An entertaining read—an unusual book that's highly recommended.
The Wire
I was getting ready to read a difficult study that would have led to a lot of discussion, but it didn't happen. Instead I read an attractive and convincing book. [Second Sense] proposes a novel teaching method for mastering the history of music, from Gregorian chant to Boulez, ... Read morethrough appealing to perception in its two major aspects, acoustical and functional.
Celestin Deliege, Honorary Professor of Musical Analysis?Conservatoire Royal de Musique at Liege The individual sections were fascinating and if you can add your own soundtrack, then all the better.
MusicWeb International
In many ways this is a refreshing book to read. Maconie displays an encyclopedic knowledge of the last five hundred years of western music and other art forms in this admittedly personal account of his teaching....This is what is refreshing about this book. After several books and papers in recent years on the sociology of music, which loudly proclaim the fact that popular music is the most frequently heard genre of music for the whole human race, and that it (mostly popular music) is the sole source of emotional 'food' for identity construction, here we have someone who is saying something different....he makes many interesting connections between music, science, visual art, literature, and daily life....there are hints of Habermas's notion of consensusas truth in Maconie's arguments about how music affects us. The idea of discourse is paramount in Habermas's consensus truth, and Maconie engages the reader in such a discourse throughout the book with information derived from many fields: physics and musical acoustics, psychology, musicology, sociology, and philosophy. It is through these fields and Maconie's creative explanations of music and sound in everyday life to illustrate how we apprehend the sounds of music in all the ways defined by these discr
Robert Walker, European Society for the Cognitive Sciences of Music
Musicae Scientiae: The Journal Of Escom
On my recent trip I read The Second Sense. It's a joyful romp with more yarn than an Arran sweater. I enjoyed it.
Stephen Davies, Department of Philosophy, University of Auckland Just a note to say how much I have enjoyed reading it. There are, as usual, many insights and original links between different disciplines and areas of knowledge. I learned a lot from it.
Dr. Anthony Storr, author, Music and the Mind In many ways this is a refreshing book to read. Maconie displays an encyclopedic knowledge of the last five hundred years of western music and other art forms in this admittedly personal account of his teaching....This is what is refreshing about this book. After several books and papers in recent years on the sociology of music, which loudly proclaim the fact that popular music is the most frequently heard genre of music for the whole human race, and that it (mostly popular music) is the sole source of emotional 'food' for identity construction, here we have someone who is saying something different....he makes many interesting connections between music, science, visual art, literature, and daily life....there are hints of Habermas's notion of consensus as truth in Maconie's arguments about how music affects us. The idea of discourse is paramount in Habermas's consensus truth, and Maconie engages the reader in such a discourse throughout the book with information derived from many fields: physics and musical acoustics, psychology, musicology, sociology, and philosophy. It is through these fields and Maconie's creative explanations of music and sound in everyday life to illustrate how we apprehend the sounds of music in all the ways defined by these discrete disciplines that the book achieves its impact on the reader....The richness of Maconie's pedagogical approach is its refreshingly contextual approach whereby a whole gamut of culturally based communication and functioning, scientific knowledge of perception and cognition, as well as the impact of the socio-cultural and political is called upon....Maconie brings both a more up-to-date scientific perspective than was apparent with these older traditions, and a more sympathetic awareness of how the students are situated 'in-the-world' and need to be led into this knowledge from their 'in-the-world' status, rather than just be regarded as objects into which knowledge is poured by the expert.
Robert Walker, European Society for the Cognitive Sciences of Music
Musicae Scientiae: The Journal Of Escom
Among the many positive features of this book is its merging of scientific, literary, historical, and artistic knowledge. It also makes deliberate use of minimal jargon, remaining accessible to readers with no musical experience.
Te Wananga O Aotearoa and Drama New Zealand
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