Music: An Appreciation

by Roger Kamien

What does it take to make a great performance? It takes great music, a great performer and a great instrument. "Music: An Appreciation" includes some of the greatest music ever created. Roger Kamien's excellence as an interpreter of that music has made his program number one in the market used by over half a million students since its conception. Now, CONNECT Kamien provides the world-class instrument that allows "Music: An Appreciation" to bring great music to his audience in an extraordinary new way. "Music: An Appreciation" is great music, a great interpreter, and a great instrument.

Genres: Music, Textbooks, Nonfiction, School, Reference, Read For School, College

455 pages, Paperback

First published July 31, 2003

Reviews

[Jimyanni · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book purports to be a survey of music from the Middle Ages through the present; as such, it spends rather a lot of space covering music from 450 AD through 1900, and precious little attention on anything that could loosely be considered "modern". It also gives only a short chapter nod-of-the-head to non-western music, with a tiny subchapter on sub-Saharan Africa and a slightly longer subchapter on Indian Classical music and Ravi Shankar. It seems to me that if the desire was to write a text on "classical" music from pre-1900, it would have been better to simply do so and make no attempt to PRETEND to pay any attention to anything more recent, and leave the more recent music to another book entirely. (And yet another one for "Non-Western World Music".) By making vague hand-waving gestures at including recent and non-Western music but doing such a slipshod job of it, the author has seriously weakened his claim to accomplishing what he sets out to do.

To make matters worse, the editing in the book is atrocious for a seventh edition; one would hope that the majority of the careless errors in writing would have been caught by now. Granted, most of the errors occur in the parts of the book that deal with post-1900 music, so perhaps it's a sign that these sections simply weren't considered important enough to bother proofreading; we have such sloppy mistakes as (on page 318) "Bela Bartok...was born Hungary..." (rather than "born IN Hungary" -- I suspect the author was not suggesting that Bartok was born with an appetite, and even if he was, THAT was misspelled), or on page 324, "(George Gershwin's) parents were Russian-Jewish immigrant..." rather than "immigrants", or on 325, "...clarinet solo that stasrts...", or on 330, "His textures clear..." rather than "are clear", or on 334, "...the second movement in calm and lyrical..." rather than "is calm and lyrical". Granted, the total number of errors for the book are not excessive, but when there are five sloppy mistakes in a space of 16 pages, it's a sign of something being wrong.

[Karen Pless Gaines · Rating 5 out of 5]

Although this book was assigned for class, I found it very interesting. I learned things I never knew about music. I would recommend it to anyone who loves history subjects.

[Kelsey Williams · Rating 4 out of 5]

This textbook was great, with incredibly detailed examples for specific music pieces. It covers each period of music, and has a really useful glossary and index. I would have enjoyed it a lot more if my instructor had activated the online Connect music feature that it was written to be used with, but that isn't the books fault.

[O · Rating 4 out of 5]

This lovely book sends one on a musical adventure from Vivaldi to Stravinsky, where one learns to identify unique features of each musical period. Also, there are lovely biographies of some of the greatest musicians of all time.

[Miguel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the textbook I use in Music Appreciation. The music selections are excellent and I really like the listening guides, but it's biggest drawback is that it does not cover jazz in nearly enough detail.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was assigned this book when I took a music course back in college. I thought it was interesting and I liked how it came with a CD to listen to the piece as you read.