Recommend books involving music here!

I don't know if there is a thread on this already, but I figured since I'm reading a pretty informative book I'd let you all know.

"The Rest is Noise" is a good one I'm reading right now. It is pretty much an overview on the lives and music of 20th century composers which I find to be helpful since there doesn't seem to be a lot out there readily available at bookstores (Here at least)

Another one which I haven't read much of yet but have nonetheless is "This is your Brain on Music". The portions I have read are quite interesting, dealing more with the science behind what parts of the brain respond to music and all that jazz.

I'm interested in what people have read that is good since I don't have many books on music as of yet besides theory based ones.

Vince

Kenny Werner's Effortless Mastery.

Invaluable to any/every artist.

Amazon.com: Effortless Mastery: Liberating the Master Musician Within: Kenny Werner: Books

-The Complete Idiot's Guide to Music Composition

-The Complete Idiot's Guide to Music Theory

Those are what I use.

Great for beginners I guess.

-The Complete Musician's Guide to Idiots

Very useful.

-The Complete Musician's Guide to Idiots

Very useful.

That book has a whole chapter about me. :ermm:

I would recommend Erno Lendvai's book B

I would recommend Erno Lendvai's book B

Another one which I haven't read much of yet but have nonetheless is "This is your Brain on Music". The portions I have read are quite interesting, dealing more with the science behind what parts of the brain respond to music and all that jazz.

Great book, that, but it's probably a little outdated now.

Jacques Attali's Noise: The Political Economy of Music is an interesting philosophical text.

Oswald Spengler's Decline of the West has an interesting few chapters on music. It's available online somewhere.

There's also a huge textbook on Music Aesthetics that was muy interesting. It was on netlibrary, which is totally worth signing up for.

I can second the "The Rest is Noise" recommendation. It's actually really gripping for a music history book, even if you're not really into 20th century music. The author, Alex Ross has a good blog too: Alex Ross: The Rest Is Noise

Another good one is "Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain" by neurologist Oliver Sacks.

Then there's my most recent read, "Audio Culture", a collection of over 50 essays/articles/interviews/musings on the histories and philosophies of different interwaeaving strands of contemporrary music written by everyone from Edgard Varese, John Cage (of course), Steve Reich and Ornette Coleman to Brian Eno, Aphex Twin and even William S. Burroughs(!). It has an extract from that Jacques Attali book too. Not the most accessible book around, but fascinating.

Dont forget the stuff you can find on ubuweb.com

I've read that one too. Good book. It's subtitle is "Sex, drugs and classical music".:D

Old thread... but I was about to ask this question and recommend a couple books (already appearing in this thread)

So... are there any more good books you've read lately (that pertain to music?)

I'll go ahead and second 'Musicophilia' as was mentioned on the previous page.

Working my way through The Singing Neanderthals by Stephen Mithen right now. If you're interested in the confluence of musical ability and evolutionary biology, READ IT!

Take its information with a grain of salt, but Mithen is a very entertaining and not extremely technical writer. Quite enjoyable for musicians and nonmusicians, biologists and nonbiologists.

For those looking for advice on orchestration, Principles of Orchestration by Rimsky-Korsakov. It is a quick read that is very helpful. (I find myself referring back to it every-so-often.)