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Rating: 
Summary: no
Review: ... 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.
Rating: 
Summary: An Excentric Education
Review: G. Eskelin is an excentric individual who might not be that hard to dislike. However, of his thoughts on music, they are a refreshing journey away from the thought that, "...those who can't, teach..." His ideas on how music should be tought, (however anal they might be) have some SERIOUS merit to them. I would recomend this book to any well educated musician who wants to break out of the mold of the "public school" type of music.
Rating: 
Summary: not heresy
Review: I'm giving this a star more than I think it really deserves as a reward for being just a book, not a book plus CD or a book plus tape or a book plus video. I think it's sad that our society is steadily becoming less literate (and I don't think we can blame this on technological "progress"--rather, it's a matter of intellectual laziness), but if you don't care for books, then don't read them; it isn't reasonable to fault books for being books. "Lies..." is not "heresy"; it's just muddled and confused. "The music education establishment" is a strawman and a red herring: no one feels threatened by "Lies...". This sentence, "a scale is a group of notes centered on (above and below) a root note", is particularly unfortunate because the terms "root" and "tonic" are commonly confused by beginning amateur pop musicians. Scales are categorically NOT "centered" on a root; they are centered on a TONIC. CHORDS, not scales, are built on a root.
Rating: 
Summary: self taught musician
Review: i've learned by ear most everything i know about music. chord theory, sight reading, etc has always bored me. this book was as exciting as anything i've ever read, fiction or non. i know infinitely more than i knew a week ago and i feel much more musical. this book is for people who really care about making music vs those who want to pose as elitists.
Rating:
Summary: the pot calling the kettle black
Review: Sorry, I don't see this as heterodox or controversial or even as an alternative to a traditional pedagogical approach. There is nothing objectionable or provoking about its theses in general, it's just that it gets its facts, big and little, wrong a significant amount of the time. Still, I'd cut it some slack and give it two stars, except that it constantly calls itself superior to other forms of instruction. (I can't imagine, by the way, what an accompaning CD could have on it that would be useful. I think we should let books be books, and if you aren't content with books, then don't read books.) On more thing: A scale is NOT centered on a root; a scale is centered on a TONIC. Chords have roots; scales do not have roots.
Rating:
Summary: not heresy
Review: This book is heresy! That's why you should consider buying it. It's not consistent in clarity or style, but it does very effectively present an argument that we can teach our selves and our children **musicality** (my term, not the author's) in a manner that is different from the traditional approach to teaching music. Some gems: we first learn the fundamentals of rhythm from walking; a scale is a group of notes centered on (above and below) a root note. To some these observations will seem trivial, but to me they were deep and absorbing. Sometimes it's not clear whether the author's audience is other music teachers, musicians, or frustrated music students; it does suffer from serving multiple purposes. Even so, I could not set it down. I wish that it was sold with a companion CD -- that would have been worth a fifth star!
Rating:
Summary: Finally, a "counterpoint" to the traditional approach
Review: This book is heresy! That's why you should consider buying it. It's not consistent in clarity or style, but it does very effectively present an argument that we can teach our selves and our children **musicality** (my term, not the author's) in a manner that is different from the traditional approach to teaching music. Some gems: we first learn the fundamentals of rhythm from walking; a scale is a group of notes centered on (above and below) a root note. To some these observations will seem trivial, but to me they were deep and absorbing. Sometimes it's not clear whether the author's audience is other music teachers, musicians, or frustrated music students; it does suffer from serving multiple purposes. Even so, I could not set it down. I wish that it was sold with a companion CD -- that would have been worth a fifth star!
Rating:
Summary: This book will surprize you!
Review: 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!
Rating:
Summary: self taught musician
Review: 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!
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