Hard to visualise.

Unfortunately this course has a visual aspect to it that makes it hard for the listener to enjoy the full experience.

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3/3,5 🌟 of beautiful music and good lectures

This was more of a 3/3,5🌟 mainly because I quickly realised I lack the basic knowledge in either subject to fully assimilate all that the lectures had to offer. Don't get me wrong the course is extremely interesting and I greatly enjoyed all the music played in order to give examples, but it was a bit to technical at times to promote easy understanding.
Still, it is well executed but previous, basic knowledge is needed, in my opinion.

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Audio Tease. Watch the Brilliant Video.

Given that this particular edition of The Great Courses is about music, one would think that listening to audio only would suffice. However, very early on, and throughout, our esteemed lecturer in music and math constantly refers to the rich content of images, pictures, diagrams, graphs. He employs physical demonstrations on his beautiful violin and asks you to look at how he’s performing a particular technique. He does the same with piano and novelty instruments such as the Whirly Tube.

We are to visually appreciate and analyse sine waves and compare the graphical frequency spectrums of different instruments playing the same note in order to distinguish timbre and the harmonic series.

This is as much a visual course as it is an auditory one. The production quality is first class. However, the medium of an audiobook is not the format The Great Courses was created for. By listening to the audio only, I felt very much left out in the cold. As if the lecture hall was full and I could only hear from outside by pressing my ear to the door. Imagine watching a movie with your eyes closed. I thought I could bear it, but after two hours into this eight hour course (with constant reference to visuals) I just couldn’t take missing out any longer.

The Great Courses have an app in the App Store with a 14-day free trial (although the full memberships are cheaper if you sign up via their website and not through the in-app purchase). I am now watching the same course using the free trial and the visuals and production quality are far superior than I even hoped or anticipated.

I love this course, but the audio only version is an absolute tease. If you’re happy missing out on all the visuals, then it’s fine on this platform. But if you want the course in its full original glory which means getting maximum educational benefit, insight and understanding then go for the real thing.

This is not the first Great Courses production I’ve listened to on Audible. Some are perfectly fine as audio only. For the first time however, I’ve realised that How Music and Mathematics Relate is not one of those courses.

Enjoy!

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8 people found this helpful

A Brilliant topic but give me all the information….

The narrator is really really motivated about the topic which makes me want to know more. I’m getting brilliant information but some of the mathematical stuff is going by so quick if you are a musician and some of the musical detail is explaining what any musician would already know. He is talking like he is pointing to charts… I’m listening to an audiobook where are they I’m not watching a video.

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Very good overall but some of the talk refers to the visual lecture rather than audiobook

Very good overall but some of the talk refers to the visual lecture rather than audiobook

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Most illuminating!

This is the most amazing lecture on music I have ever heard. It explains so many features of musical theory that musicians are thought without understanding the mathematics behind it. I never knew why the musical scale has 12 notes, but this lecture explains it!

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Impossible to follow even with the pdf

This is clearly the audio from a video production. I thought that the pdf attached would fill in the gaps but it's just a transcript of the lecture with a few decorations like a picture of some African drums in the section on polyrhythms. It adds nothing to the comprehension of the lecture.

The mathematical content varies from the elementary to university level (group theory!) so often not for the general audience. i skipped several sections as they are impossible to follow just on audio. I have a physics degree.

The content is an arbitrary mix. There is nothing at all about harmony for example. The parts on pitch are solid as the maths are intrinsic but other sections are very weak on connecting the music with the maths.

What finished me listening to this lecture series was the section on self referencing. The connections he was trying to make were close to non-existent. As for internal self referencing in a piece of music, well that is simply bringing back an earlier theme or motif. That's just part a basic part of music and to say there are 'many examples' is understating it. That has nothing at all to do with cutting up a möbius strip - which of course we could only hear.

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15 people found this helpful