Patricia:  What a GREAT question!!!  But from my recent experience, good luck finding ANY textbook for a $50 limit.  It's been many years since I read the Copland, but my immediate reaction is that you want something much more general--say a typical Music Appreciation approach for the demographic you're talking about.

 

I like the idea of a single large work, though, since such a work will give you from 4 to 7 movements--in effect different pieces.  My question would be whether YOU know the work well enough to zero in immediately on the various focal points that are really important to understand, and then to build from that to the overall shape and emotioanl impact of each movement.  But remember that you CANNOT count on your students being able to read music, so this HAS to be a listening experience and not a score study experience.

 

All the best, and please DO let us know what you decide.  (I'm especially interested because I'm teaching Music Appreciation for the first time this semeseter, and it's even a totally on-line course with NO face to face class meetings.  So far I'm upbeat about it, but we'll see.)

John

If the course is about "how to listen" to music, why would you want a book?  For such a topic, wouldn't it be better to use the time to listen to something together, suggest how one might learn to hear more in it, and listen to the same music a second time?  You might focus one time on a piece that focuses on melody, another on one that is appropriate for harmony, another on counterpoint, another on tonality and modulation, another on timbre, etc.

 

But I'd suggest that it might be best to avoid vocal or choral music in such an introductory course -- that is, music that involves a text.  For one thing, words can distract the ear from musical processes and functions, and for another, most people by now have learned to associate "music" with "songs" and assume that music must have words attached.  You might want to disabuse your class of this misperception.

 

And if you want them to use their $50 limit, maybe have them buy a score or two and help them learn to read.  And/or a CD or two.

 

Best regards,

Jerome Hoberman

 

Music Director/Conductor, The Hong Kong Bach Choir & Orchestra

Principal Conductor, Baguio Cathedral International Music Festival (Philippines)

If you are thinking classical music, believe it or not "Classical Music for Dummies" by David Pogue is actually pretty good, provides a decent assortment of both excerpts and full pieces on CD, and despite the title, is not condescending. I beleive there is also an "enhanced" version (my guess is that it includes more examples). The basic book and CD is available for less than $20 online. There are similar genre guides for different genres.

 

As a basic guide, I still think Copland's book is the best introduction, but it's really dry. Having thought about offering a listening course to high school students, I came to the conclusion that there was no one really good guide that would do what I wanted it to, but that you'd need to piece a written narrative together from several sources.

 

Mike
 

John - good luck.  As you remember, I love (and often refer students to) your online summaries of Stolba.

 

Patricia, I agree with Jerome.  Spend the $50 on a year subscription to Naxos - last I checked it was 19.99 which allows a user to stream anything from the Naxos catelog for a year.  There's something like 5000 cd's (I'm guessing, but it's a LOT). With the extra 30, have a party at the end. 

 

I'd suggest starting with the most programmatic of music - that are very literal in their portrayal (have a followable story, musically) - like Till Eulenspiegal, or Symphonie Fantastique, or Appalachian Spring, or  or . . .

 

Then go with concepts - maybe - meter (march=2/4, waltz=3/4, tarantella = fast 6/8).  Harmony - take the same melody with different harmonizations (even the star spangled banner has some of those, or somewhere over the rainbow, or many jazz standards - done as straight, latin, swing, etc.) 

 

For me - rather than going period by period, I'd work in the various periods almost as an afterthought - in other words - you'll have some chant (in a module on flowing melody perhaps), renaissance (for suspensions maybe), classical (standard phrase lengths), baroque (sequence, incessant rhythm, etc.)

 

If you go the "old fashioned way" - by period, those people who are less enthralled with whatever period you're on, have to stick it out to get to a period they like.  By organizing it by concepts, they skip around.

 

Aside - I'm working on a music tied to emotion project right now.  I am a member of emusic - paying 11.99 for 30 downloads a month, so I use it a lot to get tracks of stuff I want.  I just downloaded an album (they are only considered 12 downloads no matter how many tracks.) which has about 60 selections on it - covering the gamut, from the Hallelujah chorus, to Clair de lune, including Wagner, Grieg, Sibelius, Rimsy-Korsakov - a basic library to draw someone into classical music.  It's called "Classical music for the New Age"  Classical Masters label (I think?)

 

my 2 cents.

Gary

Hi Patricia -

 

I've taught music appreciation at the college level for over 20 years and none of the book/CD combinations I've used (Kamien, Kerman, Wright and Machlis/Forney most often) are under $50. One book that has a lot of active listening exercises, including making music and not just listening, is Musical Involvement by Funes and Squires (if it's still in print). It's a small paperback and looks as though it has CD's with it, but you could probably supply many of the examples from your own collection if buying a set is too expensive.

If this is a community/continuing education class affiliated with a college, are there materials available through the campus library? I'm currently listening to Robert Greenberg's How to Listen to and Understand Great Music, an audio course from The Teaching Company that my campus owns. It's pretty entertaining and he doesn't try to cover everything, just the major things in some depth. It's also available on DVD, so you might be able to use some of that for class presentations and supplement with other materials that you can hand out.

My courses are not for music majors, so many of my students don't read music, or read very little, but I always, always make sure they  ha ve music in their hands as much as possible, beyond the examples in their books. Music I borrow from the campus choral groups, for example, or from CPDL, even if theycan't read every note, gives them a much better idea of what they are listening to.

There are some general interest books that might work too, the "building a record library" kind of thing. NPR has one and I'm sure there are others. Clearly you won't want to go through those page by page (Babbitt, followed by Bach, followed by Barber ??!!) but since they are geared to the interested non-professional, they might work. Good luck, have fun and let me know what you decide to use.

 

Jim Davis

Patricia, I agree with Gary - staying away from music categorized by the time periods will be more interesting and thus easier to learn (for most I'd think). It was awesome to go through college learning that historical way and still understand and perform the basic elements of music with an aesthetic view (melody, harmony, rhythm, timbre, tone, expression...). But, as I try to understand all non-music majors (in an effort to teach them), don't we most want to pass on the ability to experience music, understand and hear as much as possible, with the technical aspects and ability to use proper terminology being last on the totem pole?

 

Forgive me if I'm being too dreamy and idealistic. I tend to think this world could spend some time being right-brained every once and a while :) I also realize we are the only ones aware of these decisions we need to make and, if you know you're audience, you'll know better than I what they'd prefer (especially with technology).

 

Sounds like fun! Enjoy!

 

Jeff Caulk

Hello Patricia,

 

I guess it depends if the students are taking this class just to have fun, or whether they would really like to delve into learning facts and the history of music in addition to learning how to listen to music.  I like the book "Listening to Music' by Craig Wright as I find it's a very easy read yet has lots of useful information at the same time.  Amazon has lots of them second hand for less than $50 if the students would be ok with that.  

 

I like some people's ideas of just listening to music during class as well. Though thinking of myself, I wouldn't be content with just that, I would like to have something concrete that I could refer back to after the class is over and be able to read more if I so desire. 

 

 

Anyway, you're getting a lot of great ideas, so good luck on deciding which course of action to take! :) 

 

Lorraine