# Anybody has experience of this wildly expensive harmony book? (Aldwell)



## tokatila (Feb 6, 2015)

231 €. :shock: 

On the other hand, if the book is good that's the price of an average priced sample library, so not that expensive after all. 

http://www.bookdepository.com/Harmony-V ... 0495189756


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## JohnG (Feb 6, 2015)

maybe your public library can provide it?

Amazon U.S. has a used one for $130, or what appears to be the 3d edition for $17.40. Second edition $2.74.

http://www.amazon.com/Harmony-Voice-Leading-Edward-Aldwell/dp/0155315196/ref=tmm_hrd_title_0?_encoding=UTF8&sr=1-2&qid=1423227173 (http://www.amazon.com/Harmony-Voice-Lea ... 1423227173)


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## tokatila (Feb 6, 2015)

JohnG @ Fri Feb 06 said:


> maybe your public library can provide it?
> 
> Amazon U.S. has a used one for $130, or what appears to be the 3d edition for $17.40. Second edition $2.74.
> 
> http://www.amazon.com/Harmony-Voice-Leading-Edward-Aldwell/dp/0155315196/ref=tmm_hrd_title_0?_encoding=UTF8&sr=1-2&qid=1423227173 (http://www.amazon.com/Harmony-Voice-Lea ... 1423227173)



Heh, not in this neck of the woods. :D 

Hadn't consider a possibility of buying them used, thanks for the idea!


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## Farkle (Feb 6, 2015)

I used an earlier version of this book in my undergrad music theory degree.

My personal opinion? Only get it if you want to be able to analyze and dissect music from Mozart to Rachmaninoff. If you want to get a theory book to learn to compose better, I recommend these books.

http://www.amazon.com/Contemporary-Music-Theory-Complete-Musician/dp/0793598818 (http://www.amazon.com/Contemporary-Musi ... 0793598818)

(I've linked Volume 1, it's a three volume series).

The Aldwell book is a dry, classical-theory book that is used in academic music theory circles. For me, it did not help me at all as a composer, it basically helped me mark up Beethoven Sonatas with Roman Numeral chord symbols.

Good Jazz Theory and Good Commercial Music theory helped me a lot more, and I was able to apply that back to classical music. For example, Neapolitan chord in classical Music? That's just an Alt chord, tritone-substitution for the dominant in jazz theory.

Anyways, my $.02.

Mike


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## tokatila (Feb 6, 2015)

Farkle @ Fri Feb 06 said:


> ..If you want to get a theory book to learn to compose better, I recommend these books.
> 
> Anyways, my $.02.
> 
> Mike



Appreciate that. 8)


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## bbunker (Feb 6, 2015)

Of course, a "Neapolitan chord" has a very different function than the tritone sub of a dominant chord. The key being that it's a Neapolitan Sixth, or a chord in first inversion, so the bass is on the sub-dominant in the scale, and the function is usually pre-dominant.

If you think of a 'vanilla' IV chord coming first, with the destination chord being the dominant seventh, then the chromatic notes of the Neapolitan Sixth 'fill in' the gaps to the dominant note and the supertonic by half-step.

By contrast, a dominant functioning 'tritone sub' bII chord is filling in the spaces chromatically from a ii pre-dominant chord to its destination of the I chord. Same notes, different function. And a function that doesn't really have an analogue in jazz theory.

I think the moral of the story is that everyone goes into any kind of study with their own baggage - their own preconceptions of what they will learn, and what they want to learn. One man's 'marking up Beethoven Sonatas' is another's "exploring some of the greatest music ever written." If you want to learn jazz harmony, find a jazz theory text. If you want to learn the language of the orchestral literature, buy this, or the Kostka, Piston, etc. Either approach will 'make you a better composer' if you really absorb the language that's being taught in each text.

For the record, there are a number of options for harmony textbooks, and they all do roughly the same job - the fourth edition just takes some of the things that professors found they disliked in the third into account. If I was going to buy the Aldwell, I'd get the cheapest edition with no regard to when it was published.


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## JohnG (Feb 6, 2015)

Which just goes to show that a really good fake book with show tune standards or one of John Williams' scores actually may be more useful (and fun) than an academic harmony book, at least if you are writing for media.

Undoubtedly, more knowledge is better than less, but one has to decide how to spend one's time.


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## tokatila (Feb 6, 2015)

bbunker @ Fri Feb 06 said:


> Of course, a "Neapolitan chord" has a very different function than the tritone sub of a dominant chord. The key being that it's a Neapolitan Sixth, or a chord in first inversion, so the bass is on the sub-dominant in the scale, and the function is usually pre-dominant.
> 
> If you think of a 'vanilla' IV chord coming first, with the destination chord being the dominant seventh, then the chromatic notes of the Neapolitan Sixth 'fill in' the gaps to the dominant note and the supertonic by half-step.
> 
> ...



I didn't understand anything you said in the first two chapter (ok, maybe a little), but that must be a sure-fire way to attract the vixens? So that itself makes it worthwhile in my book.

Anyway, I think that I get a cheap used Aldwell book and a Jazz theory book and see what I can get out of them. 100% studied "ok" material is better than 0% studied any material.


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## tokatila (Feb 6, 2015)

JohnG @ Fri Feb 06 said:


> Undoubtedly, more knowledge is better than less, but one has to decide how to spend one's time.



That's exactly it. What's the most efficient way to learn. I'm not sure how high "procrastinating on the forums" ranks though.


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## AlexandreSafi (Feb 6, 2015)

Hello tokatila (Love your avatar! :D )

I have it, but i haven't dived into it deeply yet: It's a beautiful piece of archival work! I would call it the equivalent of Sam Adler's Orchestration in terms of its presentation with clear little piano reductions excerpts, but as Farkle rightfully suggested, it's about pre-20th "tonal music, or "tonal" harmony and voice leading, hence with mostly Major-Minor tonality, with examples aurally supplemented by the 2CD (...separate buy unfortunately...)

_Here's the full table of content, if it can help you:_

*Part I: THE PRIMARY MATERIALS AND PROCEDURES.*
1. Key, Scales, and Modes.
2. Intervals.
3. Rhythm and Meter.
4. Triads and Seventh Chords.
5. Introduction to Counterpoint.
6. Procedures of Four-Part Writing.
*Part II: I-V-I AND ITS ELABORATIONS.*
7. I, V, and V7.
8. I6, V6, VII6.
9. Inversions of V7.
10. Leading to V: IV, II, and II6.
11. The Cadential 6/4.
12. VI and IV6.
13. Supertonic and Subdominant Seventh Chords.
14. Other Uses of IV, IV6, and VI.
15. V as a Key Area.
16. III and VII.
*Part III: 5/3, 6/3, AND 6/4 TECHNIQUES.*
17. 5/3-Chord Techniques.
18. Diatonic Sequences.
19. 6/3-Chord Techniques.
20. 6/4-Chord Techniques.
*Part IV: ELEMENTS OF FIGURATION.*
21. Melodic Figuration.
22. Rhythmic Figuration.
*Part V: DISSONANCE AND CHROMATICISM I.*
23. Leading-Tone Seventh Chords.
24. Mixture.
25. Remaining Uses of Seventh Chords.
26. Applied V and VII.
27. Diatonic Modulation.
*Part VI: DISSONANCE AND CHROMATICISM II.*
28. Seventh Chords with Added Dissonance.
29. The Phrygian II (Neapolitan).
30. Augmented Sixth Chords.
31. Other Chromatic Chords.
32. Chromatic Voice-Leading Techniques.
33. Chromaticism in Larger Contexts.
Appendix I: Keyboard Progressions.
Appendix II: Score Reduction.
Appendix III: Explanatory Tables and Charts.
Index of Musical Examples.
Subject Index.

_The list of composers and examples mentioned range from: _
Bach (lots of excerpts: Chorales particularly)
Beethoven (particularly lots of P.Concertos/P.Sonatas)
Bellini
Bizet
Brahms
Bruckner
Chopin (Great deal of Etudes, but also Preludes/Ballades & Mazurkas)
Clementi
Corelli
Dufay
Dvorák 
Franck
Freylinghausen
Handel (lots of excerpts)
Haydn (here also lots of string quartets, and a few sonatas & symphonies...)
Josquin
Kuhnau
Liszt
Mahler
Mendelssohn
Mozart (Biggest amount of quotes with lots of P.Concertos/Sonatas/Quartets)
Pergolesi
Petzold
Praetorius
Purcell
Ravel
Rossini
Scarlatti
Schubert (Good deal of Improptus & P.Sonatas)
Schumann (Lots of excerpts)
Strauss
Tchaikovsky
Telemann
Tromboncino
Verdi
Vivaldi
Wagner (Götterdãmmerung/Tristan und Isolde)
Wolf

You might also logically supplement yourself with this other following book:
http://www.amazon.com/Twentieth-Century ... 0393095398



*Now after all this, this is where my true thoughts on this come in:*

It's about knowing what to learn, and how you learn it best.

I feel these books aren't personally for me at this specific time of my life, i would say they are perfect tools for the "already experienced" learner!

The mistake we all naturally do is to select a book or a school on the pre-conceived idea & belief of "it" and the teachers having an intellectual authority on the subject we choose to learn, that their role is to present to you the precise gathered knowledge that is essential for you to know and apply in the real world, if not then we probably believe that method is the fastest way of learning the specific subject in depth... 

However, and this is only me, what I would personally recommend is to become first an experienced sight-reading monster and piano player, training your ear (intervals, modes & chords) with perhaps the eventual faculty of audiation (hearing in the mind's ear) and to simply "play" music, head and hands, everything you like, so that "years later" you can truly and practically absorb quicker, better, meaner the information you get in those books than if you were starting off with this...

I personally feel Harmony or counterpoint or orchestration, like History or Math, were all "both rightfully & not so rightfully" separated from each other to the point that eventually trying to focus on one after the other worsened the learning process and absorption for the younger students like me coming into it.
The truth is those components are all usually already there within the completed music...

This is why your topic thread and the nature of the book you suggested interestingly launched a whole short discussion on the learning process of the musician itself, not too dissimilar to the controversy on the value of learning in schools...

It's exactly as Mike Verta beautifully said: It's like walking when you're a child, you don't learn that skill by thinking and deconstructing each move and parts separately, that would be way too intense for a non-verbal speaking 1 year old. The reality is you start walking because you naturally just let your independent brain itself figure out the patterns that eventually make sense for you to start doing it, and so you do that through deep human observation, imitation & repetition of what is already established and fully formed by the true authority, the expert, in this case the expert is your cherished "CD's" or iTunes collection... 

To balance it all out, the only books that i've found so far which have this inherent quality aimed at pragmatism and skills at "walking" and truly expressing your uniqueness as a musician, even more so than through contextual knowledge are:
http://www.amazon.com/Elementary-Training-Musicians-2nd-Edition/dp/0901938165 (http://www.amazon.com/Elementary-Traini ... 0901938165)
http://www.amazon.com/Hearing-Writing-M ... 0962949671
http://www.amazon.com/The-Piano-Handbook-Complete-Mastering/dp/0879307277 (http://www.amazon.com/The-Piano-Handboo ... 0879307277)
http://www.amazon.com/Jazz-Theory-Book-Mark-Levine/dp/1883217040 (http://www.amazon.com/Jazz-Theory-Book- ... 1883217040)
http://www.amazon.com/Composing-Music-A-New-Approach/dp/0226732169 (http://www.amazon.com/Composing-Music-A ... 0226732169)

They all teach you how to best learn exactly what you need, using your senses, rather than contextualizing something which ironically is sort of taken out of its precious musical context, the performance... 
If there's one beautiful thing I've learned from the "jazz method" is that you hack your way into great music by listening to it, transcribing it, or playing it with your instrument...
Jazz musicians understood the radical notion that the performer or composer is best served by using his or her senses in the recordings or on the written page...
I believe Jazz as a whole philosophy is so underrated & overlooked, if people only knew...
Even John Williams still at 50 yrs old, given his essential skills as a master listener, pianist, sight-reader & performer carried on top of his piano an ordinary Mozart sketchbook for him to play and absorb quickly better than any well-structured archival books...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDC_fppZ1Kg


Anyways, the book's beautiful, i love the cover, blue's my favorite :D
Good luck with your choice Mr. Happy!


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## prodigalson (Feb 6, 2015)

> For example, Neapolitan chord in classical Music? That's just an Alt chord, tritone-substitution for the dominant in jazz theory.



I think you might be thinking of either the Italian or French 6th chords. In jazz theory they could be considered tritone substitutions, but for the V7/V chord, not the V7. Still a predominant function.

Also, as the Neapolitan 6th doesn't contain a tritone and its normally used in 1st inversion (bass note is subdominant scale degree) it couldn't be considered a substitute dominant.


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## tokatila (Feb 6, 2015)

AlexandreSafi @ Fri Feb 06 said:


> Anyways, the book's beautiful, i love the cover, blue's my favorite :D
> Good luck with your choice Mr. Happy!



So I shouldn't judge the book by it's cover, or should I? I'm confused, anyway I placed an order for it (also for Levine's Jazz theory book!) and let's see if it will decorate my bookshelf or should I put it to actual use.

Thanks for taking the time. Happy times!


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## prodigalson (Feb 6, 2015)

Mark Levine's Theory book is fantastic. Good choice.


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## rgames (Feb 6, 2015)

I used an earlier version of that Aldwell book and Gauldin's book that covers the same material - Gauldin is much more accessible. The Gauldin workbook and CDs are must-haves if you get that book.

Aldwell's book seems to be written from the perspective of "You should already know all this, but let's review it anyway _<sigh>_."

And yes, textbooks are a scam. Rest assured that most of the money is going to the publisher, no the author. With all those loans available to help you pay for education, of course the prices are sky-high....

rgames


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## bryla (Feb 6, 2015)

If I had to get one, I would get the Gauldin book plus workbook. If I had to get a second one the Kostka book is a close match. The Aldwell is not as good at covering more aspects than harmonic relations. 

I got mine for about 50 GBP


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## jaredcowing (Feb 6, 2015)

tokatila @ Fri Feb 06 said:


> JohnG @ Fri Feb 06 said:
> 
> 
> > maybe your public library can provide it?
> ...



While it sounds like you're going to try something else- just a general tip for anytime you're trying to get a harder to find book, your public library can still get their hands on a copy of the book you need via Interlibrary Loan so don't worry about whether or not they have a copy of xyz book... just request it via ILL and they'll find a way to get it for you. This is especially useful for the out of print stuff. (This might not be true some places outside of the US, I'm not sure how good libraries are at this service in other parts of the world).


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## AlexandreSafi (Feb 6, 2015)

tokatila @ Fri Feb 06 said:


> So I shouldn't judge the book by it's cover, or should I? I'm confused, anyway I placed an order for it (also for Levine's Jazz theory book!) and let's see if it will decorate my bookshelf or should I put it to actual use.
> 
> Thanks for taking the time. Happy times!



Pardon me, i'm not even sure i'm that qualified to speak about the book. I personally don't regret buying it at all. My main point i guess is the better trained you are and experience you have as a sight-reader, player and transcriber the most you will get out of this book in the least amount of time so... It's really about where your are as a musician in your training and about what you want most out of your training in the end... The book is really good for describing what motion is happening within the musical passages selected, you will probably discover works unheard of before from the composers mentioned above + the theory of harmony is extremely solid here, with very detailed focused writing exercises on careful controlled harmonization, chord progressions, modulations, parallel/contrary motion, etc... but that's both its strengths and weaknesses, it can become extremely technical to the point of becoming an anatomy medical textbook, and so there's a need to question, based on your goals, what you can truly gain from such a micro-perspective of harmony, but as you said, worst case it's a nice shiny blue decoration...

The questions you ask yourself are the 1st step to true knowledge, said who knows, i sure did not:
-What do you truly want to be and learn as a musician?
-What skills do you have so far?
-Are there skills i should prioritize which could definitely be a building block for other skills?
-Which music captivates you or fires your curiosity?
-How much time do you have?

So yes, depending on the time you have, the learning method will change, but to me, if you really want to learn to speak and write the language of any composer of the past, then simply listen, read it, sing it (if you suck at it, then even the more fun), play it, transcribe it, push play on all the goddamn greatest hits from Chopin, Mozart back to Telemann you can find and suck 'em like an empty vacuum cleaner would, litterally learn "by heart"... ^>|

And then repeat until, and only until, you become the greatest composer in the galactic universe...
Happy spending! o-[][]-o


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## Farkle (Feb 7, 2015)

FWIW, I also second buying Levine's Jazz Theory book. It is truly excellent.

Also, someone posted several other great books. Hearing and Writing Music (Gorow), and Composing Music; A New Approach. I've read (and used) both of the above books.

I think what is the most important thing is, to find a book, that unlocks the urge and the spark to compose, either through "pulling back the curtain" on how pieces were built, or inspiring you to write your own, giving you structures to use. Whatever works for you, and gets you writing more, and having more fun! 

Personally, I've gotten a lot out of Levine's Jazz Theory book, Gorow's book, Composing Music: a New Approach, and the Contemporary Music Theory books. They felt "right" to me. Aldwell, felt more like it made me a better theorist, not a better composer. 

YMMV,

Mike


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## Living Fossil (Feb 9, 2015)

While it's always good to read several books about harmony (a public library is a good place to start searching) you have to be aware that harmony (or worse: "functional harmony") alone will never give you an adequat understanding of classical music.
(in the worst case it lets you think that you understand it...)

The music of composers like Bach, Mozart, Wagner, etc, etc, relies on very different techniques, even the harmonic textures can very often not be separated of the voicing.
Passing notes etc. shape the "real" harmonic texture; or in baroque music it's very often the exchange of scales (which rely on the relations between modal scales) that lead modulations and harmonic regions.

If one would say it in a brutal way, functional harmony shows that skeleton of music that great composers have in common with bad ones.
But the exact knowledge of that "skeleton" of course is valuable...


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## Tatu (Feb 9, 2015)

I think I have the 2nd edition of that and I don't think I paid that much for it :D


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## tokatila (Feb 9, 2015)

Thank you for all the latest talk. After I get bored with the book I ordered I'm sure to check up those next suggestions in line (Gauldin) etc.


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## Tatu (Feb 9, 2015)

Actually, I have the 3rd edition.
From 55USD upwards (used) on amazon.
http://www.amazon.com/Harmony-Voice-Leading-Edward-Aldwell/dp/0155062425/ref=pd_sim_sbs_b_1?ie=UTF8&refRID=1P1RK5494G62J2RX0MGF (http://www.amazon.com/Harmony-Voice-Lea ... 62J2RX0MGF)


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## tokatila (Sep 28, 2015)

A little update, I have now gone through 20 units (about halfway through the book, 4th edition) and I have to say I like the book. I feel that my harmony sense is really improving and had so many A-ha! moments already.

But; when I say I have gone through 20 units, I'm not just "reading them", that would be complete waste of time IMO. What I do is that after reading the unit, I make bullet points. Then I play musical examples on piano to hear what those harmonic devices sound like. Then; usually then later in the day I enter those bullet points to the flashcard software.

Then when I review the flashcards first I try to remember the answer then I play them again with piano to slowly get these harmonic devices under my fingers. I'm also doing a little snippets of compositions, where I use these devices.

It's funny and enlightening to notice that many 8-bit game music (Castlevania, Megaman etc.) I really like have some serious classical harmonic progressions in them.

I have also Schoenberg's book, which I'm also doing by side. Not yet really have advanced far enough, but my initial impressions is really good; Schoenberg seems to be looking things more from a composer's (practical) point of view. When I'm finished with Aldwell's I put more energy into the Schoenberg.


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## all ears (Sep 28, 2015)

I think that what tokatilla describes is a good way of really _learning_ from a book like this. It seems that many people greatly overestimate the effect of just "reading" through a theory book. (Actually, I spent several years believing that merely _owning_ books will make you smarter  ...) But while just reading a textbook is certainly nice - if you want a lasting learning effect, you need to do a lot more than that.

I use the Kostka book, along with the workbook. With that combination I get about 20% theory and 80% exercises. Progress through the chapters is slower that way, but the learning effect is a much deeper one. In fact, study of this kind is probably not too inferior to formal music education, which I sadly missed.

It's nice to see that there are more people also using university-type textbooks for self-study. In my humble opinion that by far beats browsing the various websites and youtube videos dealing with various aspects of theory... Thanks for the update on the Aldwell book.


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## sinkd (Sep 28, 2015)

Very interesting that two of the main texts recommended here are heavily fortified with the contrapuntal perspective. Schacter (of Aldwell and Schacter) was a pupil of (and co-author with) Felix Salzer of a great species counterpoint text, _Counterpoint in Composition_. The Gauldin book, which I have used in my teaching, I'm not as crazy about, although it is also very good about presenting the ways that harmony grows out of counterpoint and the functions of the scale degrees. Kostka/Payne is a very roman-numeral centered approach to harmony that comes straight from older texts like Piston, which was used in this country in music theory classes for decades. I much prefer the more up-to-date, counterpoint influenced texts to the Kostka/Payne book.

You mentioned Schoenberg and I wonder if you mean _Harmonielehre, Fundamentals of Musical Composition_, or _Structural Functions of Harmony_? All good texts but doing somewhat different things.

I really admire the thoroughness of your auto-didactic approach. I wish more of our students took that kind of care and time in learning harmony in our classes!

DS


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## tokatila (Sep 28, 2015)

sinkd said:


> ...
> You mentioned Schoenberg and I wonder if you mean _Harmonielehre, Fundamentals of Musical Composition_, or _Structural Functions of Harmony_? All good texts but doing somewhat different things.
> 
> I really admire the thoroughness of your auto-didactic approach. I wish more of our students took that kind of care and time in learning harmony in our classes!
> ...



I actually have them all; I'm quite a bookworm  But in this case I was referring to the Harmonielehre.

And thank you.


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## kunst91 (Sep 28, 2015)

tokatila said:


> 231 €. :shock:
> 
> On the other hand, if the book is good that's the price of an average priced sample library, so not that expensive after all.
> 
> http://www.bookdepository.com/Harmony-V ... 0495189756



We used it in school, honestly if you have a basic understanding of music and want to learn theory I would get "graduate review of tonal theory," by Laitz. Much shorter, less expensive and easier to digest, I use it with my theory students and they have had great results.


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## wpc982 (Sep 28, 2015)

If you are not in a school environment, buy the older edition. Mine cost $2.00 ... it's a good harmony book, not perfect by far; follows some trendy (and imo incorrect) paths from time to time.

I have probably 20-30 harmony books ... many of the older ones have the same material, more or less. Though there are a few, maybe 30%, that I'd not bother to have at all. So: buy anything you can find, you'll have a 70% chance of getting a decent harmony book. If you've never done it, you MUST work through some of the exercises in any book, painful though they can seem.


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## AlexandreSafi (Sep 28, 2015)

Thanks for sharing your experience with this book Tokatila! Personally, I really like to view this work as a sort of "archival collection" of the harmonic language from Baroque to Pre-Romantics, but ultimately the best thing i think to do is to get the 2 CDs too: listen to the examples, transcribe them away from your instrument, then sight-read them on piano, check the scores in the book, correct if needed, play again, DONE!

Same with i.e. Adler "Orchestration" book, get the 6CD's, listen actively, get the notes from the snippets down on paper away from the piano, play them under your fingers, check the scores in the book for that's where all the internal learning happens...

Really forcing my ear to hear, for me, always has been/is/will be everything in the end!
Yes quality usually doesn't come cheap, but those CDs really make the learning material in those books worth it!
Combine the classical way of sight-reading & the jazz way of learning by actively training your ear and you'll be unstoppable! 
Best, mr. Happy!


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