Piano Forum
Piano Board => Student's Corner => Topic started by: vincentl on November 03, 2011, 11:58:28 PM
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Can anyone suggest a book for studying harmony and composition?
I am planning to start reading Paul Hindemith's The Craft of Musical Composition and wish to ask if anyone has read it and if it is any good? I am currently reading the book, Music Composition for Dummies. As for a book in harmony, I can't seem to find any. Can anyone help?
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The best book for harmony, in my opinion, is Harmony and Voice Leading, by Edward Aldwell and Carl Schachter. It covers some composition too. You can download it from internet, but its piracy, so its up to you
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I think I have read that somewhere before, but I don't remember where. The price for it in Amazon is just too much for me at the moment, I guess I'll try to search for it in libraries for now. Thanks for reminding me about that book, I did find it the most informative one about harmony.
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I don't know of any book that teaches harmony especially for students particularly interested in composition - apart from perhaps the Schillinger System -
They must exist!
Personally I also like the Walter Piston book on harmony - because the examples he gives, shows how chords are actually applied in Orchestral and Piano writing - although the orchestral examples are reduced - it would have been hard to have included full-score examples.
I think the Schoenberg books on Harmony and Composition are also excellent.
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I don't know of any book that teaches harmony especially for students particularly interested in composition - apart from perhaps the Schillinger System -
They must exist!
Personally I also like the Walter Piston book on harmony - because the examples he gives, shows how chords are actually applied in Orchestral and Piano writing - although the orchestral examples are reduced - it would have been hard to have included full-score examples.
I think the Schoenberg books on Harmony and Composition are also excellent.
Those are very good books, but very difficult to study by yourself.
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Just to give another point of view, all theory/harmony books use musical examples for the topic that you're learning (V7 and inversions, subdominant functions, augmented 6 chords, counterpoint, whatever). Personally, I detest the Piston harmony books. So incredibly boring. I've used Tonal Harmony by Kostka and Payne, though I am not aware of books that work through harmony AND composition.
Enjoy your studies.
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Just to give another point of view, all theory/harmony books use musical examples for the topic that you're learning (V7 and inversions, subdominant functions, augmented 6 chords, counterpoint, whatever). Personally, I detest the Piston harmony books. So incredibly boring. I've used Tonal Harmony by Kostka and Payne, though I am not aware of books that work through harmony AND composition.
Enjoy your studies.
I don't find the Piston texts boring -
I actually tried to begin writing a book on Harmony- It is incredibly difficult to present the required information, and to make the examples interesting. Also, if you assume the student is a beginner, it is very important not to overwhelm the reader. Also, I wanted to aim the book at Electronica and Trance producers, who are often quite aggressive to learning theory in the first place - anyhow it is a tough!