any must-have theory books?

[mindlessmusings]

Are there any "bibles" of music theory that anyone serious in the subject should have?

[oguzcan]

Harmony

Schoenberg - Harmonielehre (Theory of Harmony) (must have)
Schoenberg - Structural Functions of Harmony (must have)
Gauldin - Harmonic Pratice in Tonal Music
Kostka & Payne - Tonal Harmony
Rameau - Treaitse on Harmony
Persichetti - 20th Century Harmony (must have)
Straus - Post-tonal Theory (Not quite harmony ) (must have)


Counterpoint

Kent Kennan - Counterpoint (must have)
Fux - Gradus ad Parnassum
Mann - Study of Fugue
Schoenerg - Preliminary Exercises in Counterpoint (must have - rare to find, out of print)
Jeppersen - Counterpoint in the Polyphonic Stlyle of 16th Century


Form

Schoenberg - Fundamentals of Musical Composition (must have)


Orchestration

Adler - Study of Orchestration (must have)
Korsakov - Principles of Orchestration
Berlioz - Treatise on Instrumentation

That's all I can think of now.

[ganymed]

I can recommend "Basic Music Theory: How to Read, Write, and Understand Written Music"
It deals with the basics of music theory and the author explains everything really well ^^.

[wako_kato]

if your doing grades, i know this book seems for complete kids but i used 'theory  is fun' books just before the exam after using a more detailed book. it just let me revise it and wasnt too strenuous.

[ramseytheii]

I also highly recommend the Schoenberg "Theory of Harmony" as it is often called in English.  It combines amazing historical insight (he dwells on the origins of counterpoint, the development of harmony historically, ethics in composition) with practical sets of exercises that gradually become more and more difficult.  It is all basically about more and more complex harmonies writing in 4, 5 or 6 parts.  It's a tough, long, read but guaranteed your theory skills will improve.  he seems to have known everything about the topic!

Walter Ramsey

[danny elfboy]

Are there any "bibles" of music theory that anyone serious in the subject should have?

The fact that they're considered "bibles" should tell you something ... didactically beloved long-windedness vs. practical applications and straight-forward explanation of the implementations of the suggested theories.

Have a look at:

Harmonic esperience: Tonal Harmony from Its Natural Origins to Its Modern Expression
- William Mathieu -

This is considered a bible too but fortunately not because of its pedantic nature

[prometheus]

Schoenberg - Harmonielehre (Theory of Harmony) (must have)
Schoenberg - Structural Functions of Harmony (must have)
Rameau - Treaitse on Harmony
Persichetti - 20th Century Harmony (must have)


Fux - Gradus ad Parnassum
Mann - Study of Fugue

Schoenberg - Fundamentals of Musical Composition (must have)

Korsakov - Principles of Orchestration

I have these books. Except for Rameau which I never actually started to read all of them are worth the interest. But if they are worth your money and time I do not dare to judge.

[ridr27]

Harmony

Schoenberg - Harmonielehre (Theory of Harmony) (must have)
Schoenberg - Structural Functions of Harmony (must have)
Gauldin - Harmonic Pratice in Tonal Music
Kostka & Payne - Tonal Harmony
Rameau - Treaitse on Harmony
Persichetti - 20th Century Harmony (must have)
Straus - Post-tonal Theory (Not quite harmony ) (must have)


Counterpoint

Kent Kennan - Counterpoint (must have)
Fux - Gradus ad Parnassum
Mann - Study of Fugue
Schoenerg - Preliminary Exercises in Counterpoint (must have - rare to find, out of print)
Jeppersen - Counterpoint in the Polyphonic Stlyle of 16th Century


Form

Schoenberg - Fundamentals of Musical Composition (must have)


That's all I can think of now.

WOW what a list:
Oguzan could.  but on the subjects of Harmony, Form and Counterpoint, I would like a book starting from most basic and then moving up from there.

Thank you again for posting the list.

Rider 27

[ridr27]

Harmonic esperience: Tonal Harmony from Its Natural Origins to Its Modern Expression
- William Mathieu -

Hi Elfboy.  How would you rate the above one?  Sounds good.

Wonder if we will ever get the Harmony Class off the ground.  I still do not have my book, but it should be coming soon.

Thank you again for your help.

ridr27

[ridr27]

Oguzan.

My last post was missing words.  I don't know what happened.
I just wondered if you could tell me the best ones from the list that would start from explaining basics and then move on from there.  I am not a beginner but in some of this harmony etc.  I need start at the beginning.
Thank you again. 

ridr27

[danny elfboy]

Hi Elfboy.  How would you rate the above one?  Sounds good.

Wonder if we will ever get the Harmony Class off the ground.  I still do not have my book, but it should be coming soon.

Thank you again for your help.

ridr27

This is probably the best book evern written on Harmony and music theory
The reason is that there's a perfect balance of theories, exercises, explanation of the mechanism behind the theories, real world examples of the example of the theories
Compared to Piston or Kosta (well known "shopping-list-book") you have a real book dealing 260° with the origina, reason, theory and applications of harmony not just a collection of dislinked from the real world overdetailed theorical and dry list of rules

Compare the Mathieu's book reader as a cinema actor who must act in many scenes that will later be joined together but are now on their own who is given anyway the outline of the movie and is explained the why's of those scenes and how they originated from the plot and the readers of the "bibles" as an actors who must act in all those disjointed scenes but without knowing what the movie is about, why those things in the scene are happening and what the sense of it all is. I know people that after having studied with their teachers on the Piston or Kosta had to relearn everything (but this time functionally and practically) from scratch once they found a real job in the musical/orchestra

It's not different than those peple studying economy and commerce for years on those hypertheorical books just finding out that once it's time to apply what they know they don't really know anything and haven't learned nothing and find themselves on the circumstance of having to learn everything from trying, applying and observing

[ridr27]

Elfboy thank you for the reply.

Sounds good.  Wished I knew more about the other books listed.  I will try and research.

ridr27

[soliloquy]

In this order:

Norton Programmed Texts in Music Theory
Norton Basic Harmonic Progressions
Piston Harmony
Piston Counterpoint
Fux Study of Counterpoint
Rimsky-Korsakov Principles of Orchestration
Mann The Study of Fugue
Brindle Musical Composition
Brindle Serial Composition
Hindemith The Craft of Musical Composition Part 1
Hindemith The Craft of Musical Composition Part 2
Persichetti 20th Century Harmony
Cadwallader Analysis of Tonal Music
Cope New Music Composition
-------------------------------------------------------------------

Then there are these that are extremely advanced:

Xenakis Formalized Music
Steeb The Nonlinear Workbook
Haggstrom Finite Markov Chains and Algorithmic Applications


There are also hundreds of essays by the likes of Karlheinz Stockhausen, Pierre Boulez, Paul Hindemith, Iannis Xenakis, Ian Pace, Heinrich Shenker etc that you should look into.

[ridr27]

soliloquy

Thank you for the list of books and in order!

rider27