source file: mills2.txt Date: Fri, 7 Feb 1997 21:29:44 -0800 Subject: More Interesting Books at Mockingbird Books From: Mark Bradlyn & Claire Sherard First off, we want to thank everyone who called us seeking a copy of Jorgensen's TUNING at the special discounted price. There were fewer than 10 copies available to us at this price, so we were sadly unable to provide this book to anywhere near the number of people who wanted it. The book is still in print and is available new from Michigan State University Press at the $70 (ouch) list price. MSU Press informed us that they have several hundred in stock, but the book will not be reprinted once these sell out. Their order number is: 517 35-9543 The following books are new arrivals at Mockingbird Books and may be of interest to tuning afficionados and/or adventurous composers and musicians. All prices include book rate postage. Quantities are limited. If interested, please call 408 689-9113 10:00 to 2:00 Pacific time 7 days a week. Butler, David THE MUSICIAN'S GUIDE TO PERCEPTION AND COGNITION. (includes CD of 62 listening examples) Schirmer Books 1992 List price $60. Our price $30. An ideal resource for every student and scholar engaged in research in musical perception, cognition, and the psychology of music, describing what we currently know of the psychoacoustical features and cognitive aspects of musical sound, written specifically from a musician's point of view. The book is organized in two parts. Part One explores the "Psychophysics of Musical Sound" and is divided into sections dealing with the sensory attributes of pitch, timbre, loudness, and time and space. Part Two explores the "Mental Representations of Musical Relationships," and is divided into sections dealing with the cognitive aspects of pitch, timbre, and time, and the development of musical cognitive awareness from infancy to adulthood. The book also contains a very helpful glossary that defines such things as the subtle differences among terms such as "harmonic," "overtone," and "tone partial" - terms that seem to cause confusion and misunderstanding in tuning circles. A particularly interesting item in the book is Appendix B: The Humane Treatment of Human Subjects, which begins: "There is often only a thin line between 'stimulation and irritation..." The book concludes with a 16 page bibliography and helpful index. Highly recommended! Slonimsky, Nicholas THESAURUS OF SCALES AND MELODIC PATTERNS Schirmer Books 1975. List price $55.00 Our price $27.50 If you are not familiar with Slonimsky's 1947 masterpiece, you're in for a treat. With well over 1300 different scales and melodic patterns to play with, you might find yourself aswim in new musical ideas. "The purpose of the thesaurus is to provide a comprehensive musical vocabulary of melodic phraseology for modern composers and performers. The contents furnish ample material for imaginative improvisation and actual composition. A special feature is a set of 'master chords' to be used in harmonizing individual scales. The resulting harmonizations create peculiarly resonant impressionistic colors. The materials are classified according to the division of an octave into two, three, four, six, and twelve equal parts, upon which ornamental designs are built by interpolation and extrapolation. The main divisions of the book include Pentatonic Scales, Pandiatonic Progressions, Dodecaphonic Structures, Mirror Interval Series, Melodic Permutations, Plural Scales, Bitonal Arpeggios, Polytonal Polyrhythmic Scales, and Palindromic Canons." Although written with piano players in mind, the possibilities that arise when one considers applying the wealth of ideas in this book to performance on non-equal tempered instruments are mind boggling. "Musical history may be saved from becoming a palindrome through the progress made possible by Slonimsky's THESAURUS." - Henry Cowell Russell, Armand and Trubitt, Allen THE SHAPING OF MUSICAL ELEMENTS Schirmer 1992 2 vols, spiral bound. List price $65.90 Our price $20.00 This is a comprehensive first year course in college music theory. Throughout, this text is concerned with "tension," the principal manifestation of the affective nature of music. Tension patterns in music have direct bearing on the interpretation of that music in performance. The theoretical material covered in this text includes diatonic harmony, borrowed chords, secondary dominants, and leading tone chords, melodic analysis and musical forms from the phrase to the binary and ternary forms and comparable structures. This is not an "easy" theory book, but is aimed at serious students with a bit of fundamental musical knowledge under their belts. Starr, Larry A UNION OF DIVERSITIES - STYLE IN THE MUSIC OF CHARLES IVES Schirmer 1992 List price $35 Our price $17.50 Starr argues that, far from being an eccentric and musically indifferent composer, Ives was genuinely engaged with the most serious and original aesthetic issues of his day. The key to unlocking what his music is about is style: specifically the heterogenity of style within a single work. Stylistic heterogenity shatters our traditional musical expectations and simultaneously creates challenging and unprecedented expressive experiences. This is a new understanding of Ives's extraordinary music based on the fundamental conviction that Ives need not a specialist's composer. Thank you for your interest. Best wishes Mark Bradlyn and Claire Sherard Received: from ns.ezh.nl [137.174.112.59] by vbv40.ezh.nl with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Sat, 8 Feb 1997 07:04 +0100 Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA29761; Sat, 8 Feb 1997 07:03:59 +0100 Received: from ella.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA29724 Received: from by ella.mills.edu via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI) id WAA16790; Fri, 7 Feb 1997 22:02:29 -0800 Date: Fri, 7 Feb 1997 22:02:29 -0800 Message-Id: <32FC109C.6BA8@ix.netcom.com> Errors-To: madole@mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@ella.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@ella.mills.edu