What's the best beginner book on music theory.

[gerard82]

Thanks.

[nanabush]

Mark Sarnecki has an excellent book; I've used it with 3 students so far and two got in the 90's and one in high 80's on the Basic Rudiments for RCM.  I don't remember the exact title, but it's a really wide book and the cover is green and purple    I think it just says "Basic Rudiments" or something along those lines.

Two of the students started in grade 5 piano (this is still with the one page baroque pieces, and short sonatinas), and one in grade 4...

Begins with note naming and rests, goes through key signatures (until 4 flats and 4 sharps), major and minor scales, semi/whole tones, chords, rhythm, transposition and italian terms.

It covers a ton of stuff, and helps the students with learning pieces, because they can now understand the basic layout of a piece, what kinds of chords to expect and what not to expect (like an F# major chord in a G major piece).

I'm hoping that by 'beginner music theory' you mean that kind of stuff; if you mean like beginner in piano as in they can't read a single note then Grace Vandendool has a set of books that go through the extreme basics like writing clefs, naming the basic notes, rules for naming notes, and that's pretty much it

[shingo]

Hi Nanabush,

This book sounds interesting, havn't heard it mentioned before. I did a quick search and found a book which seemed to match your green and purple cover description, it's called Harmony - book 2 by Mark Sarnecki, could this be the one? I note that there is a book 1 also so perhaps this is a different series and the one you have is a complete volume.

[rhpatten]

The Associated Board publications.   The little red book called "Rudiments of Music" was originally one of theirs, but has been subsequently updated and re-issued.   Look on www.abrsm.org.