im looking for books of all levels on music theory (a large topic, i know). your favorites/the best?

Knud Jeppesen's counterpoint book.

Heinrich Schenker's Free Composition...and others.

Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach's Essay on the true art of playing keyboard instruments
More specifically the section on Figured Bass.

J.S. Bach's treatment of Figured Bass in one of the apendices in Spitta's book (Vol. 2, I think).

J.S. and C.P.E. despised Rameau's book which over-simplified harmony. Well, it's not a bad book if you want to understand Rameau's music.

All this stuff prepares your mind for the joys of studying scores. Every piece of music has it's own unique tonality. You have to be able to recognize the underlying logic behind the composition.

Try not to see theory as a collection of depressing strictures. The rules aren't exactly arbitrary either. You'll see.

thanks for the advice

Well, you know my agenda. What are you interested in playing/writing?

well ive written a few pieces for string quartet and some mid-sized ensembles, im mostly interested in new and avant garde music but im trying to force myself to learn the basics of everything western from gregorian chant up to the 20th century, and then move on to other parts of the world... plus im applying to ucla and usc for composition so i have to pull a few samples together over my winter break.

It's good that you're writing already. Try to keep that up.

If you have no genuine respect for or interest in your musical heritage, forcing yourself to study it will be kind of a waste. Anyone with pretentions of becoming a composer should be just plain fascinated with the abstract concepts of any and all music. Ignoring formal training seemed to work for John Cage. He's, well...one guy out of...?

The Jeppesen book is based on the compositions of Palestrina (16th century). Much later than Chant, and more interesting to listen to.

The Fux (1660 – 1741) book, Gradus ad Parnassum, is historically important. You'll get more practical information from Jeppesen, though. (He was one of Vagn Holmboe's teachers anyway...that should make you teem with excitement, BTW)

Hindemith's composition books are good. It gives some order to dense, seemingly vagrant chords.

I've read through Schoenberg's (well, the finished stuff). He's okay. It's a lot of watered down Schenker. Endless ways to "modulate" or drift from one "region" to another. It seems unnatural to me to start with chord progressions when composing...so I haven't found much use for his stuff. He criticized Slonimsky's scale book for being overly exhaustive in its catalogue of this and that scale. I don't see how Schoenberg's Harmony is any different.

You'll probably run into the Walter Piston book on Harmony soon enough. Most folks swear by it.

Beethoven's piano sonatas are basically the "how to" in composition. Great place to start.

Dover scores are pretty cheap and well bound. Mostly classic repetoire. There's some Prokofiev. Webern's amazing Op. 1. Schoenberg's Five Pieces for Orchestra in miniature score.

If you want to get anywhere with this, you should spend a lot of time on campus in the music section of the school library. College instruction only vaguely points you in the right direction. Without extensive follow-up, it amounts to nothing. Then again a good teacher is priceless...well, that's obvious.

I know people who have graduated from expensive schools like Cal-Arts that have done nothing interesting with their knowledge. They often can't find the stimulus to write at all.

Did you know that you could get a figured bass book written by Handel? Oh, joy!

The crickets are rejoicing! Listen!!!

Serial Composition by Reginald Smith Brindle is good beginning book.

Asked my younger sister about it. Do you mean, Complete Sonatas for Violin & Figured Bass Book 1 & 2?


Have you read, The Art Of Accompaniment From A Thorough-Bass Volume I & 2 by FT Arnold?

The Art of Accompanying on the Basso Continuo: For Organ and Harpsichord by Guillaume-Gabriel Nivers?



That's her asking.