Thinking Musically: Experiencing Music, Expressing Culture

American Music Teacher, Oct-Nov, 2004 by Robert Spillman

Thinking Musically: Experiencing Music, Expressing Culture, by Bonnie C Wade. Oxford University Press (198 Madison Ave., New York, NY 10016),

2004. 171 pp. $19.95. For those of us who learned the basics of music by mastering the building blocks of so-called Western music--diatonic scales, triads, five-line staves and so on--the burgeoning interest in global music presents both a wonderful world of mysteries to explore and a challenge. How can we teach rudimentary music skills and introductory appreciation of music without being parochial? Even what we have called folk music, be it from Iceland, Scotland or Appalachia, is firmly rooted in those tonal parameters we have come to accept as natural.

Oxford University Press brings global music into our discussions with an exciting new series of fifteen specific studies of various regions or cultures. These are anchored by two additional volumes that discuss the basics of music from an inclusive perspective--one on integrating the teaching of global music by Patricia Shehan Campbell of the University of Washington, and the other by Bonnic C. Wade of the University of California at Berkeley. Both authors are eminent scholars in global music and bring a generous attitude and steady hand to this huge project.

Wade's book, Thinking Musically, deals with music's place in various societies in a helpful and easily understandable way. She discusses instruments early in the process, followed by time and rhythm and then by the melody and polyphonic elements, which she collects under the rubric pitch. The writing style is clear and precise; I would imagine that Thinking Musically would be as successful in pre-college classrooms and with adult beginners as at the college level. The book comes with a CD of fifty-nine exciting examples from around the world. Teachers using 7hinking Musically will be able to expand the listening choices according to their ideas and will be able to rake advantage of the case studies presented in the fifteen related volumes. Reviewed by Robert Spillman, Lafayette, Colorado.