Lies My Music Teacher Told Me

by Gerald Eskelin

Book Overview

A number of musical misconceptions are explored and exploded in this humourous and lucid discussion of the relation between the human perception of music and traditional systems of music education.... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1886209111
• ISBN13: 9781886209114
• Release Date: November 1994
• Publisher: Stage Three Publishing
• Length: 176 Pages
• Weight: 0.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 5.3" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

food for thought...

This is, by no means, the book that you read to help you understand theory. However, once you get past the ego and name dropping of Gerald, he actually has some really great thoughts about the how and why we teach certain things certain ways. Good food for thought book, but definately not the gospel of modern theory and teaching methods. This book caused me to challenge my own assumptions of music, harmony and rhythm.

This book will surprize you!

This book will surprize you! My initial impression, based on the title alone, was "Oh no, not another one of those books". But as I thumbed through it, I was pulled in by some real "truths" that I was aware of (such as well-tempered vs. "natural" tuning). I think that the explanations are quite clear and presented in a straight-forward and interesting way. There is some real theory in there such as the Hindemith concept of intervals and the tritone theory for key identification (for the technically inclined)I can see from comments by other reviewers that there were some objections that really amount to differences in style and delivery ("eccentric"?) rather than content. I personally found the author's sometime glib comments and interesting sidetracks rather refreshing. Let's be honest, this topic can be dead-dull if not mixed in with some lightness and humour- which probably explains why the thornier matter of musical theory is usually relegated to graduate seminars and dusty textbooks! As both a scientist and musician, I think this book achieves it's goal in an interesting and informative way by trying to make critical concepts of music theory accessible and relevant to music as we hear it. It does this by challenging the crutches of the well-tempered piano and the limits of musical notation. Like anything in life, you can get out of this book what you want. You can read it as a expose of "lies", or as an attempt to make music relevant to how we really hear it- which is what I think the author tries to communicate. It's up to you!

Caution when reading other posted reviews of this book.

... The book itself, while certainly not flawless, was helpful to me in that it dispelled several myths that are passed on by music teachers, both public school teachers and private instructors. I know college graduates with music degrees who can not correctly discuss the concept (and impact) of tempered tuning. This book tells you all you need to know about tempered tuning: why it exists, how it affects us, how to test this for yourself, and how to experience the joy of non-tempered music (which one "reviewer" suggests is an "ad" for the author's group!)My suggestion: Read the book, not the reviews.Dave Davis.

A book to be read.

Gerald Eskelin's book is one the most fascinating books on theory I've read. The title may seduce the neophyte reader (from New York) into reading this book. You have to have been around to know what the lies are. If you expect to read this book and catch your teacher in the lies, you won't have the knowledge to explain, and probably your teacher is too ignorant to understand. I've learned most (99%) of my music from books and teachers, which explains why I am not musical! I recommend this book to anyone who good with the theory, but has as suspicion that there is more to music than what they've been told or read.

An excellent alternate to the standard perspective on theory

Dr. Eskelin's book is a fairly comprehensive explanation of the theory of music. It's different from the other books on this topic I have read in that it starts by throwing out most of what most schools teach of music theory. Instead, it begins "at the beginning," with very basic facts about human perception and the physics of producing sound, and follows an unusual but cogent route to a deeper understanding of music. As a lifelong student of music (and recently-turned-professional performer), I was delighted to find this new perspective filling in a number of little holes in my understanding... and challenging me to reconsider some of the ideas I had about music and which I never thought about very deeply. I recommend it highly for those who find value in multiple perspectives on the subject of music theory!