Reimer wants his readers to think he's done something important by putting his tired, old ideas into new words (here and there) and using a new cover. Only his rabid followers will agree. This is the same old stuff that Reimer has always tried to sell and it fails for the same basic reasons: Reimer does not have -- Reimer never had -- a plausible explanation of the nature and value of music. Reimer is obvioulsy desperate -- he's running very hard -- to save his legacy in this "third" book (the same book x 3!). But he cannot. He fails, again, because a new generation of music education philosophers -- Bowman, Jorgensen, Elliott, Regelski -- has already exposed Reimer's poor thinking, weak scholarship, and faulty logic in the past. This "third" edition is full of the same old problems.

This book is poor. It 's not "philosophical" in any sense because it's not logical and it's not supported by the majority of music scholars today. Reimer contradicts himself at every turn; he doesn't understand what Langer is really saying; and. his absolutist notion of music is completely out of synch with what most scholars argue about music today. Reimer just mouths a lot of fluffy, feel-good nonsense.

The man has interesting viewpoints, but these are all overshadowed by the overwhelming verbage. He can explain these principles in fewer paragraphs without missing out on anything. Instead, he opts to confuse readers by using too many words and by beating around the bush. I'd rather read something else if this weren't a required text.

This book promotes a listening-for-elements ONLY approach. Philosophically, the basis of this book is bankrupt. Practically, it's like teaching doctors that the only feature they should look at in their patients is their bone structure -- necessary, but completely insufficient!