“It’s a lovely piece of ‘public’ music theory.”
The vibrant front cover of Eric Isaacson’s Visualizing Music (Indiana University Press, 2023). Available in hardcover and paperback versions.
The Visual Listening Guide to Dvořák’s “New World” Symphony is one of the colourplates in the book.
Over the years since its initial development, the Visual Listening Guide has been featured in various research studies, from the examination of modes of listening to testing the usability of its design. I’m pleased to say that it now also appears in Eric Isaacson’s Visualizing Music, published in May 2023 by Indiana University Press.
In his book, Isaacson, who is Associate Professor of Music Theory at Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music and a faculty member in the Cognitive Science Program, “explores the art of communicating about music through images” and “describes how graphical images can help us understand music.” This in-depth study of music visualizations, probably the first of its kind, looks at the history of such images and considers what makes them effective or ineffective, so to give readers various principles and strategies to create compelling ones of their own. In his preface, Isaacson notes that he examined over 1,800 images, with some 500 included in the volume. Among them is a lovely colourplate of the Visual Listening Guide to the first movement of Antonín Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9, “From the New World”.
Isaacson discusses the Visual Listening Guide in Chapter 47, in which he examines schematic representations of musical form. On the VLG’s design, Isaacson says “Multilayered and appropriately detailed, the image is delightful.”
“On the largest scale, it is organized from top to bottom,” he describes further. “The large sections of sonata form consist of up to three lines of graphical information that, while it can be read as graphical prose, generally puts line breaks at structurally significant places and therefore scans more as poetry.”
He continues, “Principal keys and primary themes receive colourful prominence, while other keys and themes remain neutrally gray. Themes are rendered without staff lines in a way that recalls the heightened neumes of the Middle Ages, though here they are intended to trigger recognition upon listening rather than recall for performance. Simplified but not dumbed-down terms label the themes. Icons identify instruments to listen for, which are also listen for, which are also listed below the themes they play. Dynamics markings add another layer of information. It’s a lovely piece of ‘public’ music theory.”
Thank you, Eric, for your thoughtful perspective on the Visual Listening Guide!