How to Listen to and Understand Great MusicProfessor Robert Greenberg
How to Listen to and Understand Great Music
by Professor Robert Greenberg · first published 2006
12mentions
10recommended by
12HN commenters
2010–2023first – last mentioned
83% recommend17% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Long, engaging lecture series that traces Western music history from the earliest sources forward, explaining how notation and theory developed; suits beginners and listeners wanting context for classical music.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
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…have less time. A few months ago I wanted to learn to appreciate and listen to classical music. I woke up an hour earlier every morning and read a book, listened to an audio course (Robert Greenberg's How to Listen to and Understand Great Music), and listened to actual music then and throughout the day. A few months later I can recognize the structure of most pieces and if the composer "broke the rules" (and why). I can't read music or tell…
on “How to Learn New Things as an Adult” ↗An excellent introduction to this topic is a lecture series called “How to Listen to and Understand Great Music” by Robert Greenberg. It’s very rich in detail but Greenberg also makes it accessible and fun. It’s available for cheap on audible and from “the great courses”.
on “A Layman’s Intro to Western Classical Music” ↗I highly recommend Robert Greenberg's "How to Listen to and Understand Great Music" if you have any interest in Classical. Available on audible: https://www.audible.com/pd/How-to-Listen-to-and-Understand-G... It's long (36 hours, broken up into ~45min lectures), but very engaging…
on “Six Recent Studies Show an Unexpected Increase in Classical Music Listening” ↗This is great, but I would recommend Robert Greenberg's "How to Listen to and Understand Great Music". He goes through the history of western music in a way that makes it clear why Amin != Cmaj, and other questions that the OP has. Yes, sheet music is crap, and he explains how it evolved to be the way…
on “Music theory for nerds” ↗If you want a course, Robert Greenberg's How to Listen to and Understand Great Music - it's on Audible.
on “Ask HN: What audio resources can improve my technical skills during my commute?” ↗If anyone is looking for a way to understand music "from the beginning" so to speak, I can't recommend "How to Listen to and Understand Great Music"[1] enough. It's around 35 hours worth of lectures, I'm only half way through but it's fantastic so far. It's also available on Audible. [1] http://www.thegreatcourses.com/tgc/courses/course_detail.asp...
on “All of Bach” ↗"How to Listen to and Understand Great Music" by Great Courses is really good. The lectures are by a professor/composer. Forget about consistency or naming conventions. But you'll get a lot more out of the listening experience once you know a bit…
on “Mozart’s Infinite Riches” ↗Good question. I've listened to "How to Listen to and Understand Great Music" from The Great Courses [1], and that did help me appreciate and enjoy classical music. Doesn't cover jazz, though. An equivalent for jazz would be great. They do in fact have a course "Elements of Jazz:…
on “Ask HN: How can I learn to appreciate jazz?” ↗To learn to appreciate concert music I can warmly recommend the Great Courses’ How to Listen to and Understand Great Music: https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/how-to-listen-to-and...
on “Ask HN: How to Become a Music Buff?” ↗There is an audiobook called How to Listen to and Understand Great Music. The author starts way way back with the oldest music we have and then little by little moves forward to more modern times showing how music grew little by little over the millennia. The audiobooks includes…
on “Ancient Greek ‘pop culture’ discovery rewrites history of poetry and song” ↗…requested at nearly every chamber-music gig. One of my friends in college ran a classical music radio program called Anything but Pachelbel. And there's a very fun section of Robert Greenberg's lectures, How to Listen to and Understand Great Music, which could easily be retitled The Pachelbel Haters' Handbook. And one could definitely write The Science Haters' Handbook. The author of Piled Higher and Deeper is doing a marvelous job.
on “Can we stop the language bashing please ?” ↗A few years ago I was listening to "How to listen to and Understand Great Music"[1] and the speaker made an interesting point about art. Let's say you take a friend from another country to a baseball game. He's never seen baseball and knows nothing of the game. He can certainly…
on “Movie Review Aggregator Ratings Have No Relationship with Box Office Success” ↗