Aaron Copland’s What to Listen for in Music

I wish I had more musical knowledge when reading this book. There were many terms I didn’t understand. In class I learned some things that helped me to understand the book but some of the material was over my head. I tried to look up some of the terms I did not understand, in the dictionary, but perhaps I needed some sort of music dictionary for those terms because there were quite a few of them that I could not locate. The vocabulary section in the textbook provided some assistance but there were still some terms that I could not find. It is hard to believe that this book was intended for the layperson. I can’t imagine being able to understand too much of the musical jargon without some sort of music knowledge. I think if I could read music and I cou

I enjoyed learning about the three different types of composers that were identified by the book. The first type mentioned was the spontaneously inspired composer. This is the type of composer I had imagined, the type that the music just flowed freely from. This type can’t seem to write the music down fast enough. The second type of composer was the constructive type. Mr. Copland states, “This type exemplifies my theory of the creative process in music better than any other, because in this case the composer really does begin with a musical theme” (21). Constructive type composers begin with a theme, hatch it into an idea and on top of that they construct the musical work. The third type of composer is the traditionalist type. This type of composer usually came along when the musical style was about at its peak; then improved upon it by changing it in a way that had never before been attempted.

ld play an instrument, this book would have been much easier to comprehend.

Aaron Copland’s What to Listen for in Music was a very informative book. Mr. Copland gives his readers very thorough descriptions of many musical terms and ideas. I think this book would be a little too advanced for the layperson though. A person who was not familiar with some aspects of music and its elements would have a difficult time grasping some of the information provided. This book would have been much easier to understand had there been some CDs included. I think it would have also been beneficial to include a comprehensive vocabulary section to reference when necessary. Overall, I found this book to be a very important part of our class. Many of the concepts learned in class were discussed in greater detail in Mr. Copland’s book, which all in all really helped me to have a better understanding of listening to music.

Readers would have benefited greatly had there been a CD or cassette with some of the recommended recordings on it. Although I did make it a point to listen to as many of the suggested tunes as possible, it was very difficult for me to make it out to the college and check them out. I work two jobs, have two kids and am taking full college units and it is virtually impossible to find the kind of time I would need to listen to all or even half of the suggestions. The problem wasn’t the time it actually took to listen to the

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