Edited by James R. Briscoe

$36.00.  CMS Member Price: $28.80.
Paperbound [6 X 9; 229 pp.]
ISBN-10: 1576471624
ISBN-13: 978-1576471623

The fourteen articles in this collection raise a number of questions that teachers of music history have to be able to answer, not only for their students but also for themselves. What, exactly, is music history? Whose history is it? What, in fact, is music? What do undergraduates need to know about the history of music? Why? What does one semester or one year, or even a two-year sequence, permit the instructor to cover? Why is a teacher necessary in the era of the Internet? How should limited class time be filled? With which topics? As a series of lectures? As discussion sessions? Listening to music? Looking at scores? Engaging in musical activities? Going to events? What should be assigned—reading, listening, writing, keeping a log, preparing a read-through of a composition—and why? The articles that follow do more than raise questions. They invariably suggest and prescribe answers, as well as recommend approaches to teaching. Veterans and novices alike who teach undergraduate music history cannot fail to enrich their students’ experience by reading these essays and incorporating the advice found in them into their own pedagogy. Teacher’s goals should be to put them all on a course of discovery by knowing how to use every available resource and to inject them with a passionate curiosity and a visceral delight in learning. This book will help at least some of us attain these goals!