Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #127949 in Books
• Published on: 1996-10-31
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 248 pages

Customer Reviews

I would give it more stars if I could
Speaking as a practising creative musician, I would say that no other book has had such a profound effect on me. I've re-read it several times.

Two of Christopher Small's many excellent points particularly struck me: 1) the glories of Western classical music (and I love Beethoven as much as the next fella) shouldn't blind us to the fact that it is but a tiny strand of the awe-inspiring diversity of humanity's music, and 2) much of our listening experience in the West takes the form of passive consumption of musical product, whereas for the great bulk of the world's peoples (in traditional societies, at least) music is about participation and the process of making music, rather than the end product.

First published in 1976 ( I believe- don't have my copy handy to verify this) I feel Small's appraisal of the entirety of music of the world, and the unjustifiably exalted place that Western classical music holds in the mind of the general public (not just in the West, either) was way ahead of its time. Keep in mind that he was writing well before the explosion of interest in so-called "world music" that we saw in the 1980s.

Small's treatment of the concepts of process versus product in music performance opened my eyes in ways that still resonate for me, two decades after first reading this book.

I said earlier that I've re-read it several times; to be more precise that was a while ago now, and I hadn't actually read it for ten or more years. When I recently did, I was particularly struck by Small's idealism, something that many in today's cynical times might scoff at, to which I simply say that now more than ever they could do with a good dose of such idealism.

Do check out "Musicking" and "Music of the Common Tongue", both also excellent (in fact I think "Musicking" may be his greatest book) but start with this one.