From one of the most trusted names in continuing education-the knowledge you need to unlock "the most abstract and sublime of all the arts." Whether you're listening in a concert hall or on your iPod, concert music has the power to move you. The right knowledge can deepen the ability of this music to edify, enlighten, and stir the soul. In How to Listen to Great Music, Professor Robert Greenberg, a composer and music historian, presents a comprehensive, accessible guide to how music has mirrored Western history, that will transform the experience of listening for novice and long-time listeners alike. You will learn how to listen for key elements in different genres of music - from madrigals to minuets and from sonatas to symphonies-along with the enthralling history of great music from ancient Greece to the 20th century. You'll get answers to such questions as Why was Beethoven so important' How did the Enlightenment change music' And what's so great about opera anyway' How to Listen to Great Music will let you finally hear what you've been missing. Watch a Video.

Now in trade paperback: “The definitive guide to musical enjoyment” (Forum). In this fascinating analysis of how to listen to both contemporary and classical music analytically, eminent American composer Aaron Copland offers provocative suggestions that will bring readers a deeper appreciation of the most viscerally rewarding of all art forms.

"Music: Ways of Listening" is intended for use in introductory college courses for students with little or no prior background in music, and is focused upon the development of perceptive listening skills and a broad survey of the Western concert literature. -- From preface.

What is music in the age of the cloud? Today, we can listen to nearly anything, at any time. It is possible to flit instantly across genres and generations, from 1980s Detroit techno to 1890s Viennese neo-romanticism. This new age of listening brings with it astonishing new possibilities--as well as dangers. In Every Song Ever, the veteran New York Times music critic Ben Ratliff reimagines the very idea of music appreciation for our times. In the age of the cloud, the genre of the recording and the intention of the composer matter less and less. Instead, we can savor our own listening experience more directly, taking stock of qualities like repetition, speed, density, or loudness. The result is a new mode of listening that can lead to unexpected connections. When we listen for slowness, we may detect surprising affinities between the drone metal of Sunn O))), the mixtape manipulations of DJ Screw, and the final works of Shostakovich. And if we listen for more elusive qualities like closeness, we might notice how the tight harmonies of bluegrass vocals illuminate the virtuosic synchrony of John Coltrane's quartet. Encompassing the sounds of five continents and several centuries, Ratliff's book is a definitive field guide to our musical habitat, and a foundation for the new aesthetics our age demands.

Rob Kapilow has been helping audiences hear more in great music for almost twenty years with his What Makes It Great? series on NPR, at Lincoln Center, and in concert halls throughout the US and Canada. In this book, he gives you a set of tools you can use when listening to any piece of music in order to hear its “plot”—its story told in notes. The musical examples are available free for download to help you hear the ideas presented. Whether you are an experienced concertgoer or a newcomer to classical music, the listening principles Kapilow shares will help you "get" music in an exciting, fresh new way. "Kapilow gets audiences in tune with classical music at a deeper and more immediate level than many of them thought possible." —Los Angeles Times "Rob Kapilow is awfully good at what he does. We need him." —The Boston Globe "A wonderful guy who brings music alive!" —Katie Couric "Rob Kapilow leaps into the void dividing music analysis from appreciation and fills it with exhilarating details and sensations." —The New York Times "You could practically see the light bulbs going on above people's heads. . . . The audience could decipher the music in a new, deeper way. It was the total opposite of passive listening." —The Philadelphia Inquirer

Transform a life of anxiety, uncertainty and frustration into one of peace, strength, purpose and joy For the first time, find in a single book the principal means of changing your consciousness and reshaping your brain, for an increasingly better life experience. Discover the power of your mind. In The 3T Path you'll find hundreds of time-tested and scientifically proven suggestions, facts and techniques for your growth and self-improvement. The 3T Path is a comprehensive system that works in multiple fronts at the same time, bringing your noticeable results in a short time. The 3T Path will bring about enormous personal transformation to help you resolve and transcend the challenges of life, maximizing your potential. The strength of The 3T Path lies in its use of ancient and powerful tools from the yoga tradition: Mindfulness Dharma Inner peace Knowledge Devotion All these together with lifestyle suggestions to maximize your potential, and finally, The 3T Method to keep your progress steady. If self-realization seems like something from another world to you, out of your day-to-day reality, this book will change your views. The 3T Path shows how spirituality must be totally integrated into our daily activities and is nothing more than the perfection of the art of living well here and now. This book will give you a new vision of God, of your spiritual nature and of the process of enlightenment, in a practical and down to earth form. You'll see how spirituality will give you a clear advantage when dealing with everything in life, without you having to put aside your intelligence or common sense. This book is the result of decades of practice and research by the author, speaker and teacher of self-improvement and self-realization in yoga, Giridhari Das. He shows in this book how you can overcome your anxiety and frustration, how to find your purpose in life and guide your life day by day, the secrets of how to develop inner peace, how to use knowledge as an instrument of growth and enlightenment and the process of bhakti, the highest aspect of the path of yoga. This book will give you the tools to take control of your life experience.