General_Disarray
Active Member
Thank you all very much for your replies. I've been too busy the last few days to read all of it, which I will surely have time this weekend.
Looking for best beginner book to learn music geared towards classical and film music
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Ilko Birov
Active Member
The Craft of Musical Composition This book by Paul Hindemith is a good place to start
Also, his Harmony book is wonderful. It's (classical) harmony with a minimum of theory. You are given several rules, and then have to play the exercises at the piano and write them down. It's a really good way to learn the rules without getting bogged down by theory and philosophies.
Schoenberg's book on Harmony, on the other hand, is quite the opposite, as it is full of philosophy, but, it's Schoenberg so. . . It's well worth the read.
Also, his Harmony book is wonderful. It's (classical) harmony with a minimum of theory. You are given several rules, and then have to play the exercises at the piano and write them down. It's a really good way to learn the rules without getting bogged down by theory and philosophies.
Schoenberg's book on Harmony, on the other hand, is quite the opposite, as it is full of philosophy, but, it's Schoenberg so. . . It's well worth the read.
General_Disarray
Active Member
Well, I bought the Alfred one. It's coming tomorrow. I was wondering if it would be a good idea to buy the Dummies one in Kindle format to have on my second monitor and try out the things as I'm learning them. My desk doesn't have a lot of space left after the Mac, two 32" monitors, the MIDI keyboard, the regular keyboard and mouse pad, and the NI MK3 pad controller.
Would that be a good idea, or would it mess me up, learning theory from two separate sources?
Would that be a good idea, or would it mess me up, learning theory from two separate sources?
tc9000
Absolute Member
Me looking at the 8 different uncompleted online music theory courses I bought:
Jokes aside, I think if you want that clear progressive structure, try to pick one source and stick with it for a bit. If it's really not working out, then maybe look around for an alternative...
ed buller
Senior Member
Wensleydale
Active Member
I agree. I drew up a table showing the order in which about eight different books and courses deal with various topics. The idea was that this would enable me to hop between them. But their approaches are so different that I realised that was out of the question. Needless to say, I'm not currently using any of them.
ed buller
Senior Member
The thing is, the stuff you need to know is pretty much the same in any book. The order might change but that list I made is what you'll need to know. And it's in pretty much every decent book on music.
But yes find a book you like the vibe of first:
My absolutely fav book on Harmony is Rimsky Korsakov's. No waste , nice and short.
best
e
General_Disarray
Active Member
Big fan of Rimsky Korsakov (until recently I thought Rimsky was his first name, it turns out that both are last names), at least of Scheherazade, which I have about ten versions of in CD, SACD and vinyl. He composed one the best works in classical music that I've ever listened to, and one of my favorites.
So yeah, definitely will buy that one at some point.
patrick76
Senior Member
Cool. How do we join your library? And, do you have anything on microfiche? Nice collection!Let me get back to you !
Best
ed
Wensleydale
Active Member
The order does change, a lot. Some books expect you to get pretty good at harmony before you embark on counterpoint; others introduce counterpoint (sometimes strict counterpoint) at a very early stage. R O Morris seems to have changed his mind between 1925, when in Foundations of Practical Harmony and Counterpoint he dealt with strict counterpoint before free, and 1944, when in Introduction to Counterpoint he advised starting with free. The same author devotes the first half of The Oxford Harmony, vol 1 (1946) to harmony in three parts, whereas in the 1925 book he took it for granted that one starts with four.
Of course, any path to enlightenment advocated by a reputable author will probably do the trick in the end, if one commits to it. My point is that:
(a) skipping from one book to another is likely to be a recipe for confusion; and
(b) it's hard for novices to choose the path that will work best for them.
ed buller
Senior Member
sundrowned
Senior Member
I can highly recommend getting a teacher rather than worrying too much about which book.
Starting out I would get a piano teacher with a focus on theory.
Starting out I would get a piano teacher with a focus on theory.
General_Disarray
Active Member
A wise suggestion. Unfortunately that's a bit expensive at the moment.
General_Disarray
Active Member
Well, I finally got the Alfred's one today. Didn't get a chance to start the lessons, but I went through the pages and I'm really excited about getting started. It also came with two CDs for ear training, something I'm really looking forward to, meaning, being able to recognize each note being played, even if at first it's something simple like long sustain notes in a violin or cello.
The thing that confuses the living hell out of me (not about this book, but music in general. I think I might've posted about it here, not sure), is the absurd American Notation System or whatever it's called, which grabbed the alphabet we all learned since we were little kids, chewed it and spat out a new one from like a bizarro universe. It seems created by a madman.
If they wanted the first note to be the one that sounds like C, they should've called it A. Or started each octave at the one that sounds like A. Same thing to me, I don't care, as long as my MIDI keyboard and the note editor in DAWs have A1, B1, C1, D1, E1, F1 and G1 in that order.
Not C1, D1, E1, F1, G1, A1, B1, then C2, D2, E2, F2, G2, A2 and B2 and so on. Some people explained it to me, and it still doesn't make any sense. They recommended me to learn to read music, which is why I'm excited about finally learning to do that.
But even if I read and write music on the typical music sheet, well, DAWs still use that notation system, and it's much easier than all the music symbols, but the order is just confusing. Many times I was trying to figure out a note progression from a simple solo violin with long sustains, so I write them down on a notepad, then try to play that, and I keep getting confused when playing them because you can't ask someone who lived for over 5 decades with an alphabet that goes A, B, C, D, E, F, G and 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, etc to suddenly change it to C, D, E, F, G, A, B.
And don't tell me the usual "It's always been that way", because there were lots of countries driving on the left side of the road and at different times in the 20th century they realized it was absurd because they didn't have to fight opponents with a large sword on their right arm, and switched to right side driving.
Just because something has been done the wrong way for ages doesn't mean it can't be changed to the right way.
The thing that confuses the living hell out of me (not about this book, but music in general. I think I might've posted about it here, not sure), is the absurd American Notation System or whatever it's called, which grabbed the alphabet we all learned since we were little kids, chewed it and spat out a new one from like a bizarro universe. It seems created by a madman.
If they wanted the first note to be the one that sounds like C, they should've called it A. Or started each octave at the one that sounds like A. Same thing to me, I don't care, as long as my MIDI keyboard and the note editor in DAWs have A1, B1, C1, D1, E1, F1 and G1 in that order.
Not C1, D1, E1, F1, G1, A1, B1, then C2, D2, E2, F2, G2, A2 and B2 and so on. Some people explained it to me, and it still doesn't make any sense. They recommended me to learn to read music, which is why I'm excited about finally learning to do that.
But even if I read and write music on the typical music sheet, well, DAWs still use that notation system, and it's much easier than all the music symbols, but the order is just confusing. Many times I was trying to figure out a note progression from a simple solo violin with long sustains, so I write them down on a notepad, then try to play that, and I keep getting confused when playing them because you can't ask someone who lived for over 5 decades with an alphabet that goes A, B, C, D, E, F, G and 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, etc to suddenly change it to C, D, E, F, G, A, B.
And don't tell me the usual "It's always been that way", because there were lots of countries driving on the left side of the road and at different times in the 20th century they realized it was absurd because they didn't have to fight opponents with a large sword on their right arm, and switched to right side driving.
Just because something has been done the wrong way for ages doesn't mean it can't be changed to the right way.
ed buller
Senior Member
um....with the greatest respect if your first response to studying music is to start a revolution to change note names perhaps it's not for you ?
Best
ed
Paul@Sydney
Senior Member
Ha. Wait until he gets to figured bass notation. He's going to be so, so mad!
The only notation system so far that I've learnt in my music theory journey that has made logical sense, to my computer science brain, is the chromatic system for describing pitch sets and chord spacings - (0,1,4) and <0,8,11> for instance.
Sorry I’ll say it.
‘It’s always been that way’ but for a good reason.
If it confuses you you could start by learning the scales at A Major but you’re only making life hard for yourself. Just get used to the fact that music notation and the circle of fifths starts on a center of C. Chopin never taught his students with the classic C Major first but even he didn’t argue the notes were incorrectly named (that I’m aware of)
The fundamentals of this are physics and the harmonic series.
‘It’s always been that way’ but for a good reason.
If it confuses you you could start by learning the scales at A Major but you’re only making life hard for yourself. Just get used to the fact that music notation and the circle of fifths starts on a center of C. Chopin never taught his students with the classic C Major first but even he didn’t argue the notes were incorrectly named (that I’m aware of)
The fundamentals of this are physics and the harmonic series.
ed buller
Senior Member
bryla
Orchestrator
I think there's a valid argument for changing the registral numeration and not changing note names. It would make more sense that the Scientific Pitch Notation had the octave 1 going from A to G rather than C to B. This change can still be done without disrupting theory only the labelling of certain notes.
