# Can't find books of the correct level



## Warp Zone (May 7, 2013)

I've played piano for 8.5 years. I know my way around the Greek modes, keys, intervals, cadences, and different types of chords very well, and have a few mediocre compositions. However, whenever I go out and buy a composing book, it always seems to be for people who have never played music, and spends more time explaining how to read notes and what a major triad is than actually teaching me what I need the most help with: the form and harmonic structure (especially progressions) of a piece. I can't harmonize a melody well for the life of me, and am not terribly good at developing themes into longer pieces.

So, I decided to go for something a bit more advanced and bought Paul Hindemith's "The Craft of Musical Composition, Book 1," but that was _too_ advanced and didn't even teach traditional harmony: it focused on the overtone series, his apparent dislike of keyboard instruments and their chromatic system, and building chords based around tritones and tension. It'd be cool for the future, but not what I need right now.

So, does anyone here know of good music theory books that start at four-part harmony and progress from that, preferably also teaching counterpoint? I'd greatly appreciate it .


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Walter Piston, Harmony. It is a 101 and through textbook, used in high schools and colleges throughout the states. Later editions will cover some later musical developments in the latter half of the book, supplied by other authors or the editors.

The Hindemith text has only a little value as a bridge to understanding more contemporary harmony, it was written at a time when he began to be egocentric, and wanted to 'push' his theory as being 'the only right way.' An unfortunate trait for any person, especially a teacher, and German, teaching at Yale, post WWII


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## Ramako (Apr 28, 2012)

Piston sounds like a good idea for you... Probably your first priority.

Counterpoint might be something good to study. Fux (Mann's Study of Counterpoint) is what I did and seems to be popular. It has a sequel for Fugue too.

Best thing to do though is look at scores for things you like. You play piano - so just see what chords the composers of the pieces use when you play.


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## Warp Zone (May 7, 2013)

Thanks to both of you! I took a look at both books and have one question: which edition of the Piston would you recommend?

I've tried analyzing music in the past, but it always seems to help me more with form (as the most basic example, the ternary form in Rachmaninoff's C# minor Prelude) than with chords. I'll continue trying it, though .


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Perhaps you're approaching this the wrong way.

Here's a passage of music:








If you go by the chords, you might come to something like the following conclusion about the harmony of the passage.
F minor - G major - G# major 9 - A augmented 7 - D major 
fliii - IV - #IV9 - Vaug7  - I

Believe it or not, this tells you very little about why this progression works in this particular piece, and I'll bet that the composer wasn't thinking about those exact roman numerals at all as he wrote it.

What was he looking at? Well, the most important thing about the passage is the chromatic motion, especially the contrary chromatic motion between basses and sopranos. Even the odd use of the augmented 5th in the V chord can be explained by the continuing chromatic movement of the upper alto line.

So, in essence, what you want to learn is not primarily which chords are used to go to which, but _how_.


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