Conventional Wisdom: The Content of Musical Form

Ernest Bloch Lectures

by Susan McClary

With her usual combination of erudition, innovation, and spirited prose, Susan McClary reexamines the concept of musical convention in this fast-moving and refreshingly accessible book. Exploring the ways that shared musical practices transmit social knowledge, Conventional Wisdom offers an account of our own cultural moment in terms of two dominant tonality and blues.McClary looks at musical history from new and unexpected angles and moves easily across a broad range of repertoires--the blues, eighteenth-century tonal music, late Beethoven, and rap. As one of the most influential trailblazers in contemporary musical understanding, McClary once again moves beyond the borders of the "purely musical" into the larger world of history and society, and beyond the idea of a socially stratified core canon toward a musical pluralism.

Those who know McClary only as a feminist writer will discover her many other sides, but not at the expense of gender issues, which are smoothly integrated into the general argument. In considering the need for a different way of telling the story of Western music, Conventional Wisdom bravely tackles big issues concerning classical, popular, and postmodern repertoires and their relations to the broader musical worlds that create and enjoy them.

Genres: Music, Nonfiction

219 pages, Paperback

First published April 9, 2000

Reviews

[Jeffrey · Rating 5 out of 5]

A remarkable book, 'Conventional Wisdom' explores the rise of tonality in tandem with the Enlightenment and its unique form of rationality. It's crucial to understand the context in which music theory, particularly regarding tonality, form, and convention, has been and continues to be taught. McClary astutely points out that the emergence of certain musical conventions was not based on a universal form, but rather was specific and contingent on the circumstances of the composers and the cultures they were embedded within. The conventions of tonality taught in college music classes, which often portray these conventions as inevitable and universal, are in fact cultural productions.

McClary emphasizes that music creation is a negotiation of the past and present, influenced by the desires and needs that shape the future. This perspective challenges the traditional understanding of music theory and highlights the importance of cultural context in shaping musical conventions.

[Liz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating.