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1
Every song ever (2016)
Published
Ratliff organizes the book by qualities you can hear across genres. Try the chapter on quiet and intimacy with two recordings that sound very different. Listen for what makes each feel close, such as an exposed breath, a room you can hear around the instruments, or the gap between notes.
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How to listen to jazz (2016)
6.0/10on Open Library
Published
Gioia helps you find a way into a jazz performance before you know all the names or styles. Try following the drummer or bassist for a chorus instead of staying with the soloist. Once you can hear the pulse they set up, it’s easier to notice when a phrase leans against it or when the whole group responds.
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Dilla Time (2022)
8.7/10on Open Library
Published
Charnas uses diagrams to make J Dilla’s approach to timing easier to hear. Put on the Pharcyde’s “Runnin’” and keep a steady beat with your hand. Listen to where the drums sit against it. The book gives you a way to describe why a beat can feel loose and still hold together.
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What to Listen for in Music (1939)
8.7/10on Open Library
Published
Copland takes listeners through melody, rhythm, harmony, and the larger shapes they make. With a piece you already know, listen for the return of a theme and notice whether the same instruments carry it. It’s an approachable starting point if an orchestral piece makes sense moment by moment but its overall shape is hard to hear.
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Listen to this (2010)
6.0/10on Open Library
Published
Start with “Chacona, Lamento, Walking Blues,” the essay on bass lines that turn up in different musical worlds. Ross’s companion audio guide gives you examples to play alongside the chapter. Follow the lowest notes first and hear how different music can grow around a familiar bit of motion.
More about Listen to this6
How Music Works (2012)
7.6/10on Open Library
Published
Byrne asks how rooms and recording methods shape the music people make. Try listening to a busy passage for the space between the sounds. In a reverberant room, the tail of one note can run into the next, while a drier recording can leave each attack clear. It’s an inviting way into the chapters on places and recording.
More about How Music Works7
The Meaning of Soul
Lordi listens for ad-libs, falsetto, and false endings as part of how soul singers make meaning. Try the chapter on false endings and stay with a recording after the first point that sounds like a finish. What the performer does with that extra time can be as revealing as the song’s main refrain.
More about The Meaning of Soul8
Listening in Detail (2013)
Published
Vazquez treats the small sounds in Cuban performances as worth lingering over. Her discussion of Dámaso Pérez Prado’s signature grunt is a place to start. Hear it in relation to the band’s accents and ask what that brief sound adds to the arrangement. This is a close study with a few recordings to return to.
More about Listening in Detail9
Deep Listening (2005)
Published
Oliveros gives you exercises for listening to the whole sound around you and for focusing on one part of it. Play a track and let the room around it come into your attention too. Then follow just one instrument. The move between those two kinds of attention is something you can practice almost anywhere.
More about Deep Listening10
On Repeat (2013)
Published
The opening chapter describes how a short bit of speech can start to sound sung when you hear it looped. Try the same kind of attention on a repeated passage in a record. Notice whether you follow a different part on the next pass. This is a research book, with a particularly approachable doorway in that listening illusion.
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This Is Your Brain on Music (2006)
8.0/10on Open Library
Published
Levitin explains basic musical ingredients for readers who don’t read scores. Timbre is a good one to try by ear. Compare a piano and a guitar playing the same pitch, then listen for how differently the note starts and fades. That kind of distinction helps when two instruments are playing in the same register.
More about This Is Your Brain on Music12
Perfecting Sound Forever (2009)
8.7/10on Open Library
Published
Milner traces a disagreement about whether a recording should capture a performance or build an experience of its own. His account includes King Tubby and Jamaican dub. Try listening to a dub mix for what disappears and what lingers as an echo. The mix itself starts to sound like part of the performance.
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Music as social life (2008)
Published
Turino distinguishes performances built for an audience from music made for people to join. In his examples of American old-time music, ask what makes the beat or tune easy for another person to pick up. It gives you a different way to listen to repetition if you’re used to hearing it as a feature of a recording.
More about Music as social life14
Reggaeton
The opening essays connect the music of Puerto Rico and Panama with sounds circulating from Jamaica and elsewhere. Follow the drum pattern across two recordings, paying attention to what stays recognizable when the voices and other sounds change. Marshall’s essay on the move from música negra to reggaeton is a good place to begin.
More about Reggaeton15
Soul Covers (2007)
Published
Read the chapter on Aretha Franklin’s tribute to Dinah Washington with both singers in reach. Try their versions of “Unforgettable” and listen for where each singer stretches a word or leaves room for the accompaniment. Awkward considers how a singer can show what she learned from a predecessor while making the song her own.
More about Soul Covers16
Ocean of Sound (1995)
8.0/10on Open Library
Published
Toop’s account of ambient sound moves between composed music and recordings of places. When a piece seems to sit still, listen for what changes at the edges. A distant sound can move forward in your attention even when the louder parts hardly change. It’s a good book for nights when you’d rather follow a texture than a tune.
More about Ocean of Sound17
Will You Take Me as I Am (2009)
Published
Mercer uses interviews with Joni Mitchell to follow her songwriting through Blue and the albums that followed in the first half of the 1970s. Put on “Carey” and listen to the bright sound of Mitchell’s dulcimer against the bass. The book and the record together make it easier to hear how much feeling a spare arrangement can carry.
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