Classical Music for Dummies |
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This book is also available, brand-new, from 3rd-party marketplace sellers at Amazon.com, from $8.24.
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Editorial Review / Publisher's Information:
Product Description
The more you know about classical music, the more you love it. Now, thanks to Classical Music For Dummies, you can achieve a whole new level of insight into both the composers and the compositions that have made classical music one of the great accomplishments of humankind. Classical Music For Dummies doesn't assume that you have a degree in musicology -- or even that you took a course in music appreciation. Rather, the multimedially gifted David Pogue and renowned conductor Scott Speck explain classical music in terms you can understand, and they describe musical elements so that you can hear them for yourself. A reference you can dip into at any point, Classical Music For Dummies covers such topics as - The various forms that classical music takes -- from symphonies to string quartets
- What goes on behind the scenes and on stage to fill a concert hall with great classical music
- How to recognize, by sight and by sound, the many instruments that make up an orchestra
- The nuts and bolts of classical music -- from rhythm to harmonic progression
Plus, Classical Music For Dummies comes complete with a CD containing over 60 minutes of masterpieces compiled especially for the book. The CD also includes a demo version of the Angel/EMI Classics For DummiesTM multimedia interface to try out on your Windows-based PC or Macintosh computer.
Amazon.com Review
In a time when school music classes (if they exist at all) teach their students the finer points of the themes from The Twilight Zone and Jaws instead of real music; when classical radio stations are converted to Lite Rock or switched to a "top 100" classical jukebox format; and when even churches increasingly favor banal "Jesus Is My Boyfriend"-style slop instead of Bach, Mozart, and Vaughn Williams, classical music may legitimately be seen as an endangered cultural species. Enter Scott Speck and David Pogue, who take out the unnecessary mystery, and offer an easy-to-swallow quickie education, ranging from Gregorian chants to contemporary composers such as John Adams and John Corigliano. If you can't tell an oboe from a bassoon, there's also a dandy guide to the instruments of the orchestra, and once you're through that information you'll know the difference between a concerto and a sonata. Best of all is the introduction to music theory, which actually makes a daunting subject seem easy. It's all supported by a helpful enhanced compact disc (it works in your CD-ROM drive; it plays on your stereo's CD player) containing more than an hour of representative musical tidbits from good EMI recordings. Although the tone is unremittingly flippant and the jokes are, for the most part, pretty bad, Classical Music for Dummies is one of the better works in this series, and really does provide a useful reference for a subject too often seen as arcane.
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Customer Reviews:
• Highly Recommended
29 December, 2009
After liking classical music for 30 years, this book has made listening to and understanding classical music even more enjoyable.
- Amazon Customer Review
• Pleasantly Surprised
06 January, 2010
This was one of those I sort of HAD to read ,and expected to be boring. But I learned more about music in the process, not just classical music. It just kept surprising me with it's entertaining, yet informative stuff I never expected. Maybe it was just something I needed at the time, because (if you read my other reviews) I'm usually VERY critical.
- Amazon Customer Review
• Perfect
22 January, 2009
This book is perfect for beginners who enjoy listening to classical music and trying to understand it. If you want to learn about the things you should know before listening to classical music then this book is just for you.
- Amazon Customer Review
• One Of The Best Dummies Books Ever
30 September, 2009
I've read many of the dummies books and Classical Music for Dummies is now my favorite. Prior to that, DOS for dummies was the best that I had read and that was back in 1998. This book is packed with great info and tons of listening suggestions. Thanks to this book I'm listening to Debussy's La Mer right now and I probably would have never known about this wonderful piece of music had I not bit the bullet and bought this book. Don't listen to the reviews that say that the humor is overpowering. Those reviews are coming from stuffy snobs that have no sense of humor. The humor in this book makes it an absolute page turner. Its fun when you're reading serious material for five or ten minutes and then along comes a zinger. The nicest surprise about this book is that I learned far more than I thought I would being that I have a pretty solid musical background being a guitar player.
- Amazon Customer Review
• Pretty Good
30 December, 2009
These same authors wrote Opera for Dummies, a book I enjoyed very much. So I gave this one a try too.
The pluses:
I enjoyed the sections on the composers, their lives, and their notable works, as well as the section on the instruments in the orchestra and the personality types that play them. I also liked that the authors go into the definitions and structures of symphonies, sonatas, concertos, etc.
The minuses:
Much of the material in this book is identical to that in Opera for Dummies. But then of course you can't blame the authors for not re-writing the biographies of the composers for each separate book. But the thing I was most disappointed in was the very large musical theory section in this book. I felt this would be more suited to a "Music for Dummies" book. It's not necessarily necessary to understand music theory in order to appreciate classical music. I would have liked more biographies of lesser known composers; or more discussions of particularly famous works of classical music.
All in all I appreciate the approachable nature of this book.
- Amazon Customer Review
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