Amazon's computer emailed me today, offering for my consideration a book I'd never heard of before: The Craft of Modal Composition, by Thomas Benjamin. The author instructs readers on how music before the High Baroque style worked, most especially sacred music by folks such as Palestrina and earlier.

Which brings back memories.

In high school Music Theory class we were instructed (briefly) on classic theory, and given the assignment of an old hymn to set in four-part harmony. I set it as if I were Josquin, apparently; the teacher said I should've been born in the Renaissance.

Not long after I was composing piano music in a post-tonal, neo-modal style, where melodies and harmonies flitted around on keys rather than in them. It was only recently that I figured out the mechanisms of the classical style. This, despite my love of Haydn!

Perhaps my love of neo-classical music, with its do-it-wrong-on-purpose procilivity, infected me too early. I went from 1580 to 1920 just without much trouble.

In the mail today a number of books came in. One, I believe, came courtesy of Amazon. Here they are:

• Invariances, by Robert Nozick
• The End of Barbary Terror, by Frederick C. Leiner
• Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything, by Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams

How many are for work, and how many for pleasure? All three are for both, of course.

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