Content area
Full Text
Harmonic Experience. W. A. Mathieu. 1997. Rochester, Vermont: Inner Traditions International. xii, 564 pp., musical examples, figures, appendices, bibliography, discography, indexes. $45.00.
Harmonic Experience may be too far from the accepted canon to be allowed within the Western conservatory, but many ethnomusicologists may embrace it, for world music theory is enriched by it. This volume offers experiential keys to help unlock the mystery of how music works its deep affect upon us. The author asks the reader to bring along (at least) a beginner's sense of musicianship-abilities to read and write staff notation, awareness of the overtone series and rudimentary keyboard skills. The reader is assumed to possess a working vocal mechanism and to be able to produce a pitch. Harmonic Experience extends any reader's understanding of music and is a user-friendly, elegant and graceful work.
Mathieu writes in the introduction, "`How long is this going to take?' The subtext is fear: `I'll die before I get it,' and images of your brief, unfulfilled career flicker across the screen" (7). An accomplished educator, composer, performer and conductor, he begins with fundamental elements of tone and rhythm and moves into their inner workings via the reader's own experience of them.
An elementary physics...