kelpie@fluke.UUCP (Tony Garland) (11/22/85)
Many thanks to all of you who took the time to respond to my query for good self-study music theory texts. I received many requests for a summary of the information I received so I've posted here. Sorry I can't spend the time to make what follows "prettier", but the information is what counts! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- >> >>Here is a short bibliography of standard texts in music theory. >> >>*Notation (To learn to write music, first you must learn to write music.) >>Preparing Music Manuscript - Donato (good stuff on making parts for large >> ensembles) >>The Art of Music Engraving and Processing - Ross (Hansen) (Extremely detailed >> exposition of American music engraving standards on basic notation. >> Essential for people writing transcription programs for computer.) >>Music Notation - Read (Crescendo) (not actually that good, but in a desert...) >>New Music Vocabulary - Risatti (U of Illinois) (source book of symbols for >> new instrumentation effects.) >>Practical Guide to Music Notation - Carl A. Rosenthal (pretty good.) >> >>*Harmony (a major fifteenth chord with flat fifth and a double sharp 11th?) >>Harmony - Schenker (MIT) (Nothing special. Doesn't include his theories.) >>Harmony - Piston (Norton) (Very popular and complete book.) >>Traditional Harmony - Hindemith (An outline. I used it in high school. >> Better with a teacher around than without, but can be navigated alone. >> No examples from the literature; a teacher is supposed to give you >> that.) >>Theory of Harmony - Schoenberg (Uni California) (A wise book. Somewhat old. >> About traditional harmony, not his serial system.) >>Structural Functions of Harmony - Schoenberg (Norton)(Excellent description >> of the relations of key areas; addresses the same issues as Schenker.) >>Structural Hearing - Salzer (Dover) (based on Schenker's work, was intended >> to be a complete 3 year course in everything. The modal counterpoint >> section is not good. The rest provides good illustration of Schenker's >> thought. A big two volume work in one book from Dover.) >>Five Graphic Music Analyses Schenker (Dover) (No commentary, just graphs of >> pieces. Read the Salzer first.) >> >>*Counterpoint >>Tonal Counterpoint - Krenek (Boosey & Hawkes) A short outline. >>Counterpoint - Piston (Norton) A more complete textbook. >>Modal Counterpoint - Krenek (Boosey & hawkes) A very short outline. Better with >> a teacher. >>Studies in Counterpoint - Krenek (Shirmer) (An outline of serial twelve-tone >> technicque. Pretty good.) >> >>*Form >>Exercises in Melody Writing - Goetschius (Shirmer)(Beginning principles >> of form.) >>Homophonic Forms - Goetschius Very old. >>Musical Form - Leichentritt Very old. >>Musical Structure? - Wallace Beery, (a standard college text based on >> Schenker, Salzer and Cooper/Meyer. >> >>*Rhythm (I got rhythm - have you?) >>The Rhythmic Structure of Music - Cooper & Meyer (U of Chicago) (The standard >> psycho-acoustically founded treatise on grouping, emphasis, accent.) >>Principles of Rhythm - Creston (Belwin Mills)(A compendium of the confused >> historical Western ideas about rhythm,presented as coordinated theory.) >> >>*Instrumention and Orchestration (for writing permanently obscure music) >>Dictionary of Bowing & Tonal Technics for Strings - Mark Lorrin (Hansen) >> Fantastic summary of string instrumentation details. >>Orchestral Technique - Gordon jacob Really talks about orchestration >> and texture and blending >>The technique of Choral Composition - A. T. Davison (Cambridge) >> (Hard to remember, but I think it was OK) >>A Guide to writing vocal arrangements for Solists, Groups, Chorus - Jimmy Joyce >> (First Place Music Pub.) Studio orientation. Good concrete guidance. >>Scoring for the Band - Lang (mills Music) (good job of what no one needs.) >> It's for making wind orchestra and marching band charts. >>Orchestration (a practical handbook) - Wagner (McGraw Hill) not much special, >> some things on choral and strings were unique. >>Teach yourself Orchestration - King Palmer (English University Press) >>Project Lessons in Orchestration - Heacox (Oliver Ditson, Theodor Presser >> remarks on writing for school orchestra; real orchestration exercises. >>The Technique of Orchestration - Kent Wheeler Kennan (University of Texas) >> models of texture; hints on transcribing piano music. >>Practical Orchestration - Arthur Olaf Anderson ( Incredible instrumentation >> detail on strings (every single fingering in every position) >> Pointers on using each instrument in a texture. Not much orchestration. >>Orchestration - Cecil Forsyth (since reprinted by Dover). Really only >> instrumentation, but includes some weird old instruments such as >> Tenoroon, Quartfaggot, and dulcitone. Does anyone have a >> DX7 patch for a quartfaggot? >>Orchestration - Piston (Norton) (Popular, really mostly instrumentation. >> Very little on orchestration. Woodwinds get covered pretty well. >> Brass is short-shrifted, so is percussion. Strings are just >> routinely covered. eh. No weird old instruments. >>Treatis on Instrumentation - Berlioz (R. Strauss additions marked with >> change bars)(Kalmus(now Belwin-Mills)) Very old but well illustrated. >> More actual orchestration, mixed in with the instrumentation. >> Includes older rare instruments. Half the book is full examples, >> mostly from Berlioz, Wagner, and the others. >>Instrumentation or Orchestration by Rimsky-Korsakov. Dover. Remembered >> this at the last minute. The front half is mostly instrumention >> covered lightly, with hints on using instruments in a texture. >> the second half is all examples from Rimsky-Korsakov. >>Well_Prepared Piano - Richard Bunger (POOP) the only guide to using >> special mutes in a piano to change the sound. >> >>*Composition >>Craft of Musical Composition 2 vols.- Hindemith (Schott) (Vol II is >> Abstract rules for beginners to practice discipline. Has nothing >> to do with reality.) However, I never saw volume I, which is >> supposedly the theoretical part.) >>Fundamentals of Musical Composition - Schoenberg (Faber) >>Invention & Composition of Music - Hutchings (Aphorisms, simple guidance and >> encouragement.) >> >>*Advanced studies >>Notes of an Apprenticeship - Boulez (examples of modern theory-great article >> on the rhythm of The Rite of Spring) >>Technique of My Musical Composition - Messiean (How he actually composed, >> including scales, rhythm, and color correspondance with chords) >>Twentieth Century Music Idioms - Welton Marquis (Prentice-hall) (atonal >> primer, a slightly artificial introduction) >>Serial Music? - George Perle (advanced serial text.) >>Formalized Music - Iannis Xenakis (Compilation of articles including his >> description of his FORTRAN composing program and his techniques.) >> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- >> >> There is a large-format soft-covered book called "How to play the piano >>despite years of lessons." It includes a lot of theory, not as dry unrelated >>information but worked into their development of harmony, chords, etc. You >>might look at it and see whether it has something you like. >> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- >> >>I am using a book called >> >>Tonal Harmony >> >>by >> >>Stefan Kostka & Dorothy Payne >> >>As long as you have a piano or access to one, it would work pretty well >>without an instructor. The exercises in the book have the answers in >>the back of the book. There is a separate workbook if you want more >>practice (though no answers to the workbook). -------------------------------------------------------------------------------