# Modern Books on Music Theory



## Rory (Jul 11, 2020)

I want to revisit the subject of music theory for the first time in about ten years and study it in a more disciplined, deeper way than I have in the past. To do this, I want a modern, college level book both for the content and to act as a syllabus to guide my study.

I thought that I’d pass on the following comments in case others are also considering this.

In the last couple of days, I’ve looked at several options. Every one is quite expensive. To my surprise, given that the buyers are mostly students, none of the options is available from Amazon or other booksellers as an ebook. In a number of cases, one can rent rather than purchase the book, but renting may not come with a code needed to get access to supplementary materials. Looking at bookseller sites, I came to the conclusion that the options are to pay the rather hefty full price for either hardcover or paperback.

However, today I discovered that W.W. Norton, as of a few days ago, is offering digital access to a book called “Concise Introduction to Tonal Harmony” for US$85. This is a new, second edition, that includes chapters on post-tonal theory. The two authors are professors within New York City’s City University system. By all accounts, it’s a well-regraded book, although I’d like to hear any reservations about it. The caveat is that access is for only three years, but I can live with that.

I also discovered that a leading book, published by Oxford University Press, is available in digital form via an obscure ebook app. As with the Norton book, the period of access is limited, but for much less than three years.

In both cases, the only way to find out about digital access is to go to the publisher’s site rather than to Amazon or other retailers.

Traditionalists will be delighted to know that I’ve also ordered Arnold Schoenberg’s Theory of Harmony. I ordered the University of Southern California 100th anniversary edition, which is more expensive but includes a forward and an essay that I‘m interested in reading. I draw the line at Walter Piston, who I have tried to read, with little success, in the past.

Cheers


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## JohnG (Jul 11, 2020)

If you live near a university I would definitely check out any expensive text before buying. Some -- ok most -- are packed with the author's own idiosyncratic approach, using brand new, not-used-anywhere-else terminology, just for starters. Not to mention weird rivalries and petty disagreements over minutiae.

So try before you buy, I'd recommend.

Are you trying to understand 20th / 21st century ideas -- Penderecki or serial / 12 tone stuff -- or more "advanced theory" like Richard Strauss or Wagner or something? Or in between?


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## Rory (Jul 11, 2020)

Hi @JohnG, I went through a Webern and company phase, which was great fun, and so I’m pretty comfortable with 12-tone, etc. At the time, I read an extremely good book on post-tonal ideas, but I don’t recall the author/title and the book is currently 1800 miles away 

I‘m returning to playing regularly after about five years occupied with other things. I want a refresher on core ideas and to maybe delve into some concepts more than I have in the past.

I‘ve taken W.W. Norton up on its offer of limited, trial digital access to the book that I’m considering. One of its attractions is that the word “concise” in the title appears to be serious. The book looks to be all business and short on theoretical lobbying.


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## InverseS (Jul 11, 2020)

You know, professors write their books for their courses, and make new editions every second year (with new exercises) to keep the economy afloat. Well, sometimes they do right some wrongs too, and a few becomes classics for the discourse. How will this technological age influence this factuality? 

I can't really recommend anything as I'm not well versed in modern music theory (and I think of Schoenberg's dodecaphony as modern). I must be an ancient soul. Still, I would love to read some newer stuff to expand my horizon, but father time is a hassle.

Anyway, good luck! Alot of heavy reading awaits.


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## JohnG (Jul 11, 2020)

Rory said:


> The book looks to be all business and short on theoretical lobbying.



Well that would indeed be nice.


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## Barrel Maker (Jul 11, 2020)

Theory of Harmony is a classic and excellent for a foundation, but it does not cover post-tonal music extensively, which was an intentional decision by Schoenberg.

For a general understanding of post-tonal music, Twentieth-Century Harmony by Vincent Persichetti is good. So are Allen Forte and George Perle's books on serialism and atonality, but they are not easy reads. For a specific understanding of an individual composer, for example, Bartok, there are usually a few authors who dedicate themselves to the subject matter and become the experts. (Lendvai and Antokoletz come to mind for Bartok). Most 20th-Century composers tried to develop their own methods for composing, which resulted in a less codified system than in past centuries, but this is what makes it so fascinating to study--the diversity and uniqueness of ideas.

As JohnG wrote above, a library should be your best friend. If you are unable to visit one in-person, many of their resources are available online. If you are a student, even better, as you should have access to a treasure trove of scholarly articles and academic dissertations in the JSTOR and ProQuest databases.

Last but not least, music theory should not exist in a vacuum, IMHO. Immersing yourself in scores and recordings is important too, as it provides invaluable context and perspective.

Happy studying


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## Rory (Jul 11, 2020)

I should have added a link to the W.W. Norton book that I’m considering. The Norton site, unlike booksellers, offers a digital option: https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393417180


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## anjwilson (Jul 11, 2020)

The "Concise Introduction" is indeed a concise theory book, written primarily to counteract the heft of Stephen Laitz's "The Complete Musician," which is one of the main texts used in US music schools. You won't get any exploration of higher level music theory concepts in the Burstein/Straus book (like dialogic form, rhythmic and metric theory, motivic and transformation theory, semiotics, modal harmony, or even post-tonal theory), but it does present the core voice-leading and tonal harmony concepts clearly and concisely.


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## Rory (Jul 11, 2020)

anjwilson said:


> You won't get any exploration of higher level music theory concepts in the Burstein/Straus book (like ... post-tonal theory), but it does present the core voice-leading and tonal harmony concepts clearly and concisely.



The new edition, released last fall and now available digitally, has six chapters on post-tonal theory.


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## JohnG (Jul 11, 2020)

anjwilson said:


> ...dialogic form, rhythmic and metric theory, motivic and transformation theory, semiotics, modal harmony, or even post-tonal theory....



Audiences just can't get enough of this stuff ^^. They're clamouring for it. Breaking the doors down.


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## cjfreitag (Jul 11, 2020)

I’m the music editor for Norton. Happy to answer questions about any of our books. But it’s important to keep in mind that most music textbooks are designed for classroom use. They may not be ideal for self-study. This is true of nearly all textbooks unless they are designed for programmed instruction.


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## anjwilson (Jul 11, 2020)

Rory said:


> The new edition, released last fall and now available digitally, has six chapters on post-tonal theory.


Ah, good to hear. Straus, the co-author, wrote one of the standard post- tonal theory books (though he perhaps places too much emphasis on the Second Viennese School and its direct descendants).


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## Farkle (Jul 11, 2020)

Rory said:


> I want to revisit the subject of music theory for the first time in about ten years and study it in a more disciplined, deeper way than I have in the past. To do this, I want a modern, college level book both for the content and to act as a syllabus to guide my study.
> 
> I thought that I’d pass on the following comments in case others are also considering this.
> 
> ...



I personally think that a jazz theory book is more relevant and gives a composer more options than a "common practice" theory book. I think Mark Levine's Jazz book is good, as is the Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organization, by George Russell.

If you go classical, I think Hindemith did one of the best 20th century Theory books out there. THe Craft of Musical Composition, Vol 1: Theory. I think it's really good.

So, there are some suggestions from this old dinosaur. 

Mike


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## MauroPantin (Jul 11, 2020)

Academia has almost as many books there are professors teaching, and mostly aimed at their own classroom. I have also found that they tend to be quite expensive. I'm not convinced that you get what you pay for in most cases, to be honest. You end up paying a lot for something that is, to paraphrase The Dude: "Just like... their opinion, man". I'm sure they know a lot about their subjects, and I know there are differences of opinion. I just find it hard to believe that those opinions differ so much that they would call for an entire new textbook. Surely, a consensus can be achieved.

I'd go for something aimed at self-study. And I know you said books, but ScoreClub has been great for me so far. I went to music college and similarly to you, wanted to take advantage of the virus stay-at-home situation to get a refresher. So far, so good.

Otherwise, my go-to in terms of theory reference has always been the Berklee Music Theory book. But that is just because that's what I studied with when I was learning it for the first time, not because I believe it is superior to anything else out there.


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## Rory (Jul 11, 2020)

cjfreitag said:


> I’m the music editor for Norton. Happy to answer questions about any of our books. But it’s important to keep in mind that most music textbooks are designed for classroom use. They may not be ideal for self-study. This is true of nearly all textbooks unless they are designed for programmed instruction.



Hi @cjfreitag, thanks for commenting.

I’ve had a look at the contents and the first few sections via trial access. The book is clearly not an introductory text on music theory. What I want, and what I think it can serve as, is a syllabus and reasonably concise statement of principles.

The price for digital access, and the period of access, is within what I’m prepared to pay. I think that there are advantages to the loose leaf edition, but digital works better for my needs, which include living in two countries. Physical books just don’t work for me very well.

I do have one question. The first edition effectively required purchase of a separate workbook. It‘s unclear to me what the status is of the workbook with the second edition. If I purchase digital access, do I need an additional workbook or not?

I gather that the Norton eReader is not an app. It sounds like it is basically just access to a site over the internet. My understanding is that this would not hinder downloading of the book for offline reading, but I don’t understand how offline works in practice. Maybe I missed something, but the FAQ seemed unclear on this question.

For my needs, your book does appear to be the most attractive at the moment.


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## jbuhler (Jul 11, 2020)

JohnG said:


> Audiences just can't get enough of this stuff ^^. They're clamouring for it. Breaking the doors down.


This is the stuff music theory is made of.


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## Rick McGuire (Jul 11, 2020)

I'm a big fan of The Complete Musician by Laitz. I'm finishing up my undergrad in theory/composition and we used the Musician's Guide to Theory and Analysis by Clendinning. Both great books. Both expensive but very comprehensive


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## Rory (Jul 11, 2020)

Rick McGuire said:


> I'm a big fan of The Complete Musician by Laitz. I'm finishing up my undergrad in theory/composition and we used the Musician's Guide to Theory and Analysis by Clendinning. Both great books. Both expensive but very comprehensive



Norton also publishes the second book. Digital access is $85 for it as well: https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393263053 Digital access is for two years.


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## Rick McGuire (Jul 11, 2020)

Rory said:


> Norton also publishes the second book. Digital access is $85 for it as well: https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393263053


It's a great book. It comes with a lot of ear training resources as well


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## Rory (Jul 11, 2020)

Rick McGuire said:


> It's a great book. It comes with a lot of ear training resources as well



Any more comments on the Laitz book? It’s published by Oxford University Press, which makes it available digitally (time limited) via something called Redshelf.


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## jbuhler (Jul 11, 2020)

Rory said:


> Any more comments on the Laitz book? It’s published by Oxford University Press, which makes it available digitally (time limited) via something called Redshelf.


It's as close to the standard theory textbook as exists today. It's also designed for classroom use, as are most theory textbooks these days. @cjfreitag's caution applies in that respect.


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## anjwilson (Jul 11, 2020)

The Laitz book was my favorite (as a teacher). It's excellent, and offers much more than just harmony and voice leaving. I would say it is the richest of the theory texts designed for the undergraduate core, though it is verbose. 

Laitz takes a fairly explicit Schenkerian perspective on common practice tonal harmony, which may feel somewhat esoteric to a composer today if you've never encountered those concepts. I believe that deep concepts of ornamentation ("composing out") and structural levels are still very useful, but these may be far afield from your interests.


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## rhizomusicosmos (Jul 11, 2020)

Rick McGuire said:


> I'm a big fan of The Complete Musician by Laitz. I'm finishing up my undergrad in theory/composition and we used the Musician's Guide to Theory and Analysis by Clendinning. Both great books. Both expensive but very comprehensive


I have the Musician's Guide to Theory and Analysis by Clendinning/Marvin, too, and have found its coverage of Twentieth Century materials quite useful. I have the first edition.


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## Nova (Jul 11, 2020)

I've been working through Harmony in Practice by Anna Butterworth and it's perfect for self-study. It has a ton of exercises (the answer book is sold separately but worth it imo). It only covers tonal harmony so ymmv. I would love to find something as practical for 20th century harmony.


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## mikeh-375 (Jul 11, 2020)

This is a good read if, but I found it a lot easier to just digest the principles he expounds, rather than learning the precise terminology he invents. Still, it gives you tools to expand your harmonic vocabulary....and...it's free here.

https://archive.org/details/harmonicmaterial00hans

A quick flick through the pages will give you a sense of what it's all about.


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## Adam Takacs (Jul 12, 2020)

Rory said:


> Any more comments on the Laitz book? It’s published by Oxford University Press, which makes it available digitally (time limited) via something called Redshelf.


Yes, it's on the redshelf as an ebook but I can't buy it because it's not available in my country (Hungary). unbelievable... :(


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## hanysz (Jul 12, 2020)

Rory said:


> I want to revisit the subject of music theory...


"Music theory" is a pretty broad category. Are you interested in harmony, counterpoint, form, orchestration, performance practice, ...? Studying theory to help with composition or performance, or because it feels good to improve your general knowledge, or ... ?


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## Rory (Jul 12, 2020)

Nova said:


> I've been working through Harmony in Practice by Anna Butterworth and it's perfect for self-study. It has a ton of exercises (the answer book is sold separately but worth it imo). It only covers tonal harmony so ymmv. I would love to find something as practical for 20th century harmony.



Apparently the organisation that runs U.K. music exams publishes this book, among others. Looks like it's well-regarded, although not cheap in the U.S./Canada if both the workbook and answer book are purchased (~$90).


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## Rory (Jul 12, 2020)

I've settled on _Concise Introduction to Tonal Harmony_. There are a combination of reasons. I think that it will meet my immediate needs. It's under 500 pages, a definite plus. For practical reasons, I prefer digital, and the license is good for three years (the license periods for all of the other options are significantly shorter). The cost is acceptable, at least compared to the combined book/workbook cost of alternatives.

My local libraries have all of the books that I considered. As @JohnG suggested, I would like to have gone through them side by side. However, where I am all libraries are closed. A few are re-opening tomorrow, but only for pickup and drop-off. No browsing. Through limited trial access, I _have_ been able to look at some of the content of the book that I'm going with.

I also have my eye on another W.W. Norton title, Vincent Persichetti's _Twentieth-Century Harmony: Creative Aspects and Practice_. I like what Adam Neely had to say about it in one of his videos, specifically that it's descriptive rather than prescriptive. For whatever reason, Norton hasn't made it available as an ebook. However, it's "only" 283 pages, so I may put up with a hard copy. It isn't today's purchase, though.

Amazon says that Schoenberg's _Theory of Harmony_, also unavailable as an ebook, will show up tomorrow. During a phase when I was fooling around with Webern, Dallapiccola, Barraqué, etc, I read a quite good book that seemed relevant. I can't recall the title, and the book is currently in another country. I wonder whether it was Schoenberg. If so, a second go can't hurt.

Finally... I have a lot of time for Alan Rusbridger as a winter and editor. Seven years after it was published, today I finally got around to purchasing his _Play it Again: An Amateur Against the Impossible_. Hooray, writing that won't bend my mind out of shape, and that I can read on my iPad ... on the subway, whenever it's safe to use it again.

Thanks for all the comments and suggestions.


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## rhizomusicosmos (Jul 12, 2020)

Persichetti's book is good, I still frequently dip into it after having used it in music college. It lists example works by composers demonstrating the techniques described at the end of each chapter. The suggested exercises are compositional ones and thus don't require a set of answers. They are there to guide you in trying your hand at implementing the techniques practically.

Has anyone used _Twentieth-Century Music Theory and Practice_ by Edward Pearsall? The description mentions use of neo-Riemannian and Klumpenhouwer network transformation theories, so was wondering if it is a good overview of modern analysis techniques. An Amazon review mentions multiple errors in the text.


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## Rory (Jul 12, 2020)

rhizomusicosmos said:


> Persichetti's book is good, I still frequently dip into it after having used it in music college. It lists example works by composers demonstrating the techniques described at the end of each chapter. The suggested exercises are compositional ones and thus don't require a set of answers. They are there to guide you in trying your hand at implementing the techniques practically.



Thanks. Adam Neely talks about Persichetti's book, which Amazon sells in hardcover for a not exorbitant $50, at 02:28 of this video:

_The 5 Music Theory/Composition Books that Most Influenced Me _


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## Rory (Jul 12, 2020)

I’ve now purchased the digital version of _Concise Introduction to Tonal Harmony_ from the publisher, W.W. Norton. Price was US$85 plus New York retail sales tax. The license is for 1,080 days, which is two weeks short of three years.

Purchase of the digital version resulted in an e-mail offering the loose-leaf version of the book for $15 plus shipping and sales tax. The e-mail said that the offer applied only to purchases made from Norton in the U.S. I purchased the loose-leaf version as well. Shipping to New York (UPS Ground) was $9.20.

Pre-purchase, the Norton site is quite opaque about how digital access works. Post-purchase, Norton talks about two methods.

Online instructions said that I should be able to access the book via an iOS/Android app called Bookshelf, which is made by a company called VitalSource. I have installed the app, but thus far I’ve been unsuccessful in getting Norton and the app to communicate. In other words, I can’t get the book to show up in Bookshelf. I’ll contact Norton support tomorrow.

I _have_ been able to access the book via a browser. Norton says to use Chrome or Safari and cautions against using other browsers. On my iPad, I used Safari and set up the URL as a home page icon. In addition to reading online, I can download a part of the book and read it offline. How? The material that I download is stored in Safari’s cache. This will only work with text, not the book’s audio. Downloaded text will be lost if the cache is emptied. This works OK, but it feels like a rather amateurish blast from the past.

I‘ll be happier if I can get my purchase to work with the Bookshelf app. That said, I’m happy with the combined cost of the digital (3 year license) and loose-leaf versions of the book. This has worked out to $100 plus $9.20 shipping plus tax.

[EDIT]: I think that the shipping would have been free if I'd ordered something else at the same time. See post #51.


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## agarner32 (Jul 12, 2020)

I’m coming into this thread a bit late. I only read the original post and a few of the responses. I have pretty much every theory book written because they send college profs free desk copies hoping we’ll adopt their book. I’ve used several over many years and have never been completely satisfied - I now use my own materials.

Regarding the WWNorton book, I think you made a good choice. Given the title it really is pretty concise which I like. I saw someone mention the Steven Laitz book. I used it once many years ago and ended up not liking it. It was a disaster for my students. I’m sure others have had better experiences. The problem for me is almost all the theory books make things way more complicated and wordy than it needs to be - especially for undergraduate level. Steven Laitz’s book is written well, but my students didn‘t like it and were lost half the time. To be fair I teach at a community college so I get a lot of underprepared students. They need their hand held every step of the way. I have colleagues at other colleges who love the Laitz book.

Like DAWs, everyone has their favorite theory book. In the end it’s what clicks. The problem with almost all theory books is that it takes a lot of practice. If you’re trying to learn it on your own it’s tough because you need someone to check your work. Basically you need feedback. It’s not impossible, but it’s just hard for most people to really learn this stuff on their own.

There is a book that has been around for a long time called “Harmonic Materials In Tonal Music” by Paul Harder. I think the latest version is by another author, but it’s based on the original. You get concise explanations of concepts followed by short problems with the answers. It’s pretty well laid out. So the format is concept, question and an immediate answer.

Good luck on your studying. I think you made a good choice for self-study and you’ll love the digital resources and quizzes that test your knowledge.


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## agarner32 (Jul 12, 2020)

Rory, feel free to send me a private message if you ever get stuck or need an answer checked.


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## Rory (Jul 13, 2020)

agarner32 said:


> There is a book that has been around for a long time called “Harmonic Materials In Tonal Music” by Paul Harder. I think the latest version is by another author, but it’s based on the original. You get concise explanations of concepts followed by short problems with the answers. It’s pretty well laid out. So the format is concept, question and an immediate answer.



Thanks @agarner32.

Pearson appears to publish the current version of this book, which has been renamed:

Steinke and Harder, _Basic Materials in Music Theory: A Programmed Approach_ (13th ed, 2019)

Pearson URL: https://www.pearson.com/us/higher-e...Books-a-la-Carte-13th-Edition/PGM2486811.html

It’s sold in loose-leaf for US$107 (currently on sale directly from Pearson for $85) and as an Adobe Reader document for $40 (6 month license) or $60 (lifetime). The digital reader is Bookshelf by VitalSource. There are accompanying audio files for download on the Pearson site.

Amazon also sells this as an ebook: Kindle Version


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## ed buller (Jul 13, 2020)

I have so many music text books....it became an obsession. But you really only need one to start with. This will deal with all you need to know up until the beggining of the romantic period. For that you'll need alternatives. It's a great book and it's tiny !



best

ed


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## Rory (Jul 13, 2020)

ed buller said:


> I have so many music text books....it became an obsession. But you really only need one to start with. This will deal with all you need to know up until the beggining of the romantic period. For that you'll need alternatives. It's a great book and it's tiny !




Carl Fisher publishes this book (Rimsky-Korsakov’s _Practical Manual of Harmony_, 1885) in English. This is Fisher’s 2nd ed. (2005), which makes mostly presentational changes to its 1st ed. (1930). In addition to paper, the book is available digitally for the Newzik app (iOS only). Both versions are US$17: https://www.carlfischer.com/txt2-practical+manual+of+harmony.html

IMSLP has the Éditions Alphonse Leduc French translation and the Russian original, both in the public domain and free to download.


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## agarner32 (Jul 13, 2020)

The Rimsky-Korsakov book is fine, but in my opinion pedagogically not the best - especially if you are trying to teach yourself. There is certainly good information in the book, but there are too many fundamental concepts missing. This may not matter for some, but graphically it's not laid out very well and there is no index which I think is important.

For instruction, whether you're teaching a class or yourself it's a disaster. The book starts out with chords before discussing important fundamentals like intervals, key signatures, scales, etc I could go on with dozens of reasons why this would not be a good teaching text and especially for the self-learner. By today's standards it's not a comprehensive theory book. Obviously this would be based on a student's background, but I'd say most would be lost after the first couple of pages.

The book could be a good reference on basic harmony for some, but definitely not a good comprehensive theory book by today's standards.

That's my 2 cents worth.


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## Nova (Jul 13, 2020)

@agarner32 Do you have any recommendations for self-study books that go beyond common practice tonal to more modern harmony (not so much atonal but romantic and contemporary).


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## Johnny42 (Jul 13, 2020)

Nova said:


> @agarner32 Do you have any recommendations for self-study books that goes beyond common practice tonal to more modern harmony (not so much atonal but romantic and contemporary).


Contemporary Harmony: Romanticism Through the Twelve-Tone By Ludmilla Ulehla.


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## agarner32 (Jul 13, 2020)

Nova said:


> Do you have any recommendations for self-study books that goes beyond common practice tonal to more modern harmony (not so much atonal but romantic and contemporary).


The first book that comes to mind is Vincent Persichetti's book "Twentieth Century Harmony." It's a great book and one that is probably high on the list for post-Romantic harmony. Another one I really like is Ludmila Ulehla's "Contemporary Harmomy." It's really a terrific book. Both books have tons of musical examples to study.

Another one is David Cope's "Techniques of the Contemporary Composer." After about the first 4 or 5 chapters it starts to get into serialism, set theory, prepared piano and a bunch of other extended techniques. But there is a lot of interesting tonal stuff in the first part of the book. I'm not sure if it would be worth buying it just for those first chapters.

Aaron


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## agarner32 (Jul 13, 2020)

I see Johnny42 suggested the Ulehla book about 20 seconds before I hit reply - haha! Yeah, if I had to pick one that's the one I would probably choose. It is very deep, but you can get a lot out of just playing through the tons of musical examples. I've sat at my piano many times just playing through the various excerpts and chord voicing examples.


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## Dewdman42 (Jul 13, 2020)

Most college harmony courses spend the better part of two years studying strict rules about voice leading as it pertains to diatonic materials. The romantic period and later is when composers began to stray from strict adherence to diatonic. Most college texts will touch on this briefly in the last chapter or two under the guise of chromaticism. But it doesn’t fit well into the narrative of the two years of strict diatonic voice leading and other rules.

romantic period and later especially is when strict aherence to rules basically went out the window as composers tried many new and interesting things to push the envelope of interesting harmony. Most college texts barely scratch the surface of this period. Once it went to 20th century then you have twelve tone and other stuff which is really past that phase, attempting to bring some kind of order to non tonal materials. But that precious period of romanticism and post romanticism is not really explained very well by typical texts to the same degree as the earlier diatonic materials. There are a lot of ways through different approaches to attempt more chromaticism and you will basically need to explore a lot of different materials, there is not a paint by numbers theory book for it like there is for the older diatonic materials.

i did find myself a lot of useful information from Berklee harmony texts which basically cover modal interchange in a practical way that applies perhaps more to contemporary tonal music. But I also feel you will be well served to first master the voice leading and counterpoint studies of the earlier diatonic materials so that you don’t study Berklee materials and end up sounding like a pop song with mediocre voice leading.


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## agarner32 (Jul 13, 2020)

Dewdman42 said:


> Most college texts will touch on this briefly in the last chapter or two under the guise of chromaticism. But it doesn’t fit well into the narrative of the two years of strict diatonic voice leading and other rules.


That is absolutely correct, but I think it's important to include a taste of musical terms and concepts that followed the common practice period. If for no other reason because from an academic standpoint students are expected to take a placement exam and have a familiarity of 20th century terms and concepts. Also, it often wets a student's appetite to go beyond the fundamentals. Some of my students have come alive once we got to the obligatory brief overview of Post-Romantic music. I consider the first two years as sort of a survey.

Yeah, the Berklee harmony books are good in a lot of ways. I used to use a set of 4 volumes years ago when I taught jazz theory. I remember they used these graphic symbols to show chords moving in circle progressions.



Dewdman42 said:


> But I also feel you will be well served to first master the voice leading and counterpoint studies of the earlier diatonic materials so that you don’t study Berklee materials and end up sounding like a pop song with mediocre voice leading.


Totally agree. But what's wrong with writing a pop song with mediocre voice-leading? I'd probably be living on the beach in Maui had I gone that route. 


But for crying out loud, when are we going to abandon figured-bass? It's time!!


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## Rory (Jul 13, 2020)

agarner32 said:


> The first book that comes to mind is Vincent Persichetti's book "Twentieth Century Harmony." It's a great book and one that is probably high on the list for post-Romantic harmony. Another one I really like is Ludmila Ulehla's "Contemporary Harmomy." It's really a terrific book. Both books have tons of musical examples to study.



For Adam Neely's take on Persichetti's book, see the video in post #31 titled _The 5 Music Theory/Composition Books that Most Influenced Me_.

Neely talks about Persichetti starting at 2:28. Right after, he tackles _A Chromatic Approach to Jazz Harmony and Melody_ by New York jazz saxophonist Dave Liebman. Neely studied with Liebman, and he's entertaining on the subject of his former teacher. Liebman's book is available on Amazon, but I don't think that I'll be reading it in the next couple of weeks.


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## agarner32 (Jul 13, 2020)

Rory said:


> _A Chromatic Approach to Jazz Harmony and Melody_ by Dave Liebman.


I got that book when it first came out and it's great. I have spoken to Dave a few times and he's an interesting man. Met him at a couple of IJAE conferences years ago. His book is coming from a jazz perspective, but the concepts could be applied to other genres as well. Thanks for reminding me of that book. I need to revisit it.


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## Dewdman42 (Jul 13, 2020)

agarner32 said:


> That is absolutely correct, but I think it's important to include a taste of musical terms and concepts that followed the common practice period. If for no other reason because from an academic standpoint students are expected to take a placement exam and have a familiarity of 20th century terms and concepts. Also, it often wets a student's appetite to go beyond the fundamentals. Some of my students have come alive once we got to the obligatory brief overview of Post-Romantic music. I consider the first two years as sort of a survey.



Well I'd also like to point out that post-romantic is not yet post-tonal. Romantic music was really not that far off from classical before it. Some of the famous classical composers overlapped into the romantic period also. Post-Romantic brought us turn of the century stuff that was still quite tonal, but way less diatonic. Post tonal serialism and all that, brought chaos as far as I'm concerned, but they are interesting techniques to play around with for sure, but personally I do not feel those theories really explained at all what romantic and post-romantic composers were doing.



> Yeah, the Berklee harmony books are good in a lot of ways. I used to use a set of 4 volumes years ago when I taught jazz theory. I remember they used these graphic symbols to show chords moving in circle progressions.



yep. But the most interesting part is modal interchange which is actually barely covered in those texts, but they do cover a lot of rules about avoid notes and such, which is basically the Berklee idea of strict rules that will result in tonal and pleasing music, leaving the door open still for chromaticism.



> Totally agree. But what's wrong with writing a pop song with mediocre voice-leading?



absolutely nothing in the right context! But in answer to the question about romantic and post romantic music, I feel the only way to understand it is to study the old traditional diatonic materials about voice leading and counter point and then explore what is possible chromatically. Modern Berklee voice leading in isolation will lead to pop song sounding voice leading, it will not lead to Wagner.


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## Dewdman42 (Jul 13, 2020)

There is also the whole Neo-Riemannian thing.... 









Neo-Riemannian theory - Wikipedia







en.wikipedia.org





look for papers and books by Frank Lehman as it pertains to film music.,


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## Rory (Jul 13, 2020)

Rory said:


> I’ve now purchased the digital version of _Concise Introduction to Tonal Harmony_ from the publisher, W.W. Norton. Price was US$85 plus New York retail sales tax. The license is for 1,080 days, which is two weeks short of three years.
> 
> Purchase of the digital version resulted in an e-mail offering the loose-leaf version of the book for $15 plus shipping and sales tax. The e-mail said that the offer applied only to purchases made from Norton in the U.S. I purchased the loose-leaf version as well. Shipping to New York (UPS Ground) was $9.20.
> 
> ...



Further to paragraphs 4 and 5 of the above post ...

Norton advises that digital access for _Concise Introduction to Tonal Harmony_ is available only from its web site. As stated in the screen capture below, the book can't be ported to the VitalSource Bookshelf app. This is not ideal for offline reading, but it's workable. I'll have online access most of the time that I'm reading this anyway.

I'm very happy with the book itself, having now spent a couple of hours with it. I'm also happy that the combined cost of both digital and loose-leaf versions came in at US$100, and that the digital license is for three years.

Norton is too opaque about digital access pre-purchase, and its post-purchase info is misleading. That said, it’s worth noting that Norton Support responded to my question on this within an hour or so.


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## ed buller (Jul 13, 2020)

Dewdman42 said:


> There is also the whole Neo-Riemannian thing....
> 
> 
> 
> ...



troublemaker !

e


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## Rory (Jul 13, 2020)

I'm comfortable enough with the choice of _Concise Introduction to Tonal Harmony_ that I've now also ordered Persichetti's Twentieth-Century Harmony. Adam Neeley's video (post #31) put the book on my radar, and comments in this thread are uniformly favourable. Again, I ordered directly from Norton. Norton's price was a few dollars better than Amazon's, and it included shipping (UPS Ground). I looked for, but failed to find, a used copy at a price that made sense.


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## Dewdman42 (Jul 13, 2020)

ie.....learn counterpoint...


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## agarner32 (Jul 13, 2020)

Gene Pool said:


> One of the symptoms of typical harmony textbooks is in their over-reliance on the figured bass, which is not what figured bass was intended for at all. It worked better as pedagogy when its original purpose was the common shorthand of the day, but it's not much use in the modern world and for modern understanding, given all the approaches to music that have come since then.


Couldn't agree more and I've ranted about this for years with my colleagues. It keeps getting perpetuated because my students and practically everyone else's college students have to place into a level of theory by way of an exam. Those students are being taught by the same theory books - and they are all mostly the same. Honestly for most of us, the way we teach is how we were taught. Perhaps it's the easiest and most convenient way to teach - laziness?

And another sad part about many theory classes is that many professors teach this stuff without even listening to the music in context. The way many teach theory is almost paint by the numbers. I learned how to spell and voice-lead an augmented 6th chord by just notating a b6 - 1 - #4 for an It6, add the 2 for Fr6 and add b3 for German. #4 to 5 and b6 to 5 etc. etc. I had no context for the chord other than how to spell and resolve them to a V or I6/4. And many are teaching the same way.

Anyway, great post Gene Pool.

Aaron


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## Nova (Jul 13, 2020)

Maybe I haven't gone deep enough to understand how figured bass is being taught. In all of my personal studies (which is admittedly still at a novice level), it's just used as a descriptive element of roman-numeral analysis, which I actually find useful as memory aids when it comes to things like diminished chords in first inversion or 6/4 triads doubling the bass. 

Is there a figured bass rabbit hole that I haven't gone down yet? Or is it that modern harmony says "double whatever you want in a second inversion triad, it's 2020 not 1700".


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## Dewdman42 (Jul 13, 2020)

Figured bass is actually slightly different then roman numeral analysis. Figured bass is more applicable for performance. Roman numeral analysis still has its place, with or without figured bass, I personally have never had any use for figured bass, but I have found roman-numeral analysis often to be quite useful to analyze what is happening "functionally" with the chord progression related to a tonal key center.


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## Rory (Jul 13, 2020)

Nova said:


> Maybe I haven't gone deep enough to understand how figured bass is being taught. In all of my personal studies (which is admittedly still at a novice level), it's just used as a descriptive element of roman-numeral analysis, which I actually find useful as memory aids when it comes to things like diminished chords in first inversion or 6/4 triads doubling the bass.
> 
> Is there a figured bass rabbit hole that I haven't gone down yet? Or is it that modern harmony says "double whatever you want in a second inversion triad, it's 2020 not 1700".



The book that I just purchased - _Concise Introduction to Tonal Harmony _- spends five or six pages on figured bass out of 485. In the context of four part harmony, it has a few paragraphs on "Realizing Roman Numerals" followed by a few paragraphs on "Realizing Figured Bass". Figured bass comes up again in a section on "Voice Leading in Four Part Harmony". Later in the book, there's a page about when figured bass suggests embellishing tones. On a brief perusal, it looks like the book treats it mostly as a notation issue rather than as an analytical issue.

In any event, it doesn't spill a whole lot of ink on the subject.


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## Gene Pool (Jul 13, 2020)

Nova said:


> Is there a figured bass rabbit hole that I haven't gone down yet? Or is it that modern harmony says "double whatever you want in a second inversion triad, it's 2020 not 1700".




Haha. No. It's really just a symptom of the larger problem, which is that tonal harmony textbooks are contrived with strictly commercial concerns in mind, and composers don't enter into that equation.


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## mikeh-375 (Jul 13, 2020)

Ideally, I believe one should also be autodidactic enough to be able to discern the principle of the thing and then, have sufficient imagination to adapt it to one's own principles. The adapting and assimilating should come naturally with practice and experience and also begin to give one a feel for their musical aesthetics and how to achieve them - the whole point of technique anyway. This can't be taught to any great degree imv.

There are other ways of course and ymmv.


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## Rory (Jul 14, 2020)

Now that I've had it for a couple of days, here's what I think of

_Concise Introduction to Tonal Harmony_ (2nd ed. 2019)
Poundie Burstein, Joseph Straus
Publisher: W.W. Norton, 485 pages

This book is marketed to people who teach a first year course on music theory and who want to set a required text for the course. To understand how the book works, it's worth looking at the page on Norton's web site, titled Instructor Resources, that tells instructors why they should choose this particular book: https://wwnorton.com/instructor-resources/9780393417180

Consistent with being an introductory text, the book starts with what a musical note is. The first edition covered conventional tonal harmony. The second edition adds six chapters on post-tonal theory. I imagine that co-author Joseph Straus, who has also written a well-regarded book called _An Introduction to Post-Tonal Theory_, had a significant hand in the expansion.

The book takes a different approach from alternatives. The word "Concise" in the title captures the approach. It is essentially a detailed syllabus of topics with short explanations or summaries of principle. At under 500 pages, the book is half as long as some of its main competitors. Also, there aren't 500 pages of text. Every exposition is accompanied by one or more examples in musical notation and/or audio.

From my perspective as a reader, it's like the smartest kid in the class has taken detailed notes at lectures, distilled them and shared the summary with her friends. An example will convey the flavour. Professor Straus's _Introduction to Post-Tonal Theory_ runs 400 pages. In this book, that is distilled to 94 pages.

As it happens, this is what I was looking for in a book. However, there's a tradeoff for the concision. I'll need to go to sources outside the book to flesh out, and properly understand, some of the content. There is fairly extensive supplementary material, both video and text, on Norton's web site. See the Instructor Resources link above. I haven't looked at this material closely enough yet to know whether this content, together with the book, results in a comprehensive, self-contained package. My assumption is that I'll need to do some outside reading, in some cases maybe quite a lot. This works for me, but probably not for everyone.

Here are two screen captures that show how the book works.

The first capture is from Part One: Fundamentals (from Chapter 3, Triads and Seventh Chords).

The second is from Part Six: Post-tonal Theory (from Chapter 45, Inversional Symmetry).


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## jbuhler (Jul 14, 2020)

Nova said:


> Is there a figured bass rabbit hole that I haven't gone down yet?


Well, you can try partimenti: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partimento


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## Nova (Jul 14, 2020)

jbuhler said:


> Well, you can try partimenti: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partimento



Oh hellll no.


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## Rory (Jul 15, 2020)

Thanks for all the comments and suggestions. These should keep me busy for awhile:

Poundie Burstein and Joseph Straus. _Concise Introduction to Tonal Harmony_ (2nd ed). W.W. Norton, 2019.

Vincent Persichetti. _Twentieth-Century Harmony: Creative Aspects and Practice_. W.W. Norton, 1961.

Arnold Schoenberg. _Harmonielehre_ (3rd ed). Universal Edition, 1922. Published in English as _Theory of Harmony: 100th Anniversary Edition_, forward by Walter Frisch (2010), translation by Roy Carter (1978). U. of California Press, 2010.

David Berkman. _The Jazz Harmony Book_. Sher Music, 2013.

And on a lighter note...

Alan Rusbridger. _Play it Again: An Amateur Against the Impossible_. Jonathan Cape/Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2013.


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## Rory (Jul 15, 2020)

Nova said:


> Is there a figured bass rabbit hole that I haven't gone down yet? Or is it that modern harmony says "double whatever you want in a second inversion triad, it's 2020 not 1700".





jbuhler said:


> Well, you can try partimenti: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partimento




So of course I had to check this out. Robert Gjerdingen, the fellow who apparently rediscovered partimenti, has just published a new book:

Robert Gjerdingen. _Child Composers in the Old Conservatories: How Orphans Became Elite Musicians_. Oxford University Press, 2020.

The book is about the history of partimenti. Judging from the Kindle sample, it makes the subject more palatable and less technical. Gjerdingen has also created a YouTube channel called Child Composers that currently has 200 videos: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMlksPU1SiTL66Df2J5BDNA I won't be surprised if Mr. Gjerdingen snags a film deal, for a documentary if not a feature film.

Unfortunately for me, partimenti grew out of Naples, which has long ties to Sicily. I've spent a lot of time in Sicily, specifically in an area famous for its Baroque architecture (hello, partimenti). In my reading on Sicilian history, I haven't come across partimenti, but I'd be surprised if it didn't leave an imprint. I see that the Kindle version of the book is only US$14.39


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## jbuhler (Jul 15, 2020)

Rory said:


> So of course I had to check this out. Robert Gjerdingen, the fellow who apparently rediscovered partimenti, has just published a new book:
> 
> Robert Gjerdingen. _Child Composers in the Old Conservatories: How Orphans Became Elite Musicians_. Oxford University Press, 2020.
> 
> ...


Gjerdingen was also my undergrad theory professor back in the mid 1980s. He didn't teach partimenti back then—I learned the usual figured bass—but he was already experimenting with some old conservatory techniques. Partimenti also fit very neatly with his interest in musical schemata. In essence, he sees partimenti as providing the building blocks of these schemata, as they train contrapuntal musical reflexes. BTW, his book on the galant style is absolutely brilliant:


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## Nova (Jul 15, 2020)

Rory said:


> So of course I had to check this out. Robert Gjerdingen, the fellow who apparently rediscovered partimenti, has just published a new book:
> 
> Robert Gjerdingen. _Child Composers in the Old Conservatories: How Orphans Became Elite Musicians_. Oxford University Press, 2020.
> 
> ...



That's a very interesting youtube rabbit hole. I follow a college piano professor on youtube (Dr. John Mortensen) who does classical improvisation and argues that it's a lost art and should still be taught, although I haven't heard him frame it in terms of partimenti improvisation.


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## Rory (Jul 15, 2020)

jbuhler said:


> Gjerdingen was also my undergrad theory professor back in the mid 1980s. ... BTW, his book on the galant style is absolutely brilliant




Your view of his book on Galant style is shared by every single one of the people who left Amazon comments.

If anyone's interested, these books are available both for Amazon Kindle and Apple Books, but the Kindle prices are the lower of the two by a significant amount. I just purchased both books, which cost all of US$31.43.


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## gsilbers (Jul 15, 2020)

Seems you are onto different things than what imma gonna post..

but rick beato does have very good music theory stuff.

This link is only the music theory videos









Rick Beato


Everything Music




www.youtube.com





basically the same stuff i learned at Berklee... even has the same up in your face italian american flair to it that i rememebr from many teachers back then..


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## bvaughn0402 (Jul 15, 2020)

gsilbers said:


> Seems you are onto different things than what imma gonna post..
> 
> but rick beato does have very good music theory stuff.
> 
> ...



Thanks for posting this.

Are these in order of suggested learning? Or are they mixed up in that regard?


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## gsilbers (Jul 15, 2020)

bvaughn0402 said:


> Thanks for posting this.
> 
> Are these in order of suggested learning? Or are they mixed up in that regard?




its mixed up i think. i just did a search music theory.


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## Coincidental (Jul 15, 2020)

Just catching up with this enjoyable thread (which has a couple of new recommendations to follow up - thank you) and I very much agree with this



Gene Pool said:


> Decontextualized chord labeling—with little regard for the voice movement and the real time perception of the music at any given point—leads to a lot of misunderstanding as to the _actual_ root movement, the _actual_ function, and therefore the _actual_ harmony. Voice movement does not exist first and foremost as a way of "connecting chords." That's flipping the hierarchy upside down.
> 
> In other words, human perception of tonal music is a heckuva lot more sophisticated and nuanced than what chord/function/grammar/labeling would lead one to believe. If you want to understand harmony, you have to understand how tonal music really works.



FWIW I found Schoenberg's _Structural Functions of Harmony_ very thought-provoking on this general line of thinking.


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## Nova (Jul 15, 2020)

gsilbers said:


> Seems you are onto different things than what imma gonna post..
> 
> but rick beato does have very good music theory stuff.
> 
> ...



I find a lot of Beato's stuff very difficult to follow and often wonder if he's trying to teach me something or just show off his knowledge. It's probably because he's starting from a point that's beyond where I am.


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## Rory (Jul 15, 2020)

Nova said:


> I find a lot of Beato's stuff very difficult to follow and often wonder if he's trying to teach me something or just show off his knowledge. It's probably because he's starting from a point that's beyond where I am.



Regardless of what one thinks of Rick Beato, the bottom line is that he does not offer an organised course on music theory. The closest that he comes is a PDF that he sells on “music theory and improvisation for guitar and other instruments”. It’s called “The Beato Book 4.0“ and sells for US$49.


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## gsilbers (Jul 15, 2020)

Nova said:


> I find a lot of Beato's stuff very difficult to follow and often wonder if he's trying to teach me something or just show off his knowledge. It's probably because he's starting from a point that's beyond where I am.



ha! no thats how these jazz poeple talk. same deal at berklee. it even goes with that music he has for his opening, they love 1000 notes per minute music like yellow jackets and that fast jazz stuff.

The berklee bookstore had a bunch of these type of books and workbooks to practice... its a lot of muscle memory stuff and learning and memorizing scales.
which the basic is good to learn but then its stuff that might not get used a lot.
but paralel harmony and borrowed chords help a lot for that film music sound.









Home - Berklee Press


Books and recordings covering all instruments and all main music topics.




berkleepress.com





i think it was a theory book and also it came with a "workbook" to do homework and memorize the basics.
there is also the reharmonization books and more advance stuff whihc is cool.

for easier stuff.
i like this guy


its guitar based but the lessons could be apply to other instruments.

anyways.. this thread seems to be more for classical style of theory books, which imo, have already been asked a bunch.. so this is a little side route. 
and reading and "learning" these theory books is the easy part.. understanding and "shedding" practicing the scales and retaining it is the hard part.


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## Rory (Jul 16, 2020)

Nova said:


> That's a very interesting youtube rabbit hole. I follow a college piano professor on youtube (Dr. John Mortensen) who does classical improvisation and argues that it's a lost art and should still be taught, although I haven't heard him frame it in terms of partimenti improvisation.



Robert Gjerdingen has set up the YouTube channel as the audio resource for his Child Composers book.

I spent some time reading both books today and I'm impressed. For one thing, he's a good writer.


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## Nova (Jul 17, 2020)

So I mentioned in an earlier post how John Mortensen talks about classical improv but doesn't mention partimento. After watching some more vids I've learned that he actually says partimento is the foundation of classical improv. The most interesting thing he says in the 2nd video is along the lines of "when someone is doing improv they aren't thinking of more things than you, they are thinking of less things." Fascinating stuff. 

I wish I was a more advanced player that could start studying it more. Anyhoo, it's off-topic from the thread but I figured there's some fellow nerds that would find it interesting.

What is partimento? -


An example from Bach
-


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## Rory (Jul 18, 2020)

Nova said:


> So I mentioned in an earlier post how John Mortensen talks about classical improv but doesn't mention partimento. After watching some more vids I've learned that he actually says partimento is the foundation of classical improv.



Robert Gjerdingen argues in his new book (_Child Composers_) that the partimento tradition should be revived as a way to teach children to play an instrument and as a way for older students and adults to learn how to improvise. I think that that is one of the reasons why he has made a considerable effort to make partimento material available on YouTube and elsewhere.

On these objectives, Gjerdingen has his work cut out. If there's a partimento "movement", there's little evidence of it. Mortensen is one of a very small group of people on YouTube talking about partimento. There's also a fellow who runs a channel called "En blanc et noir". In this video, published two weeks ago, his partimento performance is at the 10:50 mark (well worth watching). The preceding ten minutes of the video are about how he gets there:


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## Rory (Jul 18, 2020)

So far, the commercial music world has not paid a lot of attention to partimento. However, Breitkopf and Hārtel has published a collection of partimento pieces. Also, in 2018 Harmonia Mundi/Sony released an album called _Partimenti Napoletani_. Finally, there's a 2013 recording by a German harpsichordist, Christian Rieger, called _Partimenti: Improvisations on Basso Continuo_. See screen captures below.

The Breitkopf collection is preceded by an essay, in German, that can be read here: https://www.breitkopf.com/work/93/der-partimento-spieler

The PDF for the Harmonia Mundi recording is available at http://partimenti.ch/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Paraschivescu_Paisiello_digital-1.pdf


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## Rory (Jul 18, 2020)

Nova said:


> I wish I was a more advanced player that could start studying it [partimento] more. Anyhoo, it's off-topic from the thread but I figured there's some fellow nerds that would find it interesting.



From my perspective, very much on topic. Having adopted_ Concise Introduction to Tonal Harmony_ (2nd ed) as my core text, I want to know where Gjerdingen's books fit. Do they throw a wrench into the works, do _Introduction to Tonal Harmony_ and his books live comfortably together, or is it somewhere in-between?

One of Gjerdingen's strengths is that he's a polished writer who holds my attention. He's quite good at anchoring technical discussion in historical and cultural context, and bringing that context to life. I'm happy to follow along as he pursues the role of one of his characters and her husband in the French Resistance, and to pull up a Wikipedia page to find out what happened to the husband after he left to work for Ben-Gurion in the new state of Israel


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## anjwilson (Jul 18, 2020)

Rory said:


> From my perspective, very much on topic. Having adopted_ Concise Introduction to Tonal Harmony_ (2nd ed) as my core text, I want to know where Gjerdingen's books fit. Do they throw a wrench into the works, do _Introduction to Tonal Harmony_ and his books live comfortably together, or is it somewhere in-between?
> 
> One of Gjerdingen's strengths is that he's a polished writer who holds my attention. He's quite good at anchoring technical discussion in historical and cultural context, and bringing that context to life. I'm happy to follow along as he pursues the role of one of his characters and her husband in the French Resistance, and to pull up a Wikipedia page to find out what happened to the husband after he left to work for Ben-Gurion in the new state of Israel



Gjerdingen's ideas on schemata (which he finds evidenced in partimenti) do fit comfortably with harmony and voice leading as typically taught in North American core theory curricula (for which the Burstein/Straus is intended). Burstein and Straus are Schenkerians and Gjerdingen seems very much unconvinced by Schenker's theories, so there may be some differences in the subtext. I would not expect these to cause any significant problems here (it's when you start pursuing Schenker's deeper middleground structural levels that the two perspectives are really at odds).


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## jbuhler (Jul 18, 2020)

anjwilson said:


> Gjerdingen's ideas on schemata (which he finds evidenced in partimenti) do fit comfortably with harmony and voice leading as typically taught in North American core theory curricula (for which the Burstein/Straus is intended). Burstein and Straus are Schenkerians and Gjerdingen seems very much unconvinced by Schenker's theories, so there may be some differences in the subtext. I would not expect these to cause any significant problems here (it's when you start pursuing Schenker's deeper middleground structural levels that the two perspectives are really at odds).


Ok into the weeds of theory genealogy here. Gjerdingen trained with Leonard Meyer and Eugene Narmour at the University of Pennsylvania (as did I) and the approach was, as in the title of Narmour’s book, Beyond Schenkerism. The program was not by my time at least really anti-Schenker—Narmour taught Salzer’s extended Schenker in his analysis classes and Meyer was working on historiography of 19th century music by the time I was there. But Penn was noted for having little investment in Schenkerian theory compared to almost every other PhD theory programs at the time.

Straus and Burstein are in the CUNY Schenker tradition and in keeping with the CUNY tradition they are both open minded about it. In general Schenker does not have the same hold over the field of music theory that it did in the 1970s (when theory was emerging as a distinct discipline with its own society) and 1980s. And Schenker’s politics, which infuse his theoretical writings at a very deep level, make an uncritical embrace of his theories increasingly difficult. 

I suspect Gjerdingen would say something like the Schenkerian approach has the effect of “thinning out” and obscuring the schemata to the extent that a Schenkerian approach does not recognize the structuring work the schemata are doing. But his (and Meyer’s) schemata have always seemed to me to build on certain Schenkerian insights, at least with respect to prolongation, reduction, and the foreground/middle ground, which is likely one reason why the Galant book in particular has been so well received in the field. And Narmour and Gjerdingen (at least in his pre-Galant book days) have been quite interested in subjecting the schemata to the empirical testing of cognitive science, whereas the Schenkerian method is much more rationalist than empirical (however much Schenkerians might appeal to an empirical test of “hearing”).


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## anjwilson (Jul 18, 2020)

jbuhler said:


> Ok into the weeds of theory genealogy here. Gjerdingen trained with Leonard Meyer and Eugene Narmour at the University of Pennsylvania (as did I) and the approach was, as in the title of Narmour’s book, Beyond Schenkerism. The program was not by my time at least really anti-Schenker—Narmour taught Salzer’s extended Schenker in his analysis classes and Meyer was working on historiography of 19th century music by the time I was there. But Penn was noted for having little investment in Schenkerian theory compared to almost every other PhD theory programs at the time.
> 
> Straus and Burstein are in the CUNY Schenker tradition and in keeping with the CUNY tradition they are both open minded about it. In general Schenker does not have the same hold over the field of music theory that it did in the 1970s (when theory was emerging as a distinct discipline with its own society) and 1980s. And Schenker’s politics, which infuse his theoretical writings at a very deep level, make an uncritical embrace of his theories increasingly difficult.
> 
> I suspect Gjerdingen would say something like the Schenkerian approach has the effect of “thinning out” and obscuring the schemata to the extent that a Schenkerian approach does not recognize the structuring work the schemata are doing. But his (and Meyer’s) schemata have always seemed to me to build on certain Schenkerian insights, at least with respect to prolongation, reduction, and the foreground/middle ground, which is likely one reason why the Galant book in particular has been so well received in the field. And Narmour and Gjerdingen (at least in his pre-Galant book days) have been quite interested in subjecting the schemata to the empirical testing of cognitive science, whereas the Schenkerian method is much more rationalist than empirical (however much Schenkerians might appeal to an empirical test of “hearing”).


That's a fair response. I apologize if my earlier message was unfair to Gjerdingen. In my work with Burstein (I studied at CUNY), he wanted students to have fluency in recognizing these schemata, but that was always orthogonal to any Schenkerian considerations. He never attempted to address any tensions between overlapping schemata and linear progressions (as occurs in the "Prinner riposte," for instance). (Gjerdingen and Meyer never came up in my studies with Straus)

In my prior reading of Gjerdingen's work, he definitely seemed amenable to the idea of prolongation in the schemata themselves, but the schemata at least appear to be ontologically prior to linear progressions. And the musical surface arises largely out of the concatenation of schemata, rather than the massive expansion of a fundamental musical progression. This was my primary reason for the earlier post mentioning there might be sooner subtext disagreements. Nothing to do with Schenker's politics.


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## jbuhler (Jul 18, 2020)

anjwilson said:


> That's a fair response. I apologize if my earlier message was unfair to Gjerdingen. In my work with Burstein (I studied at CUNY), he wanted students to have fluency in recognizing these schemata, but that was always orthogonal to any Schenkerian considerations. He never attempted to address any tensions between overlapping schemata and linear progressions (as occurs in the "Prinner riposte," for instance). (Gjerdingen and Meyer never came up in my studies with Straus)
> 
> In my prior reading of Gjerdingen's work, he definitely seemed amenable to the idea of prolongation in the schemata themselves, but the schemata at least appear to be ontologically prior to linear progressions. And the musical surface arises largely out of the concatenation of schemata, rather than the massive expansion of a fundamental musical progression. This was my primary reason for the earlier post mentioning there might be sooner subtext disagreements. Nothing to do with Schenker's politics.


This is fair assessment too. No, I don’t think you were at all unfair to Gjerdingen. A Schenkerian approach and a schemata approach definitely have different emphases and produce different analytical insights. I don’t know Straus well (I do like his work) but know Burstein reasonably well, and he’s an extraordinarily well read and generous scholar.


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## rhizomusicosmos (Jul 29, 2020)

Following up on the partimento thread, there is this textbook:

*Harmony, Counterpoint, Partimento: A New Method Inspired by Old Masters*
by Job IJzerman

The ebook is quite affordable on Google Books and Amazon Kindle. I've checked that the pass codes in the ebook unlock access to the companion website with workbooks and mp3 examples.

From the cover:
_A new method of music theory education for undergraduate music students, Harmony, Counterpoint, Partimento is grounded in schema theory and partimento, and takes an integrated, hands-on approach to the teaching of harmony and counterpoint in today's classrooms and studios. A textbook in three parts, the package includes: · the hardcopy text, providing essential stylistic and technical information and repertoire discussion; · an online workbook with a full range of exercises, including partimenti by Fenaroli, Sala, and others, along with arrangements of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century compositions; · an online instructor's manual providing additional information and realizations of all exercises. Linking theoretical knowledge with aural perception and aesthetic experience, the exercises encompass various activities, such as singing, playing, improvising, and notation, which challenge and develop the student's harmonic, melodic, and rhythmic imagination. Covering the common-practice period (Corelli to Brahms), Harmony, Counterpoint, Partimento is a core component of practice-oriented training of musicianship skills, in conjunction with solfeggio, analysis, and modal or tonal counterpoint. _


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## Rory (Jul 29, 2020)

rhizomusicosmos said:


> Following up on the partimento thread, there is this textbook:
> 
> *Harmony, Counterpoint, Partimento: A New Method Inspired by Old Masters*
> by Job IJzerman
> ...




Thanks, worth noting that this is published by Oxford University Press and that the Kindle version is US$17.


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## Nova (Jul 29, 2020)

rhizomusicosmos said:


> Following up on the partimento thread, there is this textbook:
> 
> *Harmony, Counterpoint, Partimento: A New Method Inspired by Old Masters*
> by Job IJzerman
> ...



Thanks. I really feel like learning partimento at anything more than a surface level would require a teacher. It's a completely different way of thinking. It recently dawned on me (after watching someone discuss Bach) and blew my mind that he didn't think in terms of chordal 'functions', but was composing by intervals.


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## ed buller (Jul 30, 2020)

Johnny42 said:


> Contemporary Harmony: Romanticism Through the Twelve-Tone By Ludmilla Ulehla.


This is a fantatstic book !

best

ed


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## Rory (Aug 4, 2020)

Quick update on _Concise Introduction to Tonal Harmony _(2nd ed). A few weeks later, I'm very happy with the book. I purchased it in digital form, but I'm glad that I paid Norton another US$85 for the loose-leaf version as well. For me, a hard copy helps. That said, I hope that this is not now the norm for paper versions of college texts. The paper is quite thin and will tear easily. If, as I suspect, the hardcover version uses the same paper, I wouldn't be happy about it.

With that reservation, I highly recommend this book to people who are looking for a concise discussion of music theory, knowing that concision probably means additional research and reading beyond the book.


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## oooooooooooooooooh (Aug 4, 2020)

Rory said:


> Thanks for all the comments and suggestions. These should keep me busy for awhile:
> 
> Poundie Burstein and Joseph Straus. _Concise Introduction to Tonal Harmony_ (2nd ed). W.W. Norton, 2019.
> 
> ...



Schoenberg's Theory of Harmony is the book that made it all click for me, he explains the same concepts over and over again so many different ways that even an idiot like me can't misunderstand by the end. 

One word of advice: do NOT rush through any of these, especially the Schoenberg. I studied the Schoenberg on my own for about a year (having read it through first before starting again and doing the exercises), and six months of that was on chorale harmonization. I've gone through every Bach chorale at least once. Of course, that was because I really struggled with harmony and developing my ear, so I made myself really go through the ringer because I didn't feel like I had any other choice. Still, it was some of the best practice I ever got.

Also, very happy to see you put Berkman's Jazz Harmony in there! It's a modern classic, it's wildly practical and a joy to read. It also has the best explanation of harmonic function I've ever read.

Also, don't neglect counterpoint! I worked through Gradus Ad Parnassum and can recommend it—it's very basic, but a great way to nail down the building blocks of early counterpoint. Then I'd recommend moving onto Counterpoint in Composition: The Study of Voice Leading by Salzer and Schachter, which will give you some more modern context as to why counterpoint is relevant and essential. Your writing will take on much more dimension if you think vertically _and _horizontally.

But, one at a time!


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## ALittleNightMusic (Aug 1, 2021)

Rory said:


> Now that I've had it for a couple of days, here's what I think of
> 
> _Concise Introduction to Tonal Harmony_ (2nd ed. 2019)
> Poundie Burstein, Joseph Straus
> ...


Sorry to bump an old thread, but I think I'm on a similar search as you were and wanted to ask how you ended up liking _Concise Introduction to Tonal Harmony_?

I don't have an academic background in theory and nor do I want to get one. I've gone through Scoreclub and more want a sort of reference guide I can go back to that explains the basics of tonal harmony with perhaps touching on some more "advanced" or modern concepts. My goal is not to learn this for analysis purposes but to remind myself of some new directions when writing music - and not to do anything necessarily groundbreaking or overly complicated (I write quite simple stuff and that's what I enjoy).

Other books suggested here that seem to cover similar ground were:

_The Musician's Guide to Theory and Analysis
Twentieth Century Harmony: Creative Aspects and Practice
The Complete Musician_

As this would be for self-study / reference, something that is concise, easy to read, and doesn't waffle on about the "why" of theory would be my preference. I wonder how these four books compare in that regard?


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## oooooooooooooooooh (Aug 1, 2021)

ALittleNightMusic said:


> Sorry to bump an old thread, but I think I'm on a similar search as you were and wanted to ask how you ended up liking _Concise Introduction to Tonal Harmony_?
> 
> I don't have an academic background in theory and nor do I want to get one. I've gone through Scoreclub and more want a sort of reference guide I can go back to that explains the basics of tonal harmony with perhaps touching on some more "advanced" or modern concepts. My goal is not to learn this for analysis purposes but to remind myself of some new directions when writing music - and not to do anything necessarily groundbreaking or overly complicated (I write quite simple stuff and that's what I enjoy).
> 
> ...


I can't speak to all of those books, but I can say that Twentieth Century Harmony is one of the best, most practical harmony books around. At 283 pages it's thinner than most every other book out there, but it contains just about as much information with all the fat cut out and a laser-focus on the practical, musical applications of all its devices. Everything is grounded in clear examples with explanations on how to start playing around with the concepts in your work without being fixated on the technical trappings. It's easily my first recommendation for anyone interested in exploring beyond standard tonal harmony (aside from jazz harmony, which I actually think is a better thing to dig into first, but that's a general statement not directed squarely at you, I just want everyone to use ii-V-I's more).


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## ALittleNightMusic (Aug 1, 2021)

oooooooooooooooooh said:


> I can't speak to all of those books, but I can say that Twentieth Century Harmony is one of the best, most practical harmony books around. At 283 pages it's thinner than most every other book out there, but it contains just about as much information with all the fat cut out and a laser-focus on the practical, musical applications of all its devices. Everything is grounded in clear examples with explanations on how to start playing around with the concepts in your work without being fixated on the technical trappings. It's easily my first recommendation for anyone interested in exploring beyond standard tonal harmony (aside from jazz harmony, which I actually think is a better thing to dig into first, but that's a general statement not directed squarely at you, I just want everyone to use ii-V-I's more).


Thanks! How much does Twentieth Century Harmony cover the "basics" or does it go straight into modern harmony?


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## oooooooooooooooooh (Aug 1, 2021)

ALittleNightMusic said:


> Thanks! How much does Twentieth Century Harmony cover the "basics" or does it go straight into modern harmony?


It completely skips the basics and assumes you already know all that, so it's not at all suitable for those new to harmony but is perfect for those with some experience under their belt.


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## youngpokie (Aug 2, 2021)

Thank you @ALittleNightMusic for reviving this thread - I'm so glad I spent time this morning reading through it. @Rory - how do you find the book, a year later?

Regarding partimento: I am not familiar with it beyond some vague awareness it exists, but from what I am able to discern it seems to be a technique of composition that is template based. If so, then the modern and very linear DAW technology should be a particularly friendly environment to practice it.

But this comment on partimento in particular was especially thought provoking for me:



Nova said:


> It's a completely different way of thinking. It recently dawned on me (after watching someone discuss Bach) and blew my mind that he didn't think in terms of chordal 'functions', but was composing by intervals.



This made me wonder if there is any practical difference between composing by intervals versus composing by functions. I doubt it, personally, and I think the difference is instead in the academic versus practical angle of music theory, but I would love to learn more.

If partimento is indeed based on patterns, then it sounds similar to a version of functional theory as it was taught to composition students in the former USSR since the 1930s. The bits I'm familiar with explain - to summarize - that functional theory comes from intervals, from which the four "master" chord patterns are derived (cadential, transitional, prolongational, functional) and each master pattern has several flavors or variants - they are basically pre-made harmonic blocks with voice leading already done. Then there are two pattern-based techniques to subject these progressions to massive transformations: harmonic sequencing and modulation. Students practice playing all these building blocks in every key to develop muscle memory and individually each such building block is quite simple and almost primitive in some way.

Improvisation and "live" composition on demand is then defined as a way of stringing these patterns together and building melodies and countermelodies on top. So, jazz improvisation on top of its own flavor of chordal patterns might be a good illustration of this principle. Topline writing of melodies in pop music could be another, although of course this particular approach to functional theory covers many classical genres too, from Bach to Prokofiev.

This all sounds very similar to partimento in the general sense of defining improvisation as series of underlying patterns that are almost mechanical in nature. No wonder then, they talk about child composers and, I assume, an element of game and fun as a way of teaching them. I recall reading somewhere that Bach made his children play blindfolded to acquire muscle memory faster.

I have the Laitz book, as well as a few others, and I find it fascinating that they all are describing these harmonic patterns in great detail and with many examples, but none of them show how to put them together _in order to compose_. It's mystifying.....

Has anyone been able to go through "Harmony, Counterpoint, Partimento: A New Method Inspired by Old Masters", mentioned earlier in the thread? Would appreciate some comments on it...


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## Gene Pool (Aug 2, 2021)

youngpokie said:


> Has anyone been able to go through "Harmony, Counterpoint, Partimento: A New Method Inspired by Old Masters", mentioned earlier in the thread? Would appreciate some comments on it...


The Ijzerman book is a practical, hands-on book that ideally you would use at your keyboard unless you're just reading it for the sake of knowledge. If you know the Boulanger exercises they'd be a great fit for this.

An imperfect way of summing up the bulk of the system as presented in the book is that it is something like a splitting of the difference between the study of tonal counterpoint and the study of tonal harmony.

It begins with intervallic movement in two parts, then three, then four, like most counterpoint books. (Five- and six-part textures are not covered.)

As you likely know, Bach’s approach was the opposite, beginning with four parts (each on its own stave) and moving to three, two, and one part, since his method, philosophy, pedagogy was counterpoint+harmony as one, integrated thing, where even if all you were writing was one part, a full harmonic framework should still be implied with compound lines and such, and you wouldn’t know how to do that unless you understood four-part harmony first. Practical harmonic-counterpoint, and not based on Palestrina like the Fux.

Okay, back to Ijzerman, each new section begins with one or more examples of what for lack of a better word is an intervallic formula. He shows examples of sequences of the formula from the repertoire in prolonged, elaborated form—so you can see how real music was made from it—and then distills the formula down to its essence. The real world examples are drawn from different types of contrapuntal and homophonic textures, and there's a good balance.

The notation of the formulas looks figured bass-y, but it’s not a figured bass system per se. He also includes the scale step number that is in the top voice, as that is often part of the formula, especially at cadence points. At many cadence points he often includes functional terms such as "imperfect cadence" and the like as a sort of helpful “translator” for sorts, even though those terms didn’t exist in the original partimento schools that churned out awesome church musicians by the boatload. And for the most part there is little in the way of roman numerals in most of the book, and what little there is only serves as another sort of cross-reference "translator" with respect to functional harmony, showing the parallels between one system and the other.

Many formulas are included. Suspension formulas; Tied bass formulas; Cadence formulas; Fauxbourdon of course; Galant schemata; Rule of the octave; Chromatic formulas. He even uses canonic terms (e.g., proposta, risposta) where hidden/internal canons can result as a byproduct of the formula. He also does an excellent job covering enharmonization techniques. Essentially the most prevalent raw composing materials of the common practice.


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## youngpokie (Aug 2, 2021)

Gene Pool said:


> Many formulas are included. Suspension formulas; Tied bass formulas; Cadence formulas; Fauxbourdon of course; Galant schemata; Rule of the octave; Chromatic formulas.


Thank you very much for taking the time, it's much appreciated. I don't know if you had the chance to play with those formulas - I'm very curious he is teaching period writing or if he's showing how this "reimagined partimento" can be used for any style... Judging from the title I'd hope for the latter. 

Considering getting it based on your summary, thanks again!


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## Gene Pool (Aug 2, 2021)

I only read the book a couple years ago (and it's pretty new) so I wasn't trained on it. It's a little bit of a different experience reading about things you already know but that are taught in a somewhat different way than how you learned them. Gathering pedagogical techniques is a side interest for me for some reason—though I don't lecture or teach and have no direct use for them—so when I saw this I picked it up out of curiosity. Last I checked there are a few other books on the subject; I don't have any of those, this one is plenty, but I get the impression that they are for more of a historical account of the method and less hands-on pedagogy. There's another I have that is more of a reference, dedicated solely to Galant schemata, though it's very well written, it's a little bit redundant with Ijzerman and not as directly hands-on in my view.

Style-wise it goes as far as covering some of the effective chromatic, tonally ambiguous, "modulatory," chromatic mediant techniques (though I don't recall him using that term) used by Schubert, as well as some of the more "conservative" but harmonically awesome of the decidedly Romantic composers, but the terms are different, which is why he includes the translation terminology for clarification now and then, and the teaching of the concepts is more intervallically-oriented. It doesn't go whole hog Tristan-y or completely into post-tonal triadicism, but it does introduce some of those concepts in its own way. Call it the Reese's candy of CP counterpoint+harmony.

You may want to ask jbuhler for his take; I think I saw him mention partimenti once or twice.

Here are some screen shots that may give you some idea about what is and is not covered, and about the overall approach. The first is the TOC; the rest are random examples from later chapters:


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## Babaghanoush (Aug 2, 2021)

Johnny42 said:


> Contemporary Harmony: Romanticism Through the Twelve-Tone By Ludmilla Ulehla.


This has been on my bookshelf for years. It is excellent!

I’ve collected many theory books over the years, each with a slightly different approach to say the same general thing, but for me, this one stands out.

Read this book and Persichetti’s Twentieth Century Harmony and you’ve covered a lot of ground.


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## ALittleNightMusic (Aug 2, 2021)

Babaghanoush said:


> This has been on my bookshelf for years. It is excellent!
> 
> I’ve collected many theory books over the years, each with a slightly different approach to say the same general thing, but for me, this one stands out.
> 
> Read this book and Persichetti’s Twentieth Century Harmony and you’ve covered a lot of ground.


How do you find Contemporary Harmony from a reading perspective? More academic / theoretical in nature or more practical application? Easy to read or verbose?


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## Gene Pool (Aug 2, 2021)

ALittleNightMusic said:


> How do you find Contemporary Harmony from a reading perspective? More academic / theoretical in nature or more practical application? Easy to read or verbose?


The book is excellent in its coverage of late 19th and early 20th century harmonic practices, and the presentation is fine as it is for its purpose, but it is not ideally suited to direct application composers, nor was it intended to be. You have to work out the application part yourself, but there are techniques for that.

It's intended as a "Study of..." type of book for music majors taking advanced harmony, a small percentage of whom are composers. It's not what I'd describe as an all-out musicological treatment, but it _does_ lean fairly heavy on the theoretical. It has a good balance of text and music examples, but it may be a little down into the weeds for what you're looking for at the moment. According to what you said was your interest—basics of tonal harmony—it's a good deal more complex than that and chronologically a bit later as well. Plus which, it's nearly 4 cm thick.

It's probably no surprise that books by composers tend to be more straightforward and directly applicable _by_ composers, like the Persichetti and Tchaikovsky books, for example. In fact, the Tchaikovsky might be worth a look for you. It's mercifully thin and practical compared to the standard issue college textbooks on tonal harmony, and it keeps a narrow focus.

You might also consider _Harmonic Relations_, by Carl McKinley. It was the in-house intro to tonal harmony at the New England Conservatory before it was published. It's also thin (less than a centimeter thick), and straight to the point like the Tchaikovsky.

No one has to be harmony bound out the wazoo to be a good, better-than-good, or great composer.


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## ALittleNightMusic (Aug 2, 2021)

Gene Pool said:


> The book is excellent in its coverage of late 19th and early 20th century harmonic practices, and the presentation is fine as it is for its purpose, but it is not ideally suited to direct application composers, nor was it intended to be. You have to work out the application part yourself, but there are techniques for that.
> 
> It's intended as a "Study of..." type of book for music majors taking advanced harmony, a small percentage of whom are composers. It's not what I'd describe as an all-out musicological treatment, but it _does_ lean fairly heavy on the theoretical. It has a good balance of text and music examples, but it may be a little down into the weeds for what you're looking for at the moment. According to what you said was your interest—basics of tonal harmony—it's a good deal more complex than that and chronologically a bit later as well. Plus which, it's nearly 4 cm thick.
> 
> ...


Thank you for the advice! I hadn't heard of the Tchaikovsky book before, but I'll take a closer look. The others that had come up in this thread that seemed to be inline with what I was looking for were:

_Concise Introduction to Tonal Harmony
The Musician's Guide to Theory and Analysis
Twentieth Century Harmony: Creative Aspects and Practice (which you mentioned)
The Complete Musician_

I don't know if you have any feedback on those personally? I'll also consider Harmonic Relations as you mentioned. Thank you again!


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## Gene Pool (Aug 2, 2021)

ALittleNightMusic said:


> Thank you for the advice! I hadn't heard of the Tchaikovsky book before, but I'll take a closer look. The others that had come up in this thread that seemed to be inline with what I was looking for were:
> 
> _Concise Introduction to Tonal Harmony
> The Musician's Guide to Theory and Analysis
> ...


Just separate the Persichetti from the others. You definitely oughta have that around for reference and exploring different techniques. It kind of occupies its own spot. And since it's not systematic you can skip around.

I can't comment on the others but I'm sure they're fine for the purpose of a college textbook. But you said you write simple. Simple is good. (And great simple is harder to pull off than complex.) So when making your final decision be sure to check out the page counts for each and weigh that against whatever time you're willing to invest. Two of those are around 1000 pages print length according to Amazon, and the short one is over 500. But if you're looking to do a ton of analysis, then they might be fine for you.


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## ALittleNightMusic (Aug 2, 2021)

Gene Pool said:


> Just separate the Persichetti from the others. You definitely oughta have that around for reference and exploring different techniques. It kind of occupies its own spot. And since it's not systematic you can skip around.
> 
> I can't comment on the others but I'm sure they're fine for the purpose of a college textbook. But you said you write simple. Simple is good. (And great simple is harder to pull off than complex.) So when making your final decision be sure to check out the page counts for each and weigh that against whatever time you're willing to invest. Two of those are around 1000 pages print length according to Amazon, and the short one is over 500. But if you're looking to do a ton of analysis, then they might be fine for you.


Great points! Thanks again!


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## youngpokie (Aug 3, 2021)

Gene Pool said:


>


Many thanks for this.

It does indeed look like something that's at least going in the same direction as the method I mentioned earlier. And looking around a little on the Internet, I am finding bits and pieces which seem nearly identical conceptually.

The example below looks like what I think the transitional turnaround would be. And the pattern-based thinking is quite explicit.







I might be completely wrong, but I think there's a school of teaching that's waiting to be developed that takes this template angle explicitly, synthesizes it into a style-neutral method and brings it into the modern world.

If anyone is interested, there is a website that explains partimento vs solfeggio vs counterpoint vs schemas and provides a pretty detailed description and partimento lessons.

Partimenti.Org


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## ALittleNightMusic (Aug 4, 2021)

I was able to grab a sneak peak of a few books I was interested in. My thoughts are:

Adler’s Orchestration - probably a buy though it seems to be mostly focused on instrument ranges vs. combination / orchestration advice. It does include a lot of example scores though which is probably helpful. Companion audio is helpful.

Creative Orchestration - definite buy, seems to cover more practical application and scenarios and suggestions to try out

The Musician’s Guide to Theory and Analysis - very comprehensive, covers from the very basics up through modern harmony it seems. Also covers counterpoint, form, and some other topics, which seems handy as a reference. What I like about it is it is very easy to read and has a great layout with tons of well-printed examples.

The Complete Musician - similar to above but maybe not as nice of a layout. May also cover some other topics but does start from ground level.

Twentieth-Century Harmony - maybe a book for the future for me but not right now. Found the prose to be in that typical academic fashion vs. straightforward modern-day English. Would not be enjoyable for me personally.

Still contemplating Concise Introduction to Tonal Harmony as it seems in the vein of Musician’s Guide / The Complete Musician.


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## youngpokie (Aug 5, 2021)

I just stumbled upon another book which seems quite interesting. It goes from chorale style to pop music passing through diatonic harmony and chromaticism on the way, which would make it the most inclusive textbook I've seen so far (even if the author lists several major caveats regarding pop harmony).







I was hopeful especially having read the Preface...






Has anyone used this book? The Amazon page

Many thanks


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## KEM (Aug 5, 2021)

I have The Musician’s Guide to Theory and Analysis and I like it, I’m just lazy and haven’t been studying at all…


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## ALittleNightMusic (Aug 5, 2021)

KEM said:


> I have The Musician’s Guide to Theory and Analysis and I like it, I’m just lazy and haven’t been studying at all…


Thanks for chiming in - certainly one that’s near the top of my list right now.


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## osterdamus (Aug 5, 2021)

youngpokie said:


> I just stumbled upon another book which seems quite interesting. It goes from chorale style to pop music passing through diatonic harmony and chromaticism on the way, which would make it the most inclusive textbook I've seen so far (even if the author lists several major caveats regarding pop harmony).
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Sounds good, I’m tempted.


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## ALittleNightMusic (Aug 14, 2021)

Ended up buying quite a few books based on recommendations in this and other threads:

Musician's Guide to Theory and Analysis - the online components are really helpful
The Study of Orchestration - once again, the online components are great
Principles of Orchestration
Creative Orchestration
The Music of the Lord of the Rings Films
Hollywood Harmony

Should give me a lot of reading to do over the next 12 months!


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## Gene Pool (Aug 15, 2021)

Welp, looks like you've got all your free time planned out for the next year.

When you said that you write "simple," I mistakenly figured you were looking for the briefest and most to-the-point materials, haha.

I know all of your choices except for no. 1 and no. 5; all good picks.

Don't forget to shave and shower between books.


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## szczaw (Aug 15, 2021)

Are there any good public domain books ?


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## osterdamus (Aug 15, 2021)

Curious to know if there are people here on VI-C getting together and studying books in groups?


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## rhizomusicosmos (Aug 15, 2021)

osterdamus said:


> Curious to know if there are people here on VI-C getting together and studying books in groups?


This is an interesting idea. I would think the Persichetti would lend itself to this well, as each chapter has a set of practical compositional exercises that would be good to attempt, share and discuss as a group.


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## ALittleNightMusic (Aug 15, 2021)

Gene Pool said:


> Welp, looks like you've got all your free time planned out for the next year.
> 
> When you said that you write "simple," I mistakenly figured you were looking for the briefest and most to-the-point materials, haha.
> 
> ...


Haha - I appreciated your feedback. I wanted books that were a balance of relatively comprehensive and easy to read. I think all of the ones I bought are in that category - though Hollywood Harmony does seem rather verbose and wordy. I doubt I’ll read all of those cover to cover but figure they’ll each give me a little more knowledge than I have today and hopefully I can put that to use in my writing. Money much better spent than on another sample library.


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## rhizomusicosmos (Aug 16, 2021)

ALittleNightMusic said:


> Haha - I appreciated your feedback. I wanted books that were a balance of relatively comprehensive and easy to read. I think all of the ones I bought are in that category - though Hollywood Harmony does seem rather verbose and wordy. I doubt I’ll read all of those cover to cover but figure they’ll each give me a little more knowledge than I have today and hopefully I can put that to use in my writing. Money much better spent than on another sample library.


I actually found Hollywood Harmony quite engaging. I especially liked the chapter on Shore's LotR scores. It's not really written as a textbook, however, and assumes the reader already has had some exposure to post-tonal theory. _Musician's Guide to Theory and Analysis _should be able to fill in some of the gaps.


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## ALittleNightMusic (Aug 16, 2021)

rhizomusicosmos said:


> I actually found Hollywood Harmony quite engaging. I especially liked the chapter on Shore's LotR scores. It's not really written as a textbook, however, and assumes the reader already has had some exposure to post-tonal theory. _Musician's Guide to Theory and Analysis _should be able to fill in some of the gaps.


Great to hear! Probably will be at the end of my reading list then.


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## StefanE (Sep 20, 2021)

I am interested in _Musician's Guide to Theory and Analysis_. There are two different editions: a blue (fourth) edition and a red (fourth AP) version. What is the difference, i.e. which one I should take?


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