Understanding the Fundamentals of Music (The Great Courses)

Professor Robert Greenberg
(San Francisco Performances)
Hennepin County Library audiobook 16 discs
genre: non-fiction, music

I liked this less than his classical music course, but it was educational. I was very interested for the first seven discs, then started zoning out when he got to "intervalic profiles," "chromatic collections," "pitch gravity," and the "circle of fifths." He made a comment about assuming that people would listen to the lectures multiple times to really gain an understanding . . . nah.

I loved the early stuff, like the instrument families and timbre. I jotted down the basic tempos - presto (very fast), allegro (fast), andante (moderate), adagio (moderately slow), lento (slow), and largo (very slow). I really am not very good with my knowledge of some of this, so I hope I spelled those all correctly. I made sure my car was parked when I wrote those down!

When he was going on and on about Pythagoras and explaining tones, I just wrote "TMI." It really was a "too much information" course for someone like me. I'm not that passionate about music. I just like it.

Sometimes he's clever and fun. Other times, he's snarky and arrogant. I love these Great Courses and will gladly listen to more!