The Educated Listener: A New Approach to Music Appreciation (First Edition)

The Educated Listener gives professors the freedom to customize the material based on what is most relevant to their courses and allows students to engage deeply with classical music from the Middle Ages right up to the present day. Students will become conversant with music terminology, enabling them to talk intelligently about music with colleagues, family members, and friends. Students will absorb and internalize this knowledge and it will enrich their lives.

Section One of the text serves as a prelude, educating readers about music vocabulary, the instruments and ensembles of classical music, and the concert-going experience. Subsequent sections discuss the history of music from the Middle Ages to the present.

Each time period features one chapter on forms, styles, and performance and compositional techniques, one chapter on various musical genres, and one chapter on composers of that time period. Professors are free to select the topics most important for their students, and then pair the written material with musical selections from the vast amount of online options, thus creating their own playlists.

Well organized and comprehensive in scope, The Educated Listener is an ideal textbook for courses in music appreciation or music history.

Jaren Hinckley earned his D.M. from The Florida State University. Dr. Hinckley has taught Music History courses for over fifteen years. He currently teaches music history at Brigham Young University. Most importantly, he loves music and wants to share that love of music with the entire world. He is also a performer and a composer. He is the professor of clarinet at BYU and the clarinetist with both the Orpheus Wind Quintet and the piano/clarinet duo Hduo. He is a member of the Utah Chamber Orchestra and the Orchestra at Temple Square. Dr. Hinckley has performed at music festivals, conventions, and conservatories in Austria, Brazil, Mexico, Canada, Italy, Belgium, Wales, and Great Britain. His compositions include works for clarinet and various chamber groups.