Harmonic Experience: Tonal Harmony from Its Natural Origins to Its Modern Expression

I am a musician and have played professionally. Now, I work in the psychology field, but I have a good education in science including physics. I think this qualifies me to speak about the merits of this very fine book. This book differs from most other musical theory books in that it encourages you to experience how music evolved and harmony grew out of the natural harmonics that occur in strings and other instruments. It gives you the theory and some of the physcis, but must importantly it provides exercises to give you the FELT SENSE of what each concept corresponds to. This is both at the emotional and somatic levels. This is a very natural way to learn and embody harmony. It makes use of chanting intervals with a string drone or note from an instrument or tuning fork. It teaches you how to listen for harmonics and explains how these harmonics naturally lead to the contruction of certain chords and scales. It is really a "ground up" approach as one reviewer said and an eye opener even for most musicians. The book encouraged the use of Indian syllables for the musical exercises, which was a bit difficult for me. However, the ideas behind the exercises were great and could be converted to do, re, mi, fa, so, la, di, do. I must confess, however, that at times this was a bit of an annoyance, but totally forgivable given what I took away from this book!

Harmonic Experience has proven to be as valuable of an education as my four years at a music conservatory. But this is also easily accessible to all musicians, not just professionals! The book is written in clear English and it feels like Mathieu is in the room with you. I'm delighted to find some insight into some musical contradictions that I frequently think about, but have never reconciled. Harmonic series vs. major and minor tonality? just intonation vs. equal temperament? western harmony vs. eastern music? It's beautiful to see a unified perspective that embraces acoustics, emotion, intuition, knowledge and many musical traditions. My approach to intonation has also changed for the better! Here is my favorite testimonial: "Harmonic Experience is the Rosetta stone of music. It turns harmonic theory into a web of "ah hah's"! What has been a tangle of inexplicable concepts is transformed into a repertory of generative experiences. Mathieu puts together what no one has put together before" -Will Johnson, professor of music, Sonoma State University

I am so glad to see jzmckay's excellent review of this book, posted here. He said many of the things that I feel about this book.I have studied music, including theory, for thirty years, and nothing has expanded my understanding (and perception!) of music as much as the information in this book. I have studied music with the author of this book -- he's a great writer about music and an even better teacher! I know that this work is the result of a lifetime of profound consideration of what is at the very heart of the musical experience, and of why music affects us as it does. W. A. Mathieu's highly intelligent exposition is a great gift to all who wish to deepen their understanding of music.I would like to express my personal thanks to the author for this book, which has enhanced my sensitivity to music.

What a great book! This should perhaps be the very first required reading for any music education. Mathieu first steps back from our usual musical assumptions and examines how sound works. The physics of sound is integral to our experience of it and western music uses a tuning system which is arbitrary (if advantageous in many ways). This is the book that answers so many questions I couldn't even identify - Why does music 'work' the way it does? How do overtones work and what implications do they have for music as a whole? Why does a minor third sound 'sad' and a major third 'happy' (is it all cultural conditioning)? Mathieu definitely addresses the spiritual side of all this, of sound and music and intervals, but never presumes to have answers to such questions. I've only explored a part of the book - it goes on to look at so many facets of the structure and possible organizations of sound and music, really advanced theory. Oh, and throughout, exercises are given, singing the pure intervals at hand, for instance, which serve to hone the ear and the voice and to make all of this sink in to where it counts. Anyone interested in music and theory should check this one out, a definite classic!

As a string player, I am very opinionated about what constitutes proper intonation; fine adjustment of intonation is an integral part of my understanding of music theory. Mathieu's book is possibly the best guide to this subject that I have ever seen.Mathieu builds up a system of scales, musical intervals, and chordal music theory based on building from a small set of resonances and the overtone series. Unlike other technical descriptions of this process, Mathieu makes it practical as a tool for everyday use, giving many musical experiments and examples, to be played at the keyboard or against a drone.I recommend this book to anyone who has been turned off by a mathematical approach to music, to musicians (especially brass and string players) who want to build an intuition about proper intonation, and to keyboard players who want a better understanding of music theory.