What Might It Mean: An Uncommon Glossary of Musical Terms and Concepts for the Stuck, Bored, and Curious

Rating:
Summary: A unique book
Review: Anyone with a feeling for music will find many engaging things in this book. The writer is a musician who brings both a very distinctive sensibility to musical experience and an unusual ability to express her perception to the reader. "What might it mean?" is organized as a glossary of musical terms, ranging from 'accidentals' to 'voicing', almost always concerned with the immediacies of hearing and other senses, and illustrated with references to the work of well known composers and the author's own experience. Here is part of her gloss of 'fingering'. "There are basicly two extremes [of fingering]: those who believe that fingers should be trained to function interchangeably, just as tonalities on the piano are supposedly interchangeable; and those who maintain that the distinct characteristics of individual fingers must relate to the specific leverage of black and white keys in every scale and every passage. Artistry is in the ear and expressed by the hand. Your hands are the only ones of their kind ...". Glosses are often eccentric, and sometimes 'hilarious' (one of the terms glossed). Here is 'dolce': "Dolce is an Italian dessert, whose only relevance to music might take the form of a smudge on the printed score or a sugar-induced slump in a players brain. In music I think it means something closer to 'dolce far niente'- freely translated: 'Take it easy, don't count'". Many people will be entranced and enlightened by the book.