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by Harold Owen


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Modal and Tonal Counterpoint : From Josquin to Stravinsky 1/E by Harold Owen
Download Modal and Tonal Counterpoint: From Josquin to Stravinsky epub
ISBN: 0028721454
ISBN13: 978-0028721453
Category: Photography
Subcategory: Music
Author: Harold Owen
Language: English
Publisher: Schirmer Books; 1st edition (March 19, 1992)
Pages: 400 pages
ePUB size: 1890 kb
FB2 size: 1521 kb
Rating: 4.3
Votes: 253
Other Formats: docx lrf rtf mbr

Iaiastta
This book claims to take a "discovery approach," which mainly involves posing numerous questions for the reader to consider while going through the musical examples. This approach, together with an inadequate index, make this book less usable than it could be. It can be difficult to find specific pieces of information, or to cross reference terms which are casually used in passing in one section of the book, but are only explained in other sections. This book shouldn't be considered a reference book; While teachers might find this useful as a lesson book, I suspect that students might find it to be of limited worth for their professional libraries after they've finished school. So in considering the price of over $100, TEACHERS, please, if you are going to force students to spend a ridiculously large sum of money on a book, choose something else that will have lasting value for them.

I also concur with Theta's review; The material covering the Classical and Romantic eras through the 20th century is desperately thin; Four chapters are dedicated to these eras, compared to 22 chapters for the Renaissance and Baroque periods. It's almost as if the author became bored with his topic by the time he reached these chapters. In this respect the title is quite a bit misleading. Perhaps the book should have started with the 20th century and worked backwards in time.
Lamranilv
This book is in very good condition. I appreciate it.
Qutalan
exactly what I needed. a little bit of damage on the spine, but it doesn't detract from the book's usability. book came pretty quickly, and for the price, the whole thing was top notch.
Vinainl
"Modal and Tonal Counterpoint" by Harold Owen is a book that all teachers of counterpoint, theory, and composition, should have at their disposal. The book is unique in covering counterpoint from the 16th to the 20th century. I teach at a four-year college, and I often pull the book out during composition lessons to demonstrate a variety of things: species counterpoint, 18th century counterpoint, serial technique and stylistic traits of Stravinsky, Bartók, and Hindemith. I particularly enjoy the way each chapter begins with (often complete) musical examples followed by a discussion of the examples and their relevancy to the chapter topic. I do have to admit a bias -- I studied composition and counterpoint with Hal at the University of Oregon, so I have a personal connection to the material. Hal is a fantastic teacher, a consummate musician versed in many styles, and a very practical and down to earth person. This book reflects all of those traits, especially his practical approach to teaching counterpoint. I highly recommend this book!
Silly Dog
I am going to preface my remarks by saying I just received the book yesterday and have only spent a few hours with it thus far. I just wanted to address a couple of the negative points mentioned by others, as they had concerned me, and put in my two cents worth as someone who has been actively comparing the available textbooks for a course I am teaching this fall.

The main concern I had were the comments about the "discovery" approach (each chapter starts out with a series of "Questions for Discussion" designed to encourage the reader to discover concepts for himself). The implication made in a couple of reviews is that these questions are not adequately answered in the text, and that this makes the book only as useful as the instructor can make it through his own participation in those discussions. But this is not really the case. The discussion questions in the first section of each chapter are all fully addressed in the "Observations" sections that follow. There is really no "cop out" here; no danger of the student not learning the concept because he was unable to answer the questions for himself. In fact, you could completely skip the discussion questions and go straight to "Observations", and you'd pretty much have a traditional textbook. But I get the sense you really are better off giving the questions some thought, as they as good questions. And thinking about them - even if you can't come up with good answers on your own - should help you focus better on the "Observations" that follow. You have an idea before you start reading what conclusions the author is working toward, and there is a certain satisfaction when those conclusions are eventually reached.

The other concern raised in other reviews is that the book focuses primarily on 16th and 18th century styles, with relatively little on 19th or 20th century styles. While this is certainly true, the four chapters on 19th and 20th music are four more chapters than pretty much any other book on counterpoint includes. I certainly wouldn't use this as a text on 20th century counterpoint, but if you find yourself trying to cover the entire history of counterpoint in a single course, then I think this material - cursory as it is - will still be welcome.

Basically, as anyone who has found their way to this textbook and these reviews will presumably have figured out, there really aren't many books out there that even attempt to address both 16th and 18th century styles, much less also include any discussion of 17th, 19th or 20th century music. And I find Owen integrates the discussions of the different styles very well. Plus the overall writing style is very natural and readable - a huge improvement over virtually everything else I've been looking at. Unfortunately for me, it's now too late to adopt this text for this year, but I suspect I'll be using it in the future.
Ynonno
I have taught counterpoint on and off at the college level for the past ten years using a variety of textbooks. My students were often frustrated with the dryness of rule-based approaches to contrapuntal styles. I finally came upon the Owen text and tried it with my sophomore counterpoint class. It was a great relief and a joy to use. Beginning with score observations to gain ideas of style is very effective with my students. When we finally get to the "rules," the students have no problem digesting them; by that point they have a solid musical reference behind them and understand the relevance for the rules more clearly. Kudos for a great textbook.

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