Inspire your students to be curious listeners
The Curious Listener is a new music appreciation text built around three questions: What is music made of? How does music express meaning? How does music shape time? Drawing on a wide range of musical genres and styles from around the world, The Curious Listener leads students to a richer appreciation of musical meaning through a deeper understanding of musical sound.
Available for Fall 2025 classes
Exam copies available in late 2024
Innovative, question-based organization
The Curious Listener is organized around three central questions students often ask in a music appreciation course: Why does music sound the way it does? How does music create meaning? What makes music socially and emotionally significant?
A carefully chosen, inclusive repertory
The Curious Listener includes a wide range of musical styles and genres: classical, popular, folk, jazz, and world music. Selections are chosen to develop specific skills and organized to build sequentially, from basic musical perception to understanding complex music in historical and social context.
A focus on building listening skills
The Curious Listener seeks to help students develop deep, attentive listening skills in the same way that other skills might be developed: by beginning with the basics and building, in careful sequence, from simplicity to complexity.
Larry Hamberlin is Professor Emeritus of Music at Middlebury College, where he taught courses in music appreciation, Western classical music, American music, jazz, and popular music. His books include Tin Pan Opera and, with Richard Crawford, An Introduction to America’s Music.
What Reviewers Are Saying
“[The Curious Listener] provides an excellent overview of key issues, giving the novice and the more advanced student alike room to grow while also introducing them to a wide variety of musical practices. I also appreciate that there is no hierarchy here. Western art music is comfortably placed alongside traditions from other cultures, whether popular, vernacular, or art. The book explicitly collapses hierarchies.”
—Travis D. Stimeling
West Virginia University