Appreciation Books - Page 5

Belle and Sebastian's If You're Feeling Sinister (33 1/3)

Scott Plagenhoef

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 2.0 of 5

Somewhat Entertaining if completely Off Topic 33/13 3 out of 5 stars.
12 of 13 people found this review helpful.

The fantastic 33 1/3 series takes genuine risks in giving their cherry-picked writers stylistic free reign (Joe Pernice's "Meat is Murder" was gentle coming-of-age fiction, after all) but there's something a little bit pretentious and indulgent about simply just pretending to examine a 1996 indie classic and seemingly having no idea that your focus has run absurdly rampant and that you've used the word "titular" waaay too many times to keep me in my comfort zone.

I'm not sure why I'm surprised. Author Scott Plagenhoef is a Pitchfork editor after all, and the book's self-important drone, relentless pursuit of precious Glaswegian novelty and esoterica, and surprisingly dense prose is right out of that hipster haven's hallowed halls. The book, rather than settling for a breezy deconstruction of a rather remarkable record, overdoes itself and becomes something of a lengthy TREATISE on THE CREATION OF BELLE AND SEBASTIAN and the HISTORY OF TWEE IN THE MODERN WORLD and THE RIGHTFUL PLACE OF INDIE MUSIC IN THE POP CULTURAL LANDSCAPE.

That's not to say that I didn't enjoy parts of Plagenhoef's digressions into C86 and Edwyn Collins and Morrissey's asexuality and the rise of the pop group Bis, Britpop's rise and fall, Damon Albarn's silly drunken interviews, Damien Hirst, Oasis vs. Blur, but it would have been real nice to have read A LITTLE SOMETHING ABOUT "IF YOU'RE FEELING SINISTER", dude!

Plagenhoef has his moments. Describing Stuart Murdoch's battle with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and his coming out of it as if out of a dream, with his songs and his band fully formed, explains so much about the soft, seductive beauty of the band and its ability to create its own starry universe; it's also an interesting theory about the formation about art in general, beauty coming from sickness, melody from mummified mayhem, but Plagenhoef doesn't go there. He's a writer excited about his first book and he wants to show off his (admittedly vast) knowledge of the indie music landscape and usage of the word "titular". Sorry to bring it up again, but c'mon.

While those searching for a thoughtful and verbose essay on rock music might be tickled, the book isn't likely to satisfy Belle and Sebastian fans; Plagenhoef, despite the book's title, seems to want to focus most of his energies on the recording of the band's first album, "Tigermilk" (with a lot of focus oddly going to "Fold Your Hands" as well) and ultimately doesn't tell me anything I didn't already know. In fact, I've already read a lot of these opinions on Pitchfork, and despite a well-received biography of the band already having been published, a Magnet Magazine interview about Belle and Sebastian some years back was way more in-depth, focused, and interesting than anything offered here.

There are those 33 1/3 and Pitchfork fans who will praise Plagenhoef's talent for pop cultural nostalgia and his wide scope. However, I think a great 33 1/3 book should be able to talk about the formation of the band, its place in the world, as well as give the reader a detailed summation of the individual album under review. I found this to be the case with the impressive "Doolittle" (WHY this album rules the Pixies' canon) as well as Neutral Milk's "In The Aeroplane Over the Sea" (an unbelievable dissection of the step-by-step creation of an insane indie classic) and I had hoped for more with one of my favorite albums and bands of all time.

Scott Plagenhoef has clear passion and solid merit as a rock journalist, but in my eyes, he didn't succeed with his assignment.

Editorial Review:

At the time of its release in 1996, If You're Feeling Sinister was a romantic and defiantly independent artifact - a fully formed, pristine seashell of an album quietly washed ashore, waiting to be discovered by anyone who cared to look. Here, Scott Plagenhoef lovingly investigates the record's creation and influence. He tells the story of the unusual band that created it and conjures up a time, at the dawn of the Internet era, when it was still possible for perfect pop music to retain a veneer of genuine mystery.

Essential Ear Training for the Contemporary Musician

Steve Prosser

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Berklee Press essential ear training 4 out of 5 stars.
20 of 20 people found this review helpful.

My son attends Berklee and he tells me that this is not the book used at the school. He also said that the material covered in the book is more advanced than what is taught the first year and that ear training is one of the most difficult areas for most students. I understand that Berklee Press has now come out with a Basic Ear Training book. This book should be retitled Advanced Ear Training, or at least book two.

Moveable Do 5 out of 5 stars.
11 of 13 people found this review helpful.

The Moveable Do taught at Berklee and explained in this book is a great resourceful tool. You don't need to have absolutely pitch to hear the notes right. The book explains that the Moveable do technique helps develop recognition of notes no matter what key. It also brings great exercises to practice your ability to read in all keys. It reinforces the need to solfege in order to listen well. The rhythmic exercises cover the different time signature and common rhythmic phrases used in today's music. This great book helps you develop yourself to be a solid musician.

Editorial Review:

The Ear Training curriculum of Berklee College of Music is known and respected throughout the world. Now, for the first time, this unique method has been captured in one comprehensive book by the chair of the Ear Training Department. This method teaches musicians to hear the music they are seeing, notate the music they have composed or arranged, develop their music vocabulary, and understand the music they are hearing. The book features a complete course with text and musical examples, and studies in rhythm, sight recognition, sol-fa, and melody.

Sweet Anticipation: Music and the Psychology of Expectation (Bradford Books)

David Huron

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Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Winner, 2007 Wallace Berry Award presented by the Society for Music Theory.

The psychological theory of expectation that David Huron proposes in Sweet Anticipation grew out of the author's experimental efforts to understand how music evokes emotions. These efforts evolved into a general theory of expectation that will prove informative to readers interested in cognitive science and evolutionary psychology as well as those interested in music. The book describes a set of psychological mechanisms and illustrates how these mechanisms work in the case of music. All examples of notated music can be heard on the Web.

Huron proposes that emotions evoked by expectation involve five functionally distinct response systems: reaction responses (which engage defensive reflexes); tension responses (where uncertainty leads to stress); prediction responses (which reward accurate prediction); imagination responses (which facilitate deferred gratification); and appraisal responses (which occur after conscious thought is engaged). For real-world events, these five response systems typically produce a complex mixture of feelings. The book identifies some of the aesthetic possibilities afforded by expectation, and shows how common musical devices (such as syncopation, cadence, meter, tonality, and climax) exploit the psychological opportunities. The theory also provides new insights into the physiological psychology of awe, laughter, and spine-tingling chills. Huron traces the psychology of expectations from the patterns of the physical/cultural world through imperfectly learned heuristics used to predict that world to the phenomenal qualia we experienced as we apprehend the world.

The Vintage Guide to Classical Music

Jan Swafford

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 18 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

The most readable and comprehensive guide to enjoying over five hundred years of classical music -- from Gregorian chants, Johann Sebastian Bach, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to Johannes Brahms, Igor Stravinsky, John Cage, and beyond.

The Vintage Guide to Classical Music is a lively -- and opinionated -- musical history and an insider's key to the personalities, epochs, and genres of the Western classical tradition. Among its features:
-- chronologically arranged essays on nearly 100 composers, from Guillaume de Machaut (ca. 1300-1377) to Aaron Copland (1900-1990), that combine biography with detailed analyses of the major works while assessing their role in the social, cultural, and political climate of their times;
-- informative sidebars that clarify broader topics such as melody, polyphony, atonality, and the impact of the early-music movement;
-- a glossary of musical terms, from a cappella to woodwinds;
-- a step-by-step guide to building a great classical music library.

Written with wit and a clarity that both musical experts and beginners can appreciate, The Vintage Guide to Classical Music is an invaluable source-book for music lovers everywhere.

A 6 CD Set to Accompany Listen: Brief

Joseph Kerman, Gary Tomlinson

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 10 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

The best survey available 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

This is the best general survey of music available. Highly recommended for anyone wanting to have a grasp of the periods and styles of Western music, even if they have little or no background in music. It also contains a sampling of world music. When used with the 6 CD supplement it will make anyone feel more "at home" with the history of music and open many windows for exploration.

Great Music History/Appreciation Book! 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

We used this book in my IB Music class in high school, and I highly recommend it. The CDs are helpful, but you will find that even without them, it is a great asset. Most of the recordings are very standard, so you could easily find them online if you didn't want to buy the CDs and wanted to hear the "listening examples." It is very clear and includes good timelines which makes it easy to study.

I am a music major in college and own this book just because it is so user friendly.

Editorial Review:

With its superb recording package and innovative listening charts, this landmark text teaches students how to listen to music better than any other. Listen makes music approachable by placing it in its cultural context with lavish illustrations, timelines, and maps. Equipped with a free Study Guide CD-ROM, the new edition is more accessible than ever, offering additional help in focused listening and in music fundamentals.

Sound in Motion: A Performer's Guide to Greater Musical Expression

David McGill

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Answers phrasing questions in an enjoyable narrative style 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

"Why does one player's version of a musical work sound more 'musical' than someone else's version?" The book gives the answer---it is
PHRASING.
The author discusses how to achieve phrasing that conveys motion and lyricism: note grouping, choice of articulation, dynamics, and (to some degree) tonal production.
Many aspects of how great phrasing is produced come from the Philadelphia tradition of woodwind playing, exemplified by the legendary teachers at the Curtis Institute. The information is, however, applicable to all instruments.
Other sources might present bits and pieces of this material, but David McGill has put it all here, succinctly, and in an easy to read and logical narrative. He is a fine writer (and bassoonist) and will hopefully produce additional books...perhaps with an illustrative CD? hint. hint.
This book is a must for both serious amateurs and for performance majors.

Editorial Review:

Drawing from the legacy of Marcel Tabuteau, David McGill has assembled an imaginative study that builds on Tabuteau's gift as a musician and teacher. "Sound in Motion" is a creative work that uses the ideas of Tabuteau, John de Lancie, Sol Schoenbach, and John Minsker to develop musical thought. McGill discusses musical analysis and skeletal structure to help guide phrasing ideas. He considers each elemnet of playing an instrument and contemplates how to improve and develop them. Note grouping, phrasing, breathing, vibrato, and rubato are some of the concepts covered. McGill includes a section that focuses on professional activities such as auditioning, performing, and teaching. Musicians and vocalists alike will find that many of the ideas presented in this book will help develop their musicianship and improve their performance.

1001 Classical Recordings You Must Hear Before You Die

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Impossible project attractively presented 3 out of 5 stars.
20 of 28 people found this review helpful.

This book will no doubt be something different to every reader. The concept of listing 1,001 `greatest works of all times' in chronological order results in an absorbing compendium that can be a useful guide to newcomers, yet can also point experienced enthusiasts in the direction of unsuspected byways. Inevitably, the latter will take issue with some or many of the recommendations. Every work is given a brief historical outline, each entry concluding with a description of the merits of a `best performance'. Richly illustrated with a mix of promo-photography and historical images, as well as album covers, it invites repeated perusal and makes an excellent coffee-table item.

Not that there isn't ample room for debate, especially given the double hazard of selecting best works as well as best recordings of those works. Surely two entries for Wolfgang Rihm are an indulgence. And is Shostakovich's 11th symphony really one of the 1,001 greatest works of all time? (Or indeed Tchaikovsky's 1812?). Is Solti still the best option in Mahler 8 in the face of such blazing, magnificent, and much better recorded performances as those of Rattle, Sinopoli or Tennstedt? No later than the introduction the editor more or less shoots the entire project to rags with his repeated statements that, of course, it is all highly subjective. The process by which the works were selected is not revealed to the reader, except for the fact that the list was compiled by a single person, Matthew Rye himself. The team of reviewers is not quite as varied or international as the editor suggests; it represents, in fact, a sizeable chunk from the BBC Music Magazine's freelance staff, with a few lone representatives from America, Australia and Europe thrown in for good measure.
One wonders about criteria used, and their consistency. In the review for the Four Seasons the reviewer says that it is hard to choose between the many recordings, but that some criteria can be established nonetheless, one of them being that the work should be played on instruments and at the pitch Vivaldi knew, i.e., that it should be a period performance. Why that is so, he doesn't tell, and the same criterion doesn't seem to apply for works from other eras (or even many from the baroque itself), for the vast majority of recommendations for the classical and romantic periods favour staunchly traditional, even old-fashioned readings.

The recommendations are a curious mix of the predictable and the wayward. Once again the awful Klemperer recording of Mahler 2 is proclaimed top of the heap, a misjudgement that is somewhat redeemed by the sympathetic alternative suggestion of the first Kaplan version - and at the same time exacerbated by the inclusion of another highly overrated Mahler 2, that of Rattle. The inevitable Du Pré is there for the Elgar concerto, which makes me wonder, for I've heard better performances of that work. In fact quite a lot of the preferred recordings are of the "if it's old it's good" variety, with the 1943 Walton recording of Belshazzar's Feast as the most extreme example. It is this kind of recommendation that makes you wonder which audience this guide aims for. Surely, a recording that the reviewer himself qualifies as "rough" and lacking in detail, quite apart from being mono, is not a likely point of entry for classical music novices - more something for seasoned aficionados.
Also, this guide further perpetuates the myth of the 'extra edge that comes from a live performance', a notion popular among professional reviewers but one that I am quite sure wouldn't stand up to scientific scrutiny.
Those tired of the Rattle-ubiquity in the English music press will, however, find it refreshing that he's a rare occurrence in these pages. So are, relatively speaking, historically informed or authentic performances. Yet if the latter are recommended, the choice is often surprising. No McCreesh, Pinnock, Harnoncourt or Gardiner for the Messiah, but Jacobs, who got tepid reviews elsewhere. The Hannover Band for Haydn's Farewell is also an original choice.

In the end, if you are looking for the best recording of a particular work (assuming such a thing exists), I think you are best off checking your own priorities against as many opinions as you can find, not least those here on Amazon. This book adds just another bunch of such opinions, presented in an attractive format, and with some useful musicohistorical background. Nice, certainly, but not a must-have.

Mel Bay Presents 101 Three Chord Songs for Country & Bluegrass Songs For Guitar, Banjo, & Uke

Larry McCabe

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Nice selection of folk tunes 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 3 people found this review helpful.

In 1974, for my first three months of guitar lessons the instructor used a Mel Bay lesson book. To me, Mel Bay is a big name in guitar. And since I had not played since 1980, I really liked the easy three chord songs. I am trying to relearn enough to be able to sing along with my strunning. I saw videos about music legends like Bob Dylan and Cat Stevens. And they just strummed their guitars and sang. Of courze, they wrote their own songs, too.!! But I am just sitting in my living room and strumming and trying to sing along for my personal enjoyment.

Editorial Review:

You need only minimal playing skills and three chords - G, C, and D7 - to accompany each song in this innovative book. This is the perfect book for beginners, casual musicians, and teaching studios. The book is absolutely bursting with an abundance of timeless standards, many of which are rarely found in print. All songs are made playable for folks who play for their own enjoyment. Melody, lyrics, and chords are included for each song. We invite your entire family to enjoy this unique book. It is also an excellent, compact fakebook for pros.

Beethoven: The Music and the Life

Lewis Lockwood

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Total reviews: 11 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

A fresh look at Beethoven's life, career, and milieu highlighting his development as a composer.

In this brilliant portrayal of the world's most famous composer, eminent Beethoven scholar Lewis Lockwood interweaves his subject's musical and biographical dimensions and places them in their historical and artistic contexts. Written for the lay reader, the book describes the special problems Beethoven faced as a highly gifted artist who fulfilled his destiny as Mozart's main successor while remaining a true, rebellious original. It sketches the turbulent personal, historical, political, and cultural frameworks in which Beethoven worked and demonstrates their effects on his music. Finally, it turns to the composer in his last years, with great achievements behind him, surmounting the crisis of finding still further artistic paths by which to continue. Also, by providing glimpses into the composer's sketchbooks and autograph manuscripts, Lockwood allows us to gain substantial insights into Beethoven's compositional methods.

In a publishing first, musically literate readers will find some one hundred notated music examples on a special Web site. 50 illustrations, 8 music examples.

Music, Language, and the Brain

Aniruddh D. Patel

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Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

In the first comprehensive study of the relationship between music and language from the standpoint of cognitive neuroscience, Aniruddh D. Patel challenges the widespread belief that music and language are processed independently. Since Plato's time, the relationship between music and language has attracted interest and debate from a wide range of thinkers. Recently, scientific research on this topic has been growing rapidly, as scholars from diverse disciplines, including linguistics, cognitive science, music cognition, and neuroscience are drawn to the music-language interface as one way to explore the extent to which different mental abilities are processed by separate brain mechanisms. Accordingly, the relevant data and theories have been spread across a range of disciplines. This volume provides the first synthesis, arguing that music and language share deep and critical connections, and that comparative research provides a powerful way to study the cognitive and neural mechanisms underlying these uniquely human abilities.