Steven Cornelius and Mary Natvig.

Music: A Social
Experience. Boston: Pearson, 2011. 245 pages. $87.60.
ISBN 978-0-13-601750-9
eText with MySearchLab Package, $107.60.
ISBN 978-0-20-5910106
Mary Paquette-Abt

M
usic: A Social Experience, by Steven Cornelius and Mary Natvig,
offers an introduction to music that not only outlines a reasonable
semester-long course of study for non-music majors but also maps
out an approach that scholars and instructors have long desired: an introduc-
tion to music that is topic-driven and inclusive of popular and world musics,
as well as Western art music. The boldest element of this book—the idea that
music is meaningful through its social role—is captured in the title and pro-
vides the connective tissue for this wide-ranging topical approach, which,
happily, also provides insight into broadening one’s practices when teaching
music majors, too. While the authors mention the traditional march through
historical style periods, it does not dictate the content. Furthermore, the text-
book models ways in which instructors can make the course their own
through its choice of topics and musical examples.
Music: A Social Experience is available as a print textbook or as an eText
bundled with Pearson’s on-line resources, MySearchLab.1 The text features a
manageable number of pages (225 plus glossary) that contain thirteen chap-
ters divided into four sections: Music Fundamentals (1–3), Musical Identities
(4–6), Musical Intersections (7–9), and Musical Narratives (10–13). The Pref-
ace does mention these sectional themes, but it quickly moves on to the spe-
cific information about the chapters, resisting the urge to make the variety of
topics listed under any given theme fit comfortably into neat categories.
The Music Fundamentals section presents several topics: music and the
brain, the role of culture, and the text’s major style divisions—world, popular,
and Western musics in Chapter 1, Experiencing Music. Chapter 2, Listening

 
1. For MySearchLab purchase options see http://www.pearsonhighered.com/product?
ISBN=0136017509.

Journal of Music History Pedagogy, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 107–10. ISSN 2155-1099X (online)
© 2012, Journal of Music History Pedagogy, licensed under CC BY 3.0
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/)
 
108 Journal of Music History Pedagogy  

to Music, covers terminology and examples for the elements of music, and
Chapter 3 provides three listening examples: a Bach bourree, Japanese tradi-
tional music, and two versions of “Over the Rainbow.” In conjunction with
earlier listening examples, including “Hang on Sloopy,” it becomes clear that
the authors’ point isn’t to establish a canon, but to open ears.
The Musical Identities section includes Music and Ethnicity (Chapter 4),
Music and Gender (Chapter 5), and Music and Spirituality (Chapter 6), topics
with immediate personal and social impact that are addressed imaginatively.
Different musical practices of spirituality threaded through Chapter 6, for
example, are represented by Tibetan chant, “Amazing Grace” (both lined-out
and in full Robert Shaw treatment), Renaissance mass parts, a Bach Passion,
Yoruba drumming, Sufi dancing, Qur’anic recitation, and the Jewish Kol
Nidre prayer in Schoenberg’s setting.
Musical Intersections encompasses Music and Politics (Chapter 7), Music
and War (Chapter 8), and Music and Love (Chapter 9). One of the sub-topics
in Music and War broaches remembrance, examining responses to World
War II with three rare—for this text—examples from Western art music by
Britten, Messiaen, and Penderecki. Using the models in the text, students can
discover a deeper understanding of the meaning and importance of both per-
sonal and collective remembrance by finding musical examples tied to their
own experiences and memories. This is just one way that choices in the text
lead naturally to customization.
Music Narratives, the final section, includes Music and Broadway (Chap-
ter 10), Music and Film (Chapter 11), Music and Dance (Chapter 12), and
Music and Concert (Chapter 13). The Broadway chapter offers a provocative
example from Show Boat as an entrée to the topic of music and race. The
Music and Film chapter relies completely on online sources for its examples,
not all of them reachable through the online resource MySearchLab. By the
time Metropolis, The Jazz Singer, Max Steiner and John Williams, Bollywood,
Akira Kurosawa, and The Lord of the Rings have been discussed, students will
have covered a lot of cultural territory. Chapter 12 capitalizes on Cornelius’s
background as a dance critic and foregrounds the dance/music relationship,
which is as relevant through history and across continents as it is today; like
the chapter on film, it has a strong visual component that broadens its
meaning and resonates with students’ confidence in offering visual critiques.
Each chapter starts with what a student knows and branches out from
there, an effective learning strategy that is both simple and subtle. For exam-
ple, an early section on “Music and Culture” states, “Cultures around the
world have stories about the power of music” (p. 3) and gives some examples.
The next paragraph begins: “The preceding paragraph opened with the word
‘cultures,’ as if its meaning were obvious.” It then starts a more complicated
 Music: A Social Experience 109

discussion of this many-sided term. This same strategy is built into the
Questions for Thought that are sprinkled throughout each chapter. In the
Music and Dance chapter, for example, questions asking what makes the best
dance music, or how many different dance cultures are found on campus, are
followed later in the chapter with questions asking how the social functions of
tango, capoeira, baamaya, and Renaissance dance compare and differ.
The accompanying instructor’s manual, available through the Pearson
product website, reflects Natvig’s scholarly interest in pedagogy, and the text
is grounded in sound pedagogical principles. 2 Unlike many conventional
instructors’ manuals, sometimes prepared by someone other than the author,
this one fully develops the authors’ premises for the text. Cornelius and
Natvig remind us that American college students are different from genera-
tions ago (“as likely to identify their heritage with Asia, Africa, or Central
America as with Europe”), and they acknowledge the realities of students’
musical experience (“mediated through radio, television, and most important,
the Internet”), while offering telling insights into these same students: “they
profess to have broad musical tastes, but a glance at their playlists belies the
claim” (Instructor’s Manual, p. 4). The authors make their interest in learning
that lasts clear, creating content that draws from their knowledge of workable
classroom practices, reflection, and critical thinking. Recognizing that differ-
ent institutions attract students with differing levels of ability and need, the
authors include chapter-by-chapter proposals in the manual for additional
areas of study that can be integrated into the course, as well as supplemental
materials: articles, books, and online sources, rich in both content and ideas
for study.
About sixty musical examples (in a four-CD set for the print version) are
spread equally over many genres and styles of world, popular, and Western
art music, and many more are suggested in the MySearchLab supplements,
often with YouTube or video alternatives. It would be the unusual instructor
who is an expert in all three of these streams, but the text presents an ideal
opportunity to expand one’s own knowledge, both through its connection of
ideas and the enrichment materials in the instructor’s manual.
MySearchLab, the Pearson online textbook center, is the location for the
electronic text and online supplemental materials; its web organization corre-
sponds to other Pearson textbooks. The eText is a copy of the paper text, with
terms helpfully linked to the glossary at the end of the book. The supplemental
materials are easily found under each chapter tab, separate from the eText
itself.

 
2. See Mary Natvig, ed., Teaching Music History (Aldershot, Hants and Burlington, VT:
Ashgate, 2002).
110 Journal of Music History Pedagogy  

The MySearchLab supplements are exactly the range of materials that

many instructors routinely use on college websites. They include documents,
links to other websites, download sites (iTunes), YouTube videos, tables, and
terms—all the arbitrary but pertinent aids to learning that instructors often
provide themselves. The ones chosen for this text include particularly worthy
sites that students might not otherwise know about, among them the AFI
(American Film Institute), National Public Radio programs and interviews,
Public Television’s Great Performances website for composer biographies,
and even a TED Talk (Technology/Entertainment/Design).
The on-line site is still evolving. For example, over the few months I have
been acquainted with the site, links to the music have been added in the
Chapter Resources section of MySearchLab. Other links on the site don’t yet
work, a frustrating weakness for a commercial site. Instructors who use the
eText version may need to plan some start-up and navigation time on the
website, and to set policies about how to deal with any student problems that
arise. Finally, while many aspects of the web materials are attractive and easy
to use, MySearchLab is currently offered only as a bundle with the eText ver-
sion; it is not part of the textbook price for the print version, although it is
available for students to purchase at the Pearson website.
Despite some frustration with the online resources, I am enthusiastic
about the possibilities for successfully employing the text and resources for
Music: A Social Experience in today’s undergraduate curriculum. My hope is
that the ease of access promised by online delivery of its resources will be
achieved, clearing the way to exploring this model textbook with students.