A Concise Guide to Understanding Music

by Wade, Graham

• ISBN13: 9780786649815
• ISBN10: 078664981X
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-04-01
• Publisher: Mel Bay Pubns

Summary

A Concise Guide to Understanding Music offers guidance on many aspects of musical form, the creative concepts of major composers over the centuries, and developments ranging from early notation to the present day. The book is profusely illustrated and also contains an extensive bibliography as well as detailed lists of compositions for the reader to listen to and enjoy. For those who wish to understand more about all kinds of music, this is the book to help you.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	5	(1)
Foreword	6	(1)
PART I -- THE BASIC ESSENTIALS
The Composer	7	(3)
Sound	10	(4)
The Musical Scale	14	(4)
Plainsong and the Modes	18	(2)
The Development of Scales and Tonality	20	(5)
Melody	25	(1)
Counterpoint	26	(2)
Harmony	28	(1)
PART II -- INSTRUMENTS - NOTATION
The Instruments of Music	29	(3)
Notation	32	(3)
The Revival of Improvisation	35	(1)
Reading Musical Notation	36	(2)
PART III -- MUSICAL FORM
Musical Form	38	(3)
Expectations of Musical Form	41	(2)
Binary and Ternary	43	(3)
PART IV -- MUSIC FOR A PURPOSE
Sacred Music	46	(5)
Music and Words	51	(3)
Music and Movement	54	(4)
PART V -- MUSICAL EXPLORATIONS
The Suite	58	(5)
Rondeau, Rondo	63	(2)
Theme and Variations	65	(3)
Earlier Forms of Variations	68	(2)
The Art of Fugue	70	(1)
The Mechanisms of Fugue	71	(3)
Sonata	74	(4)
The Classical Era	78	(3)
Sonata Form	81	(3)
The Symphony Orchestra in the Concert Hall	84	(2)
The Development of the Symphony	86	(2)
The Symphonies of Haydn	88	(1)
The Symphonies of Mozart and Beethoven	89	(3)
The Continuation of Symphony	92	(2)
Concerto	94	(3)
The Form of the Concerto	97	(4)
The Operas of Mozart and Beethoven	101	(2)
PART VI -- THE 19TH CENTURY
Early 19th Century Romanticism	103	(2)
Schumann, Chopin and Liszt	105	(4)
Hector Berlioz	109	(2)
Opera in the 19th Century	111	(5)
Johannes Brahms	116	(1)
The Music of Nationalism	117	(3)
PART VII -- THE 20TH CENTURY
The Age of Change	120	(3)
Claude Debussy	123	(2)
Maurice Ravel	125	(2)
Erik Satie	127	(1)
Serialism	128	(5)
Spanish Music	133	(3)
Heitor Villa-Lobos	136	(1)
Through Folk Songs to the 20th Century	137	(2)
The Genius of Stravinsky	139	(2)
Composers and Dictators	141	(2)
Charles Ives	143	(2)
Edgard Varese	145	(1)
George Gershwin	146	(1)
Aaron Copland and Samuel Barber	147	(3)
Developments in Italy	150	(2)
Olivier Messiaen	152	(3)
John Cage	155	(3)
British Composers	158	(2)
Witold Lutoslawski	160	(2)
Leonard Bernstein	162	(1)
The Fulfillment of the 20th Century	163	(2)
Pierre Boulez	165	(3)
Gyorgy Ligeti	168	(1)
Karlheinz Stockhausen	169	(2)
Minimalism	171	(1)
The 21st Century	172