I got this one several years ago, I think as a sort of makeweight when buying a couple of second-hand books from America, and I hadn't really read it until this weekend (even now I'm not quite half way through it) The author does counsel against dipping into it, and I've found that sound advice - each chapter seems to need the previous, or you'll misunderstand what he's saying.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Lies-My-Music-Teac...7574&sr=8-2

I don't think it's readily available in this country, so I'm not sure if I'll find anyone on here who's read it to tell me what they think about it .

I have to say I don't think it's about a load of essentially wrong things that we are al feeding to our little beginners; I opened it in a slightly defensive mood, thinking "doesn't this man realise that you tell half-truths to young children because the whole truth in one go is too complicated?" - an obvious one being that a crotchet is a one-beat note - I'm so tired of hearing about that one; if my child is old enough, I can generally slip in the words "usually" and "these days" somewherre, but let's face it, we have a pulse which we hear one beat at a time, and the default (nowadays...) is that it's represented by a crotchet.

No, this book is more about misconceptions which we and possibly our teachers, have concerning some aspects of music theory. As to "lies", I think in many cases it's not that the teacher doesn't know, just that it's not been seen to be necessary to elaborate further on the simplification, so often we come to our own conclusions later on.

It's not a new book (1994), and it has mixed reviews; many of these are about the style, which you either liike or you don't (some didn't even like being called "grownups" on the cover), some that it is too much oriented to unaccompanied jazz choral singing, and one or two negative ones say it's a load of BS without, I notice, being specific. On balance, though, there are more good than bad reviews.

I was enjoying it for an obvious reason, that it confirmed, or agreed with, many of the things I've been thinking and saying. The first helf is about pitch, first about tuning and accoustics, and then about scales. The second half, I haven't got on to yet, is about rhythm. It deals with quite a lot of the controversial theory questions we discuss a lot on these forums: compound time and minor scales being two of the more recent. So it's a pity it's not more easily avbailable, though Amazon says there are a few to be got cheap (plus steep postage) from the US; I don't know if any of them have found their way to book sellers over here.

The chapter headings are like, for example:
Lie #5: Singing scales and melodies is the best way to begin developing a musical ear, Truth: Developing accuracy in melodic tuning greatly depends on a sense of harmonic relationships

Lie #5: An interval is the distance between two pitches. Truth: an interval is a qualitative perception of consonance

Lie #8: The minor mode is the Aeolian mode inherited from the Medieval church modes. Truth: The minor mode is a "color" modification of the major mode

Lie #8: There is a wide variety of meters. Truth: There are four basic metric structures

17 chapters in all

I'd say I've lready found several things in here where I know the truth and I've taught what he describes as the "lie" because as a first step, it's simplest. If it becomes necessary later, I'll usually say "you remember when I told you xyz? Well, that's only half the story". So I don't see the book as slamming into music teachers and teaching at all, but rather a way of checking up on your own misconceptions. It's definitely not a beginners' book!

I'd be interested to find anything similar which can be got over here. Not looking for a basic theory book (I have loads of those already) but something that systematically debunks ways in which we've been thinking.

Does the author hear the minor second and the augmented fourth as consonant?

That's a different vocabulary and probably means nothing to a non-jazzer.

What does it say they are?

I am intrigued that we have two chapters 5 and two chapters 8.

Why do you think he would? Though I haven't got that far yet.

well, I think I'm a non-jazzer, and it means a lot to me

Well, again I was skimming which isn't a good idea in this book, but it's two beats subdivided in twos, two beats subdivided in threes, three in twos and three in threes. All bigger numbers are made of 2s and 3s accumulated. But please don't debate that point with me just yet, as I haven't read it all. Broadly, I think I'm, going to end up agreeing with him.

Oops, silly editing when I first submitted it, I've corrected it up there ^^^. Nothing to do with not doubling the third.

When talking about music we are always using metaphors. Philosophically speaking metaphors are always lies. Even the idea of "consonance" is a lie: should we instead talk about mathematical relationships between sound "waves" (there goes another metaphor!)?

But metaphors are useful and I will continue to use them unashamedly!

I've just told an adult student that something I told her may be incomplete and simplified but it's true enough to give her an idea of things.

Yes, as I said, I don't think this is about the fact that we simplify things, it's probably more the sort of things we extrapolate ourselves from those simplifications if we're not careful.

The "subdominant" is one I try to explain properly when it comes up - if they aren;t ready to understand it, they probably aren't ready for me to use the word. However, I do say that conventiently, it also happens to be the note under the dominant, so that might help them to remember it too. I wonder how many of them will forget the proper explanation, though.

They do like supertonic = lucozade!

I have a copy of this book - I bought it two or three years ago - and I quite like it. It's not an assault on music teachers, it's having a go at the laziness at not moving onto the fuller explanation, whilst accepting the need for simplified explanations when first starting out.

I had a classic example of the "crotchet = one beat" thing a few weeks ago in orchestra. Piece was Purcell and was in 3/2 (this was the beginner's orchestra and I was playing alto sax). One of the experienced adult violinists, who acts as a mentor to some of the beginners, first of all didn't get that one beat was a minim and then assumed that minim = slow. They should try the isorhythmic motets I sang a while ago where the time signature was 3/1 at a tempo of semi-breve = 60

I've commented on the problems of metrical/mensural notation before see my posting on 23 Feb here

Although his viewpoint is mostly as a jazz choral conductor/teacher, what he says is relevant to all genres. I found it an interesting read.

Another book for you: "How equal temperament ruined harmony and why you should care" is also an interesting read.

Oh, now that does look interesting.

(Looks again) and it does look expensive. I wonder if this is the kind of thing I could possibly get my local library to obtain?

(looks again) (bluebottle voice) you rotten swine you, you linked me to the hard cover version. I can afford the paperback

(looks again) and there's a Kindle edition too! OK, I've downloaded a sample, just in case it's unreadable in that format.

I shall finish "lies" first of all, though. Thank you, TV!

Because they are intervals.

I haven't read closely, but it seems to me that a valid perception of consonance is that there is none, as would be the case for a minor second

I don't think it means "they're all consonant". I think it means "an interval is a measure of how consonant the sounds are" but you'd have to read it to see exactly. So far he's only got as far as the number, not the quality of the interval.

I hope that's not what it means; it would be a bigger lie than any you have quoted, even though it would indicate an acceptance of the idea that consonance is a measure, not a category.

Thanks for your brief description; it convinces me that I would be unable to extract the book's pearls of wisdom.

Sounds an interesting book. My A level music teacher always used to tell us the first one and drilled us on singing instruments and naming chord progressions at the beginning of every lesson.

Consonance in the true sense just means in tune? Simplest example, two flautists play a C perfectly in tune with each other and you get unison. If one flautist, however is slightly sharp/flat, you get a beating/pulsing effect in the sound. Western tradition found this uncomfortable, so developed tuning which avoided it, however other traditions embraced it- which is where the author's "qualitative perception" comes from.

I also thought that technically speaking, any scale with a minor 3rd is considered a minor scale? (Though Messiaen's modes come to mind and I'm thinking apparently not..)

I simplify the final one even further and just think in 2s and 3s (but then I play a lot of contemporary music where this is the only way of doing it).

I definitely want to read the Equal Temperament book, however am also going to try the library xD

Researchers in perceptual acoustics use the term "perceived dissonance" to describe the roughness that naive listeners (i.e. not expert musicians) hear in such mistuned notes. Helmholtz (1821-1894) proposed that the phenomenon of dissonance was caused by beats between partial tones of a complex sound[1], and 20th C. psychologists have refined and, broadly, confirmed this proposal.[2, 3, 4] See Chapters 2 to 6 of the essay on my web site for a brief discussion of what is now known about consonance and dissonance.

[1] H. L. F. Helmholtz, On the sensations of tone as a physiological basis for the theory of music (1887), (New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1954), pp. 186-196.

[2] R. Plomp and W. J. M. Levelt, ?Tonal consonance and critical bandwidth?, Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 38 (1965), pp. 548-560.

[3] W. J. Dowling and D. L. Harwood, Music Cognition, (Orlando, Academic Press, Inc., 1986), p. 50.

[4] W. J. Dowling and D. L. Harwood, Ibid, p. 83.

Yes, I was thinking of the Helmholtz book. I knew I had read about it in detail somewhere.

Just adding this to my recent posts list so I can get back to it when I've more time.

Just bought it from Amazon UK for ?6.11 inc postage! Looking forward to the read

I was taught at uni that not all societies agree on what constitutes consonance or dissonance.
I heard the most amazing recording of two fishermen (from a remote part of Greece) singing the same song a semitone apart - all the way through. The person recording had assumed they were tone deaf, but came to realise it was a deliberate harmony. I can only imagine what that compounder of musical doom Simon Cowell or his fans would say if they were faced with it, but the more you listen the more beautiful it becomes.

Until relatively recently (well late Renaissance anyway) there was understood to be a distinction between music theory and music practice. There was a theory which in Western society had a view of what constitutes consonance which was derived from ancient Greek philosophy. This basically said that simple mathematical ratios were consonant (I've simplified) so 1:1 is unison; 1:2 is octave; 2:3 is fifth etc.

Practical music making therefore aspired to this theoretical ideal of universal harmony as exemplified by the music of the spheres (the "perfect" sound supposedly made by celestial bodies in their movement).

These ideas ran right upto the Enlightenment. Christopher Simpson, England's greatest viol player of the C17th, wrote a whole section on this subject in his Division Viol in 1665. This is still in print and is also available as a facsimile edition.