Reviews for Summa Musice: A Thirteenth-Century Manual for Singers

The average rating for Summa Musice: A Thirteenth-Century Manual for Singers based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2014-02-20 00:00:00 Cathy Parrish This is a strong, if uneven book. There are components of this text that could claim five stars, but there is theoretical naivety - at best - and willful ignorance at worst. The book, written at the end of the 1990s, attempts to 'flatten' musical hierarchies. The influence, if not the mention, of postmodernism is clear. However the title is important here. As the book progresses, 'understanding' music is reified into 'experiencing' music. While Swanwick recognizes that music holds both a symbolic and social form and "all music arises in a social context," a very odd turn emerges. He states, "Any functions of music cannot arise from semiotics or cultural studies but must be grounded in the particularity of musical experience itself, in musical 'events' of one kind or another." There is so much wrong with this statement that it is worthy of a book in itself. Semiotics is effective when understanding sound (and music). Further, cultural studies tropes and paradigms have - and will continue - to explore music in a contextually grounded way. I am not sure which straw men Swanwick is constructing (or masking) through his use of "semiotics" and "cultural studies," but his argument is not actually linked with these paradigms. Perhaps the argument is that music cannot be taught by analysis but must be played. That is fine. It is the experiential ideology. We saw a similar movement in literature and art. Do not analyse. Do. But experience is only one component of life. Those who remain locked in their own experience remain locked in ignorance. Expertise, analysis, thinking and reading are the pathways to transformation, change and growth.

Review # 2 was written on 2015-09-17 00:00:00 Jim Jones I read the Buddy Holocaust essay. Twice. Now I'm gonna see if there's anything else worth reading in his high falutin' musicology thingy.