The Sense of Music

by Victor Zuckerkandl

This book is addressed to the listener whose enjoyment of music is filled with questions and whose curiosity makes him eager to grasp the sense of music, despite a lack of theoretical training. Unlike the usual listener's guide, which begins with a discussion of the elementary materials of music, this book starts with the elementary experiences of listening.

Genres: Music, Nonfiction, Philosophy

255 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 1967

About the author

Viktor was a Jewish-Austrian musicologist.

His doctorate was granted in 1927 from Vienna University, having earlier studied under Richard Robert. He conducted freelance throughout the decade of the 1920s. He was a critic for Berlin newspapers from 1927 to 1933 and taught theory and appreciation courses in Vienna from 1934 to 1938. He emigrated to the US in 1940, teaching at Wellesley College until 1942, when he took a job as a machinist in the war effort. From 1946 to 1948 he taught theory at The New School in New York, and joined the faculty at St. John's College, Annapolis in 1948. He remained at St. John's, teaching music as part of their Great Books program, until his retirement in 1964.

His explanations of music theory were heavily indebted to the theories of musicologist Heinrich Schenker, and his understandings of musical perception owed much to Gestalt psychology, as well as German phenomenology. Zuckerkandl believed music was part of the "mystical aspect of human existence", and sought to explain its existence in all cultures as a universal phenomenon. He was not well known until scholars rediscovered his works in the 1990s.

Reviews

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Extraordinary. One can hardly imagine a richer presentation of the fundamentals of music than this. Concerned above all with training listeners to appreciate the multi-layered dynamism of tonal materials and forms, Zuckerkandl brilliantly takes readers through the fundamentals of melody, texture, structure, and harmony. The inquisitive tone and philosophical depth of Zuckerkandl’s book make for a stimulating reading that might challenge even an expert’s understanding of the basics. The informal aural exercises are also extremely well designed and integrated into the exposition. Unfortunately, however, this is a masterpiece without a home. Too advanced for the undergraduate music appreciation students for which it was intended, and too holistic for music theory classes, “The Sense of Music”’s longevity depends on a shrinking class: the non-musician who can read music. Pity. This is one of the best books I’ve read about music.

[Greg · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is certainly a textbook, and not a great one.
I learned the very basic elements of counterpoint from this book and little else, and then proceeded to not learn dick otherwise since.
My little experience with other "music books" was generally negative compared to this.
However, I have very little to talk about theoretically with musicians because the language here is unlike anything else out there.

[Mark · Rating 2 out of 5]

A fuddy duddy work on fuddy duddy music by a fuddy duddy that hardly made a bit of a diff in how my own mind (personally) manages to make sense of music. The book is full of a lot of diagrammatic and structural emphases, which I am sure is a great help (especially if you 're a person who's a facile sight-reader, which I am not) for those of the academic bent. I am sure in its time it was once highly regarded, as was Zuckerandl, but rock and roll has changed the world, and with it, swept out a lot of meaningless, mostly unnecessary stuff from the highbrow balconies. Music still manages to get made and great music as well, and as an art form, the parameters of orchestra music are changing also. I am sure that the author would be quite at sea with most of what's come down the pike since the publication, but they might not even consider much of modern music since that time to be "music" at all. People like them rarely did. Only now (& half a century later) are people like the Beatles or Grateful Dead getting their just due. The book fails for me because it chooses quite a few difficult means of explaining certain musical "rules" that I've often seen done in more "easily congnified" ways.
I'll say one thing in favor of the book, at one point, Zuckerkandl says (to but paraphrase) that nobody sits down to create music from the outside in, that is, nobody takes a form and structure and then fills in the foreground. Structure and form are, generally, things people come back to discovering in a work once it's been out there and disseminated, and can be deconstructed by "the so-called experts.". But none of that goes on in a composer's head while he's actually writing something. Much of that is just picking melodies out of the air, or wherever it is the muse dictates them from, and tones are selected for harmonic reasons that tend to do with sections and players and the actual texture of varying combinations. I couldn't get much from this book, but yet I'm sure there's many many others who would.

[Ray · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was an interesting way to learn music and I enjoyed it. There were sections that I did not agree with and other sections that did not seem to make much sense. But overall, it was insightful and effective.

[Jackson Snyder · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really cool introduction to music theory. Changed the way I listen to music. Not at all a difficult read, if you like music I recommend. Definitely better if you know how to play piano (I do not) because most of the examples are lines from classical pieces but they can all be found easily online.

[Erik · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a good introduction to tonal theory for non-musicians. It is probably too basic for those who have studied music theory, although it was a good refresher for one who has not done a harmonic analysis for quite some time. Zuckerkandl probably over-relies on Schenker, which is understandable given the common practice music he writes about. Also, his use of the term "dynamic" to refer to tonal (or modal) impulse is problematic, as there is already a musical use of the term, but he is a clear writer, so the reader should not be confused as to what he means by the term.

[Trey Kennedy · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best way to learn about music, especially for those who have good ears.

[Kristi · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not terrible, not memorable. Helpful to navigate the terrain of counterpoint and basic musical analysis.