Description

Designed for a one-semester musical fundamentals course, From Sound to Symbol: Fundamentals of Music clearly covers all essential topics, but with a unique, "sound-to-symbol" approach that explores concepts through the sound of music before explaining how symbols are used to represent that sound. Reversing the pedagogical perspective of traditional music theory texts, the authors work from the premise that students should first intuitively comprehend musical sounds, and then link this knowledge to an understanding of musical symbols and theory. Recent research in music perception and cognition suggests that using this "perceptual orientation" is an effective means of teaching both musical thought and knowledge.
The text's most innovative feature is an early and continuous focus on active music-making, which is supported by workbook exercises. Using discovery learning and collaborative learning techniques, it teaches students how to develop their perception of sound through kinesthetic, aural, and visual methods. The authors incorporate numerous examples and activities for developing musicianship skills at progressive levels of difficulty; marginal icons direct students to exercises in music theory, sight reading melodies and rhythms, improvisation and composition, ensemble singing, and keyboard performance. By employing a repertoire that is simple and easy to sing or play, From Sound to Symbol gives students the opportunity to actively engage in the learning process and to easily internalize the concepts and elements inherent in the music. A fold-out, laminated keyboard is packaged with each text.

SUPPLEMENTS:
Audio CD
Each text is packaged with an audio CD that includes all the focus melodies in the text, recorded in both vocal and instrumental versions.
Technology CD
Each text also comes with a CD-ROM that provides tutorials for chapter review, theory exercise drills, and dictation exercises.
Instructor's Manual
Available to adopters, this manual includes lesson plans, teaching tips on learning assessment, tutorials that interface with the CD-ROM, additional aural and written dictation examples for each chapter, and suggestions for scoring tests.

Reviews

"From Sound to Symbol reveals many positive features. The scope and pacing of the chapters seems practical and suitable. The textbook covers all relevant topics effectively without dwelling on them unnecessarily. . . . The book is easy to read; the theoretical concepts are illustrated by appropriate musical examples; it contains plenty of exercises and drills; and it is accompanied by a user-friendly technology CD. A most attractive package!"--Max Lifchitz, State University of New York at Albany

"The material is very well organized. . . . The detail and style are unquestionably appropriate for my students, who span a wide range of experience and learning styles. I think the novel approach--active music-making first--is musically superior."--Jeff Donovick, St. Petersburg College

"Finally, a fundamentals textbook that pays attention to the development of musicianship skills, including listening, singing, playing, group interaction, etc. Concepts are introduced in a natural way, through actual listening, discovering, observing, and music making. . . . The authors' writing style is excellent and very appropriate for my students. Explanations are very clear, and the text is not too wordy . . . I will definitely be recommending this book to my colleagues."--Nico Schuler, Texas State University

"A compelling feature [of the text] is the sound-to-symbol approach, which I believe will keep students more engaged and boost overall comprehension and retention of concepts and skills. I also like the fact that a solid foundation is built for Aural Skills training and such useful skills as transposition."--Jonathan McNair, University of Tennessee-Chattanooga

"The book's main philosophical position (that music is an experience in sound and that learning should proceed from this point) is profoundly interesting and seems intuitively correct to me."--Ed Pearsall, University of Texas at Austin

"The instructor's manual contains many good ideas and resources. It's much more useful than many instructor manuals that I've seen. This makes the book particularly good for first-time teachers."--Michael Berry, Texas Tech University

About the Author(s)

Companion Resources

The following resources are available from the "From Sound to Symbol" companion site: