Prelude
Prelude: “An action or event serving as an introduction to something more important, an introductory piece of music.”
This could be your lucky day! You’re about to embark on a wonderful adventure.
Do you love music? Are you one of the people for whom it makes the world go ‘round? How excited are you to be in a class whose goal is to help increase your enjoyment of something? To help you prepare your mind for this new study, take a moment and write down on a piece of paper why you think that universities offer Music and Art Appreciation classes, but none in Physics Appreciation, Marketing Appreciation, or Economics Appreciation? Why did you decide to pick this class over your other options?
“Appreciation” means to admire and be grateful for something, to be fully aware of it and its implications, or an increase in value. We have designed this book and the courses that use it to achieve the learning objectives as efficiently and enjoyably as possible. More than that, though, we want to help you understand and appreciate music more, to expand your horizons so as to enhance the rest of your life. Most people go through life preferring the music they grew up hearing when they were young and falling in love for the first time. Now’s the time to develop receptors for some additional styles of music while you’re still at an impressionable age, so that you’ll have a wider range of pleasure as you go through life with your family and friends.
You’ll get out from the class what you put into it, and it’s up to you how far you want to go. The more you listen and think about the music we cover, the more receptive your brain will become. We hope that music can be for you, like it is for us, one of the things that makes life worth living.
You may have been given the suggestion before to apply what you read to what you already know and what you’re interested in. We prepared a lot of questions in the book to help you think about the music instead of just skimming over the text. They are marked with bullets and we hope you’ll get in the habit of stopping to consider them. This will make a big difference in how you engage with music, and will help you become a more active listener, rather than just letting the sounds wash over you without changing the way you experience it. We think that making the effort to think about the questions will change your mindset when you read, and that you’ll start to get into the habit of coming up with your own questions as you read other books, and make you more curious in general.
We tried to be as brief as possible and to stick to the essentials. We assumed that you don’t have the time or interest to read the type of book you’ll find in most other music appreciation courses—with 400 names of people introduced in 500-700 pages. We apologize if we were wrong in your case, and have listed additional books on our website that you can refer to if you want to go into more detail. Remember, this is just an introduction. It’s like we’re the kindly hosts at a party that greet you at the door. We’ll be taking you around to hook you up with a few of the most fascinating guests, but then it will be up to you to decide whom you want to get to know and where your path takes you from there. Studying a few key composers and masterworks will help you create a framework to make sense of other music that you encounter in the future.
The book is also unusual in that it integrates links to audio and video examples right in the text so that you can easily listen to what you are reading about. We hope that you’ll click on the links as you come across them and listen the music behind what is being discussed. Sorry about the ads that will pop up on YouTube before the music starts! Come up with an action plan for what to do while they play, like doing a quick stretch or a few deep knee bends, looking away from your screen, blinking to lubricate your eyes, sipping water, or muting the dialog and doing some comedy improv freestyling a different script.
We recommend that you listen to the Spotify listening list for each chapter before starting to read it, in order to become familiar with the styles that will be covered. You may want to create your own playlist to save your favorite discoveries for future listening and to share with friends and family.
Music appreciation books are written by music professors for classes taught by people with a classical music background. They hope that you will develop a liking for the “good music” (aka “classical music”) they studied when they were your age. While we will be talking about plenty of music from that Western European art music tradition, we’re going to talk about music in general and include popular music that is already familiar to you, and some experimental and world music you may not have heard before.
If this was a Literature Appreciation course for non-majors and you didn’t know how to read, we’d probably start with teaching you the alphabet so you could sound out some key words you see in books. One of the biggest differences between this and other music appreciation books is that you’ll also get a working knowledge of musical terms and the system used to notate it by experimenting with Hal Leonard’s free online Noteflight software. We hope that writing your own music and hearing it play back while it animates across the screen will help you connect what you see in the musical scores.
Take this knowledge survey before you start to read. You’ll find additional knowledge survey questions at the start of each chapter. They will help prepare your brain for acquiring new knowledge. Save your answers to the survey questions so that you can compare what you know now with your answers to the same questions after you finish the book.
You’ll hear the audio examples more clearly if you can listen with some good quality earbuds, headphones, or speakers. You’ll miss the bass frequencies if you use the ones that came with your phone or through its built-in speakers. Treating yourself to a set of good quality earbuds such as those made by Klipsch will make it possible to hear music more vividly and increase your enjoyment. It can be an ear-opening experience, and make a sonic difference similar to the visual one you get after washing very dirty windows. Whatever you decide, protect your hearing by not listening at too high a level or for too long. Loud sounds can cause permanent damage to the receptors in the cochlea in your inner ear and affect your quality of life.
This could be your lucky day! You’re about to embark on a wonderful adventure.
Do you love music? Are you one of the people for whom it makes the world go ‘round? How excited are you to be in a class whose goal is to help increase your enjoyment of something? To help you prepare your mind for this new study, take a moment and write down on a piece of paper why you think that universities offer Music and Art Appreciation classes, but none in Physics Appreciation, Marketing Appreciation, or Economics Appreciation? Why did you decide to pick this class over your other options?
“Appreciation” means to admire and be grateful for something, to be fully aware of it and its implications, or an increase in value. We have designed this book and the courses that use it to achieve the learning objectives as efficiently and enjoyably as possible. More than that, though, we want to help you understand and appreciate music more, to expand your horizons so as to enhance the rest of your life. Most people go through life preferring the music they grew up hearing when they were young and falling in love for the first time. Now’s the time to develop receptors for some additional styles of music while you’re still at an impressionable age, so that you’ll have a wider range of pleasure as you go through life with your family and friends.
You’ll get out from the class what you put into it, and it’s up to you how far you want to go. The more you listen and think about the music we cover, the more receptive your brain will become. We hope that music can be for you, like it is for us, one of the things that makes life worth living.
You may have been given the suggestion before to apply what you read to what you already know and what you’re interested in. We prepared a lot of questions in the book to help you think about the music instead of just skimming over the text. They are marked with bullets and we hope you’ll get in the habit of stopping to consider them. This will make a big difference in how you engage with music, and will help you become a more active listener, rather than just letting the sounds wash over you without changing the way you experience it. We think that making the effort to think about the questions will change your mindset when you read, and that you’ll start to get into the habit of coming up with your own questions as you read other books, and make you more curious in general.
We tried to be as brief as possible and to stick to the essentials. We assumed that you don’t have the time or interest to read the type of book you’ll find in most other music appreciation courses—with 400 names of people introduced in 500-700 pages. We apologize if we were wrong in your case, and have listed additional books on our website that you can refer to if you want to go into more detail. Remember, this is just an introduction. It’s like we’re the kindly hosts at a party that greet you at the door. We’ll be taking you around to hook you up with a few of the most fascinating guests, but then it will be up to you to decide whom you want to get to know and where your path takes you from there. Studying a few key composers and masterworks will help you create a framework to make sense of other music that you encounter in the future.
The book is also unusual in that it integrates links to audio and video examples right in the text so that you can easily listen to what you are reading about. We hope that you’ll click on the links as you come across them and listen the music behind what is being discussed. Sorry about the ads that will pop up on YouTube before the music starts! Come up with an action plan for what to do while they play, like doing a quick stretch or a few deep knee bends, looking away from your screen, blinking to lubricate your eyes, sipping water, or muting the dialog and doing some comedy improv freestyling a different script.
We recommend that you listen to the Spotify listening list for each chapter before starting to read it, in order to become familiar with the styles that will be covered. You may want to create your own playlist to save your favorite discoveries for future listening and to share with friends and family.
Music appreciation books are written by music professors for classes taught by people with a classical music background. They hope that you will develop a liking for the “good music” (aka “classical music”) they studied when they were your age. While we will be talking about plenty of music from that Western European art music tradition, we’re going to talk about music in general and include popular music that is already familiar to you, and some experimental and world music you may not have heard before.
If this was a Literature Appreciation course for non-majors and you didn’t know how to read, we’d probably start with teaching you the alphabet so you could sound out some key words you see in books. One of the biggest differences between this and other music appreciation books is that you’ll also get a working knowledge of musical terms and the system used to notate it by experimenting with Hal Leonard’s free online Noteflight software. We hope that writing your own music and hearing it play back while it animates across the screen will help you connect what you see in the musical scores.
Take this knowledge survey before you start to read. You’ll find additional knowledge survey questions at the start of each chapter. They will help prepare your brain for acquiring new knowledge. Save your answers to the survey questions so that you can compare what you know now with your answers to the same questions after you finish the book.
You’ll hear the audio examples more clearly if you can listen with some good quality earbuds, headphones, or speakers. You’ll miss the bass frequencies if you use the ones that came with your phone or through its built-in speakers. Treating yourself to a set of good quality earbuds such as those made by Klipsch will make it possible to hear music more vividly and increase your enjoyment. It can be an ear-opening experience, and make a sonic difference similar to the visual one you get after washing very dirty windows. Whatever you decide, protect your hearing by not listening at too high a level or for too long. Loud sounds can cause permanent damage to the receptors in the cochlea in your inner ear and affect your quality of life.
We want to expand your horizons and develop your curiosity. We’re preparing you for a lifetime of adventures by giving you the musical equivalent of teaching you how to read a map, start a fire, and pitch a tent.
Bon voyage!
Robert Willey
Bon voyage!
Robert Willey