1. The world’s "most unanswered" music questions.
2. Secular Right blog
3. Most popular Japanese phrases of 2008.
4. From economics to Mahler; his recording is good although my favorite 2nd remains Stokowski with the LSO.
5. French list: 20 best books of the year
Testing to see if comments work…
Argh, the world’s most unanswered music questions except by professional scholars of music. I mean, it’s nice to have inquisitive laymen, but it’s not as though an entire academic specialty (mine) hasn’t been all over that stuff for decades, if not centuries (depending on what you count).
Reading the music questions reminded me I know nothing about music (and by nothing, I mean what is a “key”). What is a good book ( I assume with CDs) that can fill in this hole, if I take the time to study it?
I’m sitting here in my office listening not to Mahler but to Stokowski (“and his orchestra”)right now!
An album (yes, album) long out of print: “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring,” which features Bach, Vivaldi, and Corelli. I recently bought a 40 year old Califone record player for the office. Plays 33 1/3, 45, and 78 rpm. Sometimes it’s nice to be backwards as all get-out.
I’m sitting here in my office listening not to Mahler but to Stokowski (“and his orchestra”)right now!
An album (yes, album) long out of print: “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring,” which features Bach, Vivaldi, and Corelli. I recently bought a 40 year old Califone record player for the office. Plays 33 1/3, 45, and 78 rpm. Sometimes it’s nice to be backwards as all get-out.
>>>Reading the music questions reminded me I know nothing about music (and by nothing, I mean what is a “key”). What is a good book ( I assume with CDs) that can fill in this hole, if I take the time to study it?
I have no real talent in music, but I do have years of piano and guitar lessons behind me. In my experience, books and articles on music theory are almost impossible to understand without an instrument in your hands. If you are an absolute beginner and are truly interested, I would recommend taking piano or guitar lessons from an instructor with a degree in music, and explaining to them your interest. I bet you coul dlearn and truly understand more theory from three 1/2 hour lessons than from a dozen books.
For Rhodium:
Temperament by Stuart Isacoff is a not-bad popular introduction to the physics of Western music, keys, etc. Something like Tonal Harmony Workbook by Kostka might have the musical examples you are looking for, I haven’t used it. Here is a list of online resources: http://www.philrees.co.uk/links/theory.htm. The Tonal Center is useful: http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/andymilne/.
But Thelonius is right. Find a keyboard or guitar to try out sounds as you learn. It might be easier to visualize scales and keys from a keyboard than from the fretboard of a guitar.
@Chris
I’m the author of the posted article
Can you email me to discuss one or two things. I’ll try and be brief, but I’d rather not clog up the posts here really.
About the aesthetics thing, I don’t think anyone can prove outright one way or another, so perhaps “show” would have been a better word to use.
I tend to think there’s a possibility that medieval music could be a subset of general tonality, but I haven’t looked into it that deeply (and haven’t quite got round to reading some of those books you mentioned).
Finally, I still think the most overlooked thing in music theory is the idea of multiple weighted roots for a given chord. That would really help push theory into new directions I reckon.
It is enlightening!
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