Listening to Music

Develops and refines the listening skills of your students. This title covers traditional Western music from medieval to modern. It discusses musical examples from each historical period within their social context, giving students a broad sense of not only the construction of a piece, but also its historical and cultural meaning.

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The only music appreciation text on the market to include listening exercises throughout the book, "Listening to Music, Sixth Edition", masterfully develops and refines the listening skills of your students. Acclaimed for unparalleled clarity and accuracy, Wright succinctly covers traditional Western music from medieval to modern. Musical examples from each historical period are discussed within their social context, giving students a broad sense of not only the construction of a piece, but also its historical and cultural meaning. Concluding chapters discuss popular music and its impact on musical globalization, and music from East Asia, the Near East, Africa, the Caribbean, and Latin America, drawing comparisons between Western and non-Western musical cultures. This chronological text actively develops listening skills in three important ways: First, "Listening to Music" includes detailed Listening Exercises throughout the book.
These easy-to-grade exercises help students focus on important musical elements and episodes; by providing these exercises in the book, Craig Wright (who teaches music appreciation and uses these exercises himself) frees instructors to spend time on other aspects of class preparation. Second, a free "Introduction to Listening" CD comes packaged with each copy of the text. This CD plays all of the music and musical examples for the listening exercises in Part One, which introduces music fundamentals. Third, Active Listening Guides with streaming music and listening quizzes are available from the Schirmer Cengage Learning premium website to further challenge and test your students. For the first time, the text's companion site links to a complete online course taught by Craig Wright at Open Yale Courses, an open-access selection of introductory courses taught by distinguished teachers and scholars at Yale University. The courses include exciting live in-class performances and demonstrations!