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

>While it would be John Cage's aleatoric music that'd sound random.

If you're referring to pieces like Music of Changes, it may have been organized through aleatoric processes, but it's far from random. As James Pritchett says in The Music of John Cage:

>>It is the composition of the materials—the charts of sounds, durations and dynamics—that most strongly determines the effect of Music of Changes and that gives it its unique and unmistakable voice. In this work, perhaps more clearly than in any other, chance appears as a means and not an end in itself. It was necessary for Cage to use the chart technique in order to have his musical materials—which are completely products of his compositional choice and judgment—speak by themselves, without being forced into a particular sort of continuity. Chance here is the mechanism by which materials can assert their dominance of the composition: Cage's primary role as the composer is to create the collection of materials that will, through the offices of the chance system, then become the sole identity of the work. Virgil Thomson, in reviewing the premiere of Music of Changes, compared it to a kaleidoscope, and this seems a perfect analogy: the world of Music of Changes is one of abrupt juxtapositions of a variety of transparent, brightly-colored, and incisive materials. (88)

Imagine if Cage's sound charts were populated with motives from well-known pop songs or Christmas songs or something of the ilk. The result might not sound contextually organized, but I'm sure a lot more people would be a lot less inclined to declare it 'random.' (Listen to John Oswald's plunderphonic music if you want to get an idea of how that might sound.)

>I'd think that Ultraserialism, obviously being serial and thus serialist, would sound structured, as in Boulez's Structures I and II).

I'm not familiar with the term "ultraserialism." Judging by how many results on the Google search for that term point to Greenberg's lecture, I'm guessing it's his substitution for the more widely accepted terms "integral serialism" and "total serialism."

The idea of structure in a serialist piece can relate to a number of parameters. Webern's Concerto for Nine Instruments, Op. 24 really foregrounds a specific trichord motive. If you are clued in or are familiar with how these pieces are composed and have the ear for it, you notice pretty quickly that there sure are a lot of these three-note motives, and that all of them are set-class 3-3 (e.g. A–B♭–C#). Nothing random about that at all. The pattern lays itself at your feet.

It might take much more discipline and ear training to hear those 3-3 trichords organized into 6-20 hexachords, and the specific transpositions of 6-20 hexachords forming rows that establish a "tonic" harmonic area A5 (containing P/R5, P/Re, I/RI0, and I/RI6), or the modulation from one harmonic area to another throughout the course of the first movement, but you could do it. You don't even have to know what rows are happening at a given time—tracking the modulation would be the same as recognizing that the rows are built of hexatonic scales (1 ♭2 3 4 #5 6) built on D for the first hexachord and on C for the second hexachord ("D/C" for the sake of this post; or C/D for their combinatorial pairs), then hearing the transposition level moving to either C#/D#, or E/F#. Yeah, it's really fucking hard, but if you had the proper aural skills background and went over it slowly and deliberately (like we do when we learn to aurally analyze Mozart and Beethoven), you could probably identify the large-scale harmonic progression by ear.

Webern is fundamentally concerned with motive and harmony, making organic forms without boundaries but with thematic materials as presences that transform throughout. Quite similar to some of Wagner's music, in a way.

Now, I don't know a whole lot about Boulez, but my limited understanding is that Structures 1a treats its serial elements on a more atomic level, caring more about the organization of serial ordering than motivic/harmonic/structural/formal organization. Not that Webern doesn't have serial ordering, but it's firmly attached to the motivic dimension. The motives come first. Webern's row has those trichord motives woven in:

Webern, Op. 24 row: et2376845019

Unordered Trichord|Set-Class

-:|:-:
et2|3-3
376|3-3
845|3-3
019|3-3

Is Boulez as consistent? He borrows his row from Messiaen's Mode de valeurs et d'intensités, and it's not anywhere near as motivically self-referential as Webern's row: the trichords and tetrachords are all different. It's not until we get to the hexachords that we see the same set-class pop up in both halves, but that's not terribly impressive because out of 50 hexachords in twelve-tone equal temperament, 20 are self-complementary and he's not exploiting the harmonic structure of his hexachord anyway.

Boulez, Structures 1a row: 329876410t5e

Unordered Trichord|Set-Class

-:|:-:
329|3-5
876|3-1
410|3-3
t5e|3-5

Unordered Tetrachord|Set-Class

-:|:-:
3298|4-9
7641|4-13
0t5e|4-6

Unordered Hexachord|Set-Class

-:|:-:
329876|6-5
410t5e|6-5

Rather, what Boulez does is choose rows based on their position in the matrix: he starts with P3 in piano 1 and I3 in piano 2 (sharing the same starting point on the matrix) and then radiates outward along the axes of the matrix. This isn't something the listener could really hear, but it is pretty solidly determined. If you have perfect pitch, good memory, and are really good at counting four things at once, you might recognize that the starting pitches of each new row progresses along the series of the initial rows, P3 and I3. (And, of course, Boulez has rhythmic and dynamic series too.) In that way, Structures 1a unfolds the series of two initial inversionally-related rows, but the row choices within the piece do not have surface-level structural relationships like Webern's Op. 24. It's much more akin to Ursula Mamlok's use of the matrix in her serial compositions. It would take a special kind of listener a lot of effort to hear the structure in "Structures 1a," because the only structure that's there is of comparatively massive scale. With Webern, even if you don't get the whole picture, you can point to the trichord motives pretty easily. With Boulez, it's like being dropped off in the wilderness hundreds of kilometers from civilization with a hood over your face and trying to tell what country you're in.

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I don't think the question is "why do both Boulez and Cage sound random," but rather "why do Boulez and Cage sound similar". (I don't think they do at all, but that's beside the point.) Once again, I think we need to look at the materials: if Boulez had used Ke$ha's Tik Tok as the source of his series rather than a serial piece by Messiaen, I think we would hear the intervallic relationships (and maybe their relationship to the source material) more clearly. Fact is, Boulez and Cage are allowing themselves to use the chromatic scale in its entirety, and the entire range of the piano as well. It doesn't sound "random," it sounds like a flat treatment of chromatic pitch space. There are also processes happening in both compositions that jumble rhythms and dynamics in similar ways.

This idea that this super-ordered stuff sounds like super-random stuff is a misdirection, especially since the supposedly "random" stuff isn't at all. (What does "random" even mean when you get down to it?) A lot of itching for a justification for people who want to say "I don't like it" but don't want to come across as the shallow beings they are.

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>In 1999, Boulez was asked in an interview to explain why so few Ultraserial works from the 1950s and 1960s were still performed. Boulez’s response constitutes one of the great understatements of all time: “Well, perhaps we did not take sufficiently into account the way music is perceived by the listener.”

I'll point out that this observation, framed in the way that it is, implicitly puts value on "the way music is perceived by the listener." However, perception varies from person to person. Marketing ideology likes to assume there is an ideal consumer who will gobble up commodities in droves. It is what they depend on to extract value from people for their own enrichment, and they spend a good deal of those riches inculcating desires and habits into people in an attempt to reify that idealized consumer to continue to extract value from them forever. While the interviewer's question and Boulez's answer may reflect reality, the tacit assumption that these pieces were meant to be performed endlessly is hopelessly misguided.

This is a great book for teaching middle school general music: http://www.amazon.com/Teaching-General-Music-Grades-4-8/dp/0195137787

The trick is to make the music learning relevant to them. If they're never going to use quarter and eighth notes, there's no need to introduce it to them.. and if your goal is to teach notation, then have them learn to play something, like keyboard or drums.

The most important part of teaching general music to MS kids is to remember that they themselves are not empty inside, music wise. They probably all own ipods or smartphones with music on them, and so you could ask them to share their favorite music with the class (wit prior approval, of course.) Then you could link their music with music that you would like to teach them (for example, classical music or classic rock.) The nice thing about GM is that it's so flexible....

Another advice would be to get them to move! Maybe they don't understand what a contour of a melody is but they can definitely feel it when you have them do "interpretative dance" or other kinesthetic activities. Dalcroze Eurhythmics is a great tool to use in these situations because movement comes pretty naturally to most people (i.e. moving along to the beat, learning a dance to enhance cultural understanding)

And also have them compose. Garageband is easy enough for 8th graders to understand, and if you use loops, that could be incentive for them to even continue writing/producing music after they leave your class.

I would advise you to place a focus on lifetime learning and enduring understanding - so that everything they learn can be used later in life. If you want them to appreciate music by bach, beethoven, and mozart, show them the beauty behind it in a concrete way that will stick with them. Incorporate any and all stops that you have - have fun!

Understanding theory is a huge part of it. Knowing what you're listening to and listening for is necessary, otherwise it's just guessing.

When trying to figure out what's going on in a song, listen to the bass first. It usually the easiest thing to hear and from there, your theory knowledge will help you fill in the harmony based on context.

For melodic hearing, listen to melodies in context of their key. Learning intervals in the abstract (especially by using song tricks like a perfect 5th = Star Wars) isn't very useful in real context. Sure, a P5 is Star Wars, but that's do-sol (1-5). re-la (2-6), mi-ti (3-6), fa-do (4-1), sol-re (5-2), and la-mi (6-3) are all also P5s and those are just the diatonic ones.

You have to be able to hear where the interval is against the harmonic backdrop it happens in to make it useful to you. The method that more contemporary and jazz teachers seem to favor is to be able to really hear when something is leaning toward the home points of do-mi-sol (1-3-5). Every other diatonic note has a strong tendency toward one of those. Transcribing basic folk songs and nursery rhymes is really the place to start. The underlying harmony is easy, they tend to be entirely diatonic, and they make the tension versus home feeling a lot more obvious.

You can work through Mark Harrison's Contemporary Eartraining to get a good feel for how most of this work.

The following is a list of good reference books that all feature a compilation of some of the most important albums, songs, artists and album art in the history of popular music. All of the books offer biographical information, discographies, critical analysis, historical context and trivia on the albums, songs and artists that they cover. As no single tome can be truly comprehensive, it's a good idea to invest in at least a couple of these books so that you'll be able to get a better picture of the most influential music of the past. Thankfully, most of the books can be found very cheaply, usually for under ten bucks for a used copy - and they're fun for any Pophead to browse to learn more about pop music.

All Music Guide: The Definitive Guide To Popular Music, 4th Edition

The Mojo Collection: The Greatest Albums of All Time... and How They Happened - Irvin/McLear
Mojo Collection (newer edition) - Irvin/McLear

101 Albums that Changed Popular Music - Chris Smith

1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die - Robert Dimery

1001 Songs You Must Hear Before You Die: And 10,001 You Must Download - Robert Dimery

The New Rolling Stone Album Guide - Brackett/Hoard

The Rough Guide Book of Playlists, 2nd edition (Rough Guide Reference)

The Trouser Press Record Guide

1001 Songs: The Great Songs of All Time and the Artists, Stories and Secrets Behind Them - Toby Creswell

Time Out 1000 Songs to Change Your Life

The Art of the LP: Classic Album Covers 1955–-1995 - Morgan/Wardle

These are a good start;

• The Computer Music Tutorial. This is essentially a bible of all things digital. Read it, cover to cover, even if you don't understand everything. Then read it again.
  
  
• The SuperCollider Book. SuperCollider specific but a great read and has some interesting techniques in it.
  
  
• The Music Machine. Not just this, but specifically anything from the Computer Music Journal. Your uni should have a subscription through JSTOR.
  
  
• Understanding Sound Organization. A bit arty but still interesting.
  
  
• The Art Of Noises. A great bit of old material, challenging traditional perceptions about noise.
  
  I'll look on my bookcase and post more good reads when I get the chance.

Firstly, you probably shouldn't assume everyone here is smart, or has all the answers! (and I include myself in that). We're all fallible, and opinion can sometimes get in the way.

I could be wrong, but it sounds like you're confusing the top number and bottom number of the time signature. The first (top) number number tells you how many beats are in the the bar, and you can have as many beats as you want, and group them whatever way suits. The second (bottom) number tells you what type of beats they are, and these are pretty much always numbers divisible by 2. Speaking in the most general sense (and simplifying a bit for the purposes of this) when it comes to irregular meters such as 13/? or 7/?, if you want a faster moving music, you'ld likely use numbers such as 8 or even 16 for the second number, whereas if you wanted something slower you'd perhaps use 7/2 or 7/4 or 13/2 or 13/4.

So the short of it is, you can have any number of beats in a bear from 1 to theoretically infininty, though in real life situations I've not seen anything much above 18 in a bar, which incidentally you can hear in the Mahavishnu Orchestra track Birds of Fire. So generally, if you want to do 13 in a bar, you should probably use 13/8 or 13/16, unless its slower, then use 13/4.

Now, I mentioned earlier that the second number is pretty much always divisible by 2. That doesn't mean some haven't experimented with trying other things with this. Let's explore how this might work. Suppose we have a 4/4 bar. That's 4 quarter notes to the bar. Now let's say that we have eighth note triplets right across the whole bar, so three per beat equals 12 in total. Now, by definition these are 12th notes, though no-one ever calls them that, because they're more readily understood as eighth note triplets. But they are 12th notes, in that 12 can fit within a whole note (or one bar of 4/4). So, theoretically there's nothing to stop us calling the time signature 12/12. Now we don't do that, because generally there's no merit to it. However, it's not that much of a conceptual leap to then think of bars where the first number is different that would result in time signatures that you couldn't get any other way. For example 11/12. That would be 11 x 8th note triplets, so one 8th triplet shorter than a 4/4 bar. So you'd perhaps count this as | 123 123 123 12 | . Taking this idea a bit further, if we used 8th note quintuplets, then we could (again theoretically) have time signatures such as 4/10.

The composer Henry Cowell went into this quite a lot in his 1930 book New Musical Resources, and which I'd thoroughly recommend. It's the book that in many ways spawned the entire career or Maverick composer Conlon Nancarrow.

Some composers have used these time signatures but they are fairly few and far between, so it's never really caught on in any wider sense, despite not being that conceptually or practically that difficult.

But to go back to my first point, you can have any number of conventional beats in a bar.

Source: Composition Lecturer, 16 years.

The way I look at it is that there are a lot of musicians who don't bother learning music theory and seem to do just fine. In the same way, there's a lot of people with a pretty good grasp of music theory who don't understand the math and physics of music at all, and it doesn't stop them from making good music. Even so, understanding music theory will usually be helpful to someone who wants to be a good musician, and math and physics can be helpful to someone who wants to compose good music.

Unfortunately, the knowledge about how math and physics applies to music is kind of hard to find, beyond relatively superficial explanations of how musical intervals and chords are constructed from whole number ratios (or approximations thereof).

A pretty good introductory book is "The Science of Musical Sound by John R Pierce" [1]. A lot of the modern understanding of the connection between math and physics and music comes from the research of Herman Helmholtz. You might want to check out "On the Sensations of Tone" [2]. The writings of Harry Partch and Ben Johnston might also be interesting to you if you want to know more about just intonation in particular.

[1] http://www.amazon.com/Science-Musical-Sound-Robinson-Pierce/dp/0716760053

[2] http://www.amazon.com/Sensations-Tone-Dover-Books-Music/dp/0486607534

When I first started to learn music I was about your daughters age, but I learned on the piano. I had theory books that accompanied the lesson books which had labeling, coloring activities, stickers etc. Those books were put out by Alfred Music and they were pretty good. I found this theory book they put out which may be less geared for piano, but I've never used it, but its only like $6 so probably worth a look. I also recommend piano lessons in general. Beyond that I don't know any specific guitar books geared for kids like that, but they may be out there.
One thing that may be a fun activity is to print off a 1:1 scale guitar template, then you and your daughter could color it in however she wants. You could then get Alphabet stickers and use them to label the notes on the fretboard (you'll probably have to draw on strings first). But thats just something I thought up now.

Violins 1 will usually play the higher, more intricate, or the most important parts.
Most virtual instruments will not be different, but it would be important for proper orchestration protocol.
It sounds like you're just worried about having so many instruments at your disposal, but really it comes down to the fact that an orchestra is just like any other band.
You've got low end, mid range, and high frequencies (in a really general sense).
Low end instruments keep a groove (especially in more cinematic styles), mid range instruments add a bit, and higher instruments play your melodic content.

When dealing with this many instruments, use their uniqueness to your advantage.
The orchestra is full of different timbres, and textures of sound.

As far as percussion goes, orchestras have tons of it. Timpani, a bass drum, a snare drum, some cymbals, chimes, a glockenspiel, a xylophone, and a slough of other pieces.

I found John Cacavas' Music Arranging and Orchestration to be very helpful when I was first learning orchestration.
GameDev has a pretty good breakdown on the basics.


Be aware that a lot of that "cinematic epic sound" is from how they recorded the piece.
They tend to place the microphones a lot closer when recording for modern film. This tends to make the instruments sound a little harsher than in a traditional setting.
When they record a classical orchestra, the microphones are basically in the audience because they were aiming to make it sound like you were there in the audience.
Some string libraries (EastWest/Quantum Leap is, probably, the most known) have catered towards this trend of film production.
I'm, personally, a fan of LA Scoring Strings. And not just because Danny Elfman uses them.

Three books that I’ve found helpful over the years are the various editions of these. In every case you’re at the mercy of the tastes of the critics who compiled them, but by and large they are reliable. There are other “”best of” classical guides; there are sure to be some on-line.

[The Rough Guide to Classical Music] (http://www.amazon.com/Rough-Guide-Classical-Music/dp/1848364768/) (2010 edition) gives brief composer biographies, mini-essays on things like “sonata” and “fugue” and recommends 2 or 3 preferred recording (budget to full-price). It’s very handy, especially for beginners.

The [Gramophone Classical Music Guide] (http://www.amazon.com/Gramophone-Classical-Music-Guide-2011/dp/0860249239/) (2011 edition) used to be an annual thing but I don’t see a 2013 edition at Amazon and the 2012 edition is way expensive. No composer bios but very complete coverage of a wide range of works by a wide range of composers with long lists and 2 to 3 sentence reviews of best recordings.

[The New York Times Essential Library: Classical Music: A Critic's Guide to the 100 Most Important Recordings] (http://www.amazon.com/The-York-Times-Essential-Library/dp/0805070702/) is older (2004) but NYT music critic Alan Kozinn gives short bios and analyses of the 100 recordings, explains his choices, and also gives alternative versions. Since often the best recordings—at least in terms of conductors and orchestras—are a few decades old, his choices still hold weight.

It's true that there's a ton of great information online, but books present the info in an organized, trustworthy fashion. Online learning should be fine for more introductory music theory and common practice period harmony, but once you're looking into more advanced stuff, check out these books:

-20th Century Harmony by Vincent Persichetti

-Contemporary Harmony by Ludmila Ulehla

> From the point of view of physics, music is extraordinarily and beautifully complex.

Yes indeed:
https://www.amazon.com/Music-Physics-Engineering-Dover-Books/dp/0486217698

Great read for those so interested.

Well, the math involved is fairly high-level, we're talking at least a few semesters of calculus, differential equations and partial differential equations, as well as the physics courses that teach you how to apply them. But from a layman's perspective, maybe someone can recommend a good book on home recording? Any good text should at least explain why you should do things the way you're doing them to achieve the best sound.

There was a book on Amazon that I was going to buy for my ex when we were still dating (she's a professional orchestra musician) but she turned out to be an awful person. I'll try and remember what it was called.

EDIT: this isn't it, but it looks good: http://www.amazon.com/Music-Physics-Engineering-Dover-Books/dp/0486217698

EDIT: found it: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/listing/2691469134443?r=1&cm_mmca2=pla&cm_mmc=GooglePLA-_-TextBook_NotInStock_75Up-_-Q000000633-_-2691469134443

I was self taught theory. I went to a local music store and bought a theory book.[This one to be exact] (http://www.amazon.com/Essentials-Complete-Training-Workbook/dp/0882848976). I have been able to pass this book on to friends and they all pick up music theory fairly well with it. I prefer having an actual book as opposed to a website or someone on youtube teaching me. I just learn better that way. Just for reference, I teach lessons now that use theory as a big part of it's curriculum and I also was tested on theory for the job and I did fine from this book

Hadn't seen the paperback cover design before - it's far better than the hardcover design for the same book.

I too was given this as a gift, but never really gave it a fair shot - maybe having already read The Phish Book by Richard Gehr and the band and also The Phishing Manual by Dean Budnick, what I saw retread a bunch of what I had already read before, and the writing didn't exactly impress. (I highly recommend the first book, by the way)

Maybe I should give it another shot to see what it says about 2.0 and the dawn of 3.0. The books I linked came out in '99 and '96, so there's a good bit of history not covered by those. But I think when I tried reading those in Puterbaugh's book I felt I already had an understanding of those events just because I was paying close attention to the band during those times.

Nurtured by Love the Classic Approach to Talent Education by Shinichi Suzuki.

My parents have this, which I think is great. I tried using musipedia a while ago to find out what that one piece (probably from suzuki) which everyone plays as a kid was, without any results.

I remember thinking that The Phishing Manual was pretty good back in the day, though it's probably been eclipsed by others by now?

Contemporary Harmony: Romanticism Through the Twelve-Tone Row
by Ludmila Ulehla

https://www.amazon.com/Contemporary-Harmony-Romanticism-Through-Twelve-Tone/dp/3892210616

If you're a parent looking into Suzuki, Ability Development From Age Zero. It's aimed aimed at parents looking to better their child through music. Because I'm not a parent, this is the one book I don't own

If you're interested in his philosophy, Nurtured by Love. The above book is the sequel to this one. This one's about the process through which he developed his philosphy.


They're all fairly short books, about 100 pages each.

This is a great book, you can probably find it in the library. A lot of it relates to resonances in open or closed air columns (like a pipe organ).

Isn't technology wonderful....

A friend give me this when I graduated. It was great, for its time: https://www.amazon.com/Dictionary-Musical-Themes-Music-More/dp/0517524465?SubscriptionId=AKIAILSHYYTFIVPWUY6Q&tag=duckduckgo-d-20&linkCode=xm2&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=0517524465

In order starting with the book on the top left:

http://www.amazon.com/Ultimate-Keyboard-Chord-Piano-Method/dp/0793551447

http://www.amazon.com/Alfreds-Essentials-Complete-Training-Workbook/dp/0882848976

http://www.amazon.com/MIDI-Book-Syntharts-Steve-Furia/dp/0881885142

http://www.amazon.com/The-Total-Keyboard-Performing-Electronic/dp/1586637037

http://www.amazon.com/Practical-Theory-Volume-Sandy-Feldstein/dp/0882842161

http://www.amazon.com/Alfreds-Basic-Adult-Piano-Course/dp/0882846167

http://www.amazon.com/Welshs-Synthesizer-Cookbook-Programming-Universal/dp/B000ERHA4S

https://www.amazon.com/Contemporary-Harmony-Romanticism-Through-Twelve-Tone/dp/3892210616

He explained some of these concepts in his book New Musical Resources (1930).