a trill on a quarter note D, the D stands for the whole trill (including a possible Nachschlag); no single D in the trill is the “real D” (and, of course, none of the D’s in the trill is a quarter note). In fact, Schenkerian analyses often include “implied tones,” notes that are not literally present in the passage analyzed. Two additional examples include substitution (in which a 7 at a level closer to the foreground may “stand for” a 2) and chromatic transformation (in which a diatonic pitch at a level closer to the background is represented in the surface of the music by a chromatic pitch). William Benjamin (1984) has written on this topic and offers a nice example of a harmony that is prolonged but nowhere literally present in the musical surface. (56-57)

And William Rothstein offers a good summary of the logic of Schenkerian archetypes in On Implied Tones:

>If substitution for the 2 is so common, why, one might ask, should it be considered a deviation from the norm rather that (sic) as a norm itself? Why not allow alternative forms of the Fundamental Line, such as 3–7–8 or 5–4–3–7–8 (8 being equivalent to 1)? To answer these questions is to illustrate the Gestalt nature of Schenkerian thinking. Three principles are involved. First, there is Schenker's concept of melodic fluency— referred to earlier—which always gives precedence to stepwise motion (though leaps are not prohibited in Schenker's early formulation of the idea). Second, there is the Gestalt principle of 'good continuation', according to which a perceiver seeks to connect new stimuli with old ones in the simplest and most
predictable way possible; for musical lines, this generally means a continuation that follows whatever scale—chromatic, diatonic, chordal, etc.—was defined by the portion of the line heard previously. The third principle is the imaginary continuo.

>When these three principles are conjoined, the restriction to a stepwise Fundamental Line becomes easier to understand. The imaginary continuo makes 2 available as part of the V harmony, despite the presence of 7 in the melody. Given a line of 3–7–8 supported by I–V–I, the ear will readily conclude that 7—which forms a harmonized incomplete neighbour to 8 (or 1)—is a substitute for the harmonized passing note 2, since 2 conforms better to the principles of melodic fluency and good continuation. (With a line of 5-4-3-7-8, the principle of good continuation operates more obviously.) (305-306)

Another paper, Nobile's Counterpoint in Rock Music: Unpacking the "Melodic-Harmonic Divorce", shows just how useful it can be to recognize the symbolic language of Schenkerian analysis. In his "syntax divorce" category, the Bassbrechung and Urlinie represent different Stufen entirely, yet share the same form-functional role. He illustrates with IV–I harmonic cadences supporting 2–1 melodic descents. In this case, we're not dealing with any implied tones, but rather events on the musical foreground that represent an archetype in notably different ways. It is understood that IV–I is a conventional cadential progression in rock music, and at the same time we have this 2–1 as a closure coming from a linear melodic descent.

I don't know of any "popular science" books that would actually give you a head start in medical school.
For example, Oliver Sacks' books, especially Musicophilia are broadly neurological in topic and really interesting, but reading them won't actually give you any major advantage when it comes to your studies.

However, if you're determined to get that headstart, I'd recommend reading up on either anatomy or physiology.

For anatomy, I'd recommend the Thieme Atlas of Anatomy books, although I might be biased, since one of my professors co-authored them and therefore used them religiously.
The books aren't text books in the classical sense, so there is little explanation given, but the illustrations are arguably the best I've seen so far.
You might also want to check out the google body project, although I found it severely lacking in terms of features, you can't, for example, look up innervations or muscle insertion points. Or maybe those are available once you shell out for premium content, I haven't tried that.

For physiology, I found Boron/Boulpaep's Medical Physiology to be thorough, detailed and very easy to read and understand. So this might actually be the book you're looking for. Even with limited or no prior knowledge in physiology and minimal experience with science in general, you'll be practically guaranteed to gain a deep working knowledge of physiology, which is arguably the basis for medicine in general and will serve you well throughout your studies at medical school.

If you already feel confident in both anatomy and physiology, maybe because you've done both in your undergraduate studies, I can't recommend Harrison's Principles of Internal Medicine enough. Almost everything you'll ever need to know about medicine is contained in this book and it is generally pretty well written. If you'd actually have enough time in medical school to thoroughly read and digest this two-volumed beast of a textbook, med school would be less about cramming than it is today.

So maybe get a headstart on that one.

Edit: On the other hand, you might as well enjoy your time before medical school and keep the fire burning by shadowing a physician from time to time or watching the first couple of seasons of House. That'll be more fun.

Now there's a surprise (not).

I.e., this is hardly news, although it's always interesting to read more research of this kind. Philip Ball's book The Music Instinct (2010) - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Music-Instinct-Works-Cant-Without/dp/0099535440 - is a good survey of music's role in human societies, with plenty of evidence of what different cultures don't have in common. E.g., almost all cultures recognise octave equivalence, and most recognise the perfect 5th. Beyond that it's all up for grabs. It's not just that other cultures don't recognise "dissonance", it's that the notion of dissonance is itself cultural. Obviously we all hear the same mix of frequencies, but we don't all feel the need to distinguish aesthetically between smooth or clashing ones, let alone have a natural preference for the former.
Essentially, our tastes are formed soon after birth (maybe even in the womb) by what we hear, largely by what we hear repeated. The repetition of any stimulus lends it significance to an infant, because the human brain is a pattern-seeking organ. At a very young age, we quickly get used to familiar patterns in music, which become the "right" sounds we enjoy later.

Huh. I don't think I've ever heard those terms. To me what you're describing sounds like a mix of psychoacoustics, phonology, and semantics.

For psychoacoustics a great start would be a relatively recent text like Music in the Human Experience (Hodges and Sebald). For your purposes, chapters 8 and 9 would be relevant ("Music Cognition" and "Music and the Brain", respectively).

I realize that you're not looking exclusively for music-related literature on this topic, which is why I suggested you also look into some phonological literature. This I can't point you toward, as the extent of my knowledge on the subject goes little further than a linguistics crash course in university.

If you're looking for historical philosophical writings on the topic, I've got nothing. I'm far from an expert on this topic. But I hope this helps!

It's called Music: An Appreciation by Roger Kamien. When I was still in school some student was throwing it away, and I rescued it from the dumpster. It's supposed to be music history/theory for nonmajors, so people like me that have always had an interest in music but don't play instruments, study something else most of the time, etc.

I've always had a big, big interest in music, always focusing on experimental music. I tried taking music theory in high school but it kept getting canceled because not enough people signed up (boo). I always wanted to learn "the rules" and always believed "you have to know the rules before you break them," or rather, you have to know the rules before you can appreciate everyone else who's breaking them.

A list of the affected posts in chronological order:

• Why was music created? by Trigorin
  
  
• How to deal with "ethnocentric musical" people? by Splichiku
  
  
• I have "Worlds of Music" (Jeff Tinton, 2009). Anyone want it? by soundtrain
  
  
• Looking past exoticism in Ethnomusicology by Hail_Adventurer_16
  
  
• Question for researchers and performers- novel inside. by yepmek
  
  
• Bayaka's music | African Music by lanature
  
  
• This Austrian Folk music sounds like Hawaiian music I've heard. Is this a coincidence? by What_is_it
  
  
• Where to study Ethnomusicology? by [deleted]
  
  
• Tibetan Throat Singing by operationhotbrother
  
  
• My friend and I are debating which cultures to research by CaptainCooksCat
  
  

Music and Chess: Apollo Meets Caissa by Achilleas Zographos
https://www.amazon.com/Music-Chess-Apollo-Meets-Caissa/dp/1941270727

A great book connecting music and chess without needing too much knowledge in music.I fully suggest it especially if you dont want a book entirely focused on the moves of a game etc.

The field of music and emotion is a very large and complex one. You cannot expect easy answers to your questions. I recommend buying a newer book for this subject, older books and studies often use dowdy reasoning for phenomena which can only recently (in the last 30-40 years) be somehow explained by newer methods of cognitive science and music psychology.

Best pick for you could be Juslin's "Handbook of Music and Emotion".

I just got this book for Christmas, it's a great read. Not sure if it's exactly what you're looking for but it explains a lot and I know a lot about music theory and I found myself knowing a lot of what was already in the book, but it definitely makes you think in ways that would be up your alley. here is the link: http://www.amazon.ca/Music-Instinct-Works-Cant-Without/dp/0199754276/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1302919675&sr=8-1

If you find it hard or impossible to listen to certain genres of music then you should change the way that you listen to music. To help you do that i would recommend reading The Music Instinct

Enjoyment of Music is a $15 rental.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0393912558/

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That Ornithology book is a tough one. Sold out on Amazon. About $125

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Epidemiology 101 is a $23 rental.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0763754439/

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Principles of Animal Behavior (Third Edition) wasn't available for rent via amazon either but new @ $65

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0393920453/



So that's $228 @ Amazon.

You overpaid by about $125 -- UNLESS you really wanted to keep those books as permanent references, since this appears to be part of your major, or something, based on your flair.

I'll add that you should look into Stefan Koelsch's work (here is a link to his book), in addition to many others that study music and language processing. There definitely seem to be shared neuronal resources when processing both.

You might want to start with a broad overview, such as this:

https://www.amazon.com/Music-Appreciation-Roger-Kamien/dp/0078025206

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The standard history text is this:

https://www.amazon.com/History-Western-Music-Tenth/dp/0393668177/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=grout+music+history&qid=1556390719&s=gateway&sr=8-3

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You can surely find an older used edition of the Grout cheaply. Your contemporary music degree, is it a B.A. or Associates?

I really enjoyed a book called The Music Instinct: https://www.amazon.com/Music-Instinct-Works-Cant-Without/dp/0199896429

Music instinct is also a good one.

Edit: I mean this book, for the record.

Is it Roger Kamien: Music: An Appreciation? I have an ebook of the 10th edition and it has 5 CDs. The 8th came out in 2003 and it seems common enough to have been the book for you class.

The first two CDs of this are tracks from the 7th and 8th editions if that helps confirm one way or the other.

Mostly from this book.

Genuinely one of the most mind blowing books I have ever read. It's been years since I read it though, and someone has pinched my copy so I'm sorry if I can't get you any actual quotes.



Also this book. I get the two mixed up because I read them both in the same short period of time, so information could be from either of them. Both highly recommended.

I can't remember specific studies offhand (not really my specialty), but it's fairly well-accepted that perception of emotion in music is culture-specific. And the things that are cross-cultural generally aren't related to tonality: speed, contour, etc.

Juslin and Sloboda's Handbook of Music and Emotion has everything you'd ever want to know, but I don't have it here and I don't want to get it from the library for a reddit comment...

I need this book for my Intro to Music class next semester.

This is also the name of a book I've recently read from 2011;

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Music-Instinct-Works-Cant-Without/dp/0099535440

looking for this book 3$ https://www.amazon.com/World-Music-David-Willoughby/dp/0073401412

To add to the books already listed by others:

The Cognitive Neuroscience of Music, Peretz & Zatorre,
http://www.amazon.com/Cognitive-Neuroscience-Music-Isabelle-Peretz/dp/0198525206

Music, Language and the Brain, Patel,
http://www.amazon.com/Music-Language-Brain-Aniruddh-Patel/dp/0195123751

Music and Emotion, Juslin & Sloboda,
http://www.amazon.com/Music-Emotion-Research-Affective-Science/dp/0192631888

University libraries should have them.