Some reading

Here are a pair of books for thinking musicians, and those who just like to think about music:

Christopher Small: Musicking: The Meanings of Performing and Listening (Wesleyan 1998) This was recommended by Adam Baratz at his blog Form/Content and I second his recommendation. Small is not afraid of the hard questions: "Is there something built into the nature of the works of that repertory that makes performing and listening to them under any circumstances go counter to the way I believe that human relationships should be? (...) Was even Mozart wrong?"

Bart Kosko: Noise (Viking 2006) This is unabashedly popular science writing, but the breadth is remarkable, going far beyond acoustical noise. I think the topic can very useful for those of us who spend our lives intentionally putting sounds out into the world or telling others to put sounds out into the world, i.e. composers.