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The Complete Musician: An Integrated Approach to Tonal Theory, Analysis, and Listening Review

I am a self-taught and studied off Schoenberg's 'Treatise of Harmony' and MacPherson's 'Melody and Harmony'. The former is an unique and philosophical study in harmony, the latter a more common harmony textbook,but nevertheless very succint and well organized.
But 'The Complete Musician' is really the best of modern books about harmony and more. You can't argue with about 850 pages packed full of great music instruction,from harmony,to the motive,to forms. You can't argue with a book that comes with two dvd's of recorded examples by an orchestra. This is simply the best book about music I have ever seen. I also own 'Tonal Harmony' by Kostka and 'Music in theory and practice' by bruce Benward. They are all really good,they all come with recorded examples (an amazing aid) but for me The Complete Musician is really hard to beat, it is the most complete of all,and the most detailed. For example,if you examine the lessons about Sequences in the two books mentioned (tonal harmony, Music in theory and practice) you'll see that The Complete Musician has the most detailed explanations. All the topics are treated in this fashion.
This is really the book I have always wanted. I wish they had written it 10 years ago. Buy it with no hesitation, it's unbeatable value.

The Complete Musician: An Integrated Approach to Tonal Theory, Analysis, and Listening Overview

Bringing together the analytical, aural, and tactile activities that comprise a tonal theory curriculum, The Complete Musician, Second Edition, relies on a diverse repertoire and innovative exercises to explicitly connect theory (writing and analysis), skills (singing, playing, and dictation), and music-making outside the theory class. It provides students with a strong foundation in the principles of writing, analyzing, hearing, singing, and playing tonal harmony and enables them to understand the most important musical forms.

Features of the Second Edition:

* Enhanced and supplemented by five music DVDs--two packaged with the text, two with Student Workbook I, and one with Student Workbook II. These DVDs contain a total of more than sixteen hours of high-quality recorded examples--from solo piano to full orchestra--of the examples and exercises in the text and workbooks, performed by soloists and ensembles from the Eastman School of Music and the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra. In addition, examples and exercises are included on the DVDs in downloadable MP3 format.
* Significantly revised in order to improve general ordering between large topics (for example, the pre-dominant function is introduced earlier) and organization within chapters (particularly in Parts 1-4)
* Offers new topics and expansions: a new chapter (16) devoted exclusively to the motive; new sections on analytical decision-making through Gestalt techniques (Chapters 2 and 7); lead sheet notation (Chapter 6); harmonizing florid melodies (beginning in Chapter 9); and an expanded section on musical texture and harmonic analysis (Chapter 6)
* Introduces numerous analyses throughout the book, including thirteen "Model Analysis" sections, that provide extended analyses of canonical pieces
* Includes more than 200 new examples, many from wind and brass literature
* Explanations and definitions have been carefully revised for clarity, with added summary charts and step-by-step procedures
* Offers new types of exercises--in both the text and in the workbooks--including exercises for single-line instrumentalists, listening exercises, and more graduated exercises
* Workbook exercises are now structured in a consistent format of discrete assignments (four to eight assignments per chapter) that usually fit on one or two sheets of paper for ease in handing in to the instructor. Each assignment contains a variety of exercises, crafted for students with a wide range of abilities. Supplementary exercises are also included for further practice.
* Expanded Instructor's Manual adds model solutions for more than 200 analysis and part writing exercises; each chapter includes teaching guidelines and supplementary analytical, dictation, playing, and writing exercises

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Customer Reviews

thorough and easy to understand - K. Lee - Long Beach, CA USA
I bought this text to fill in the gaps in my knowledge of music theory after finding that it is used at several of the good music colleges. It is easy to understand, clearly written, and comprehensive. Highly recommend this for serious music students.

I love this book - bratsche - Singapore
What can I say, it's just the first theory book I've had that really put everything in context for me. I used Kostka and Payne when I was in college and honestly that was terrible. All the examples were keyboard examples and as a non-keyboard player I just could not relate to anything that was happening. There were also simply too many details without a conceptual framework in that book. The Complete Musician is a very comprehensive, detailed and intelligent book with relevant, familiar examples across the repertoire and exercises that help to relate it all back to your own experience. I am about half-way through it now (revising for entering grad school in the fall) and having more fun with it than I would have imagined possible a few months ago. I really wish we had this in college instead.

Very Detailed text - Thomas C. Spoerner - PEACHTREE CITY, GA, US
I used this in college along with a few others. I have studied Harmony from Shoenburg, Piston, Adwell, Laitz, and another Programmed Course whose name I forgot. This text is by far the most detailed and progressively topical. The amount of examples are ok. The best thing is that they present the subjects all hanging from the frame work of the phrase model. It is INDISPENSABLE to learn harmony in this way. Unless you are writing or studying special polyphonic forms like fugues of newer modern forms this is the only serious way to understand music. Most of baroque, classical, and romantic, post-romantic, and jazz are based on the phrase model. I recommend reading Piston's Harmony too which is the opposite treatment to harmony. Piston is wordy and loose, his examples more free and although he mentions the phrase model it is by no means so systematically elucidated. I do not recommend Piston to create a "working" knowledge of harmony. Observe these two authors treatment of the Sequence to get a good idea of what I'm talking about.
The only thing wrong with this series is that the workbooks are simply ok and more specifically the DVD's that accompany the workbooks and text are so poorly organized that it is impossible to use them correctly.

*** Product Information and Prices Stored: Sep 09, 2010 09:16:05

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Thursday, September 9, 2010