Harmony: Fifth Edition

If you are lucky enough to be able to choose your own textbook Roger Session's out of print Harmonic Practice is a far better book.

I didn't really learn anything about harmony until after doing counterpoint exercises (from Jeppesen's Counterpoint) at the keyboard. Eventually learning to play from a figured bass and training your ear is the only real way to learn diatonic harmony. Short of that try to improvise. Just about anything which deals with actual music making is better than Piston's note drawing exercises.


The Bane of my Existance   July 14, 2000
I had this text for my second semester for 5 part diatonic harmony. There are those texts where one underlines or highlights parts of the book. This whole book was underlined and highlighted. Gives vexing tedium a new definition. I know, I know "It's a college text", it was still a very difficult text to digest.


just too laborious for a freshman music student   June 6, 2000
 13 out of 21 found this review helpful

When I was a freshman music composition student over 20 years ago, I bought the 4th edition of this book (also expanded by Mark DeVoto) to help supplement my classroom theory texts. I had heard that it was the standard text and that everybody should have one. Well, after reading through a few pages I found that it was just too laborious. I needed a lot of useful, authoritative information and I needed it fast. Extra time for studying was not very easy to come by, and the book was going to need a whole lot of extra time to wade through it. So I never used it again while I was in school. I much rather preferred our classroom text - Music Theory: A Syllabus, by Ellis B. Kohs. Now this is a great text book. It gets right to the point and gives you exactly what you need to know to succeed. It is interesting that Mr. Kohs actually studied with Piston and also with Willi Apel (Harvard Dictionary of Music.)

While the book may be quite useful, I would not recommend it for first year theory students, which is what it is normally used for. If you are wondering, the Kohs book actually laid a very good theoretical foundation for me as I was able to score in the top 3% on the theory portion of the graduate record exam in music. (I also later studied with Kohs so I guess I am a little biased in that respect.) However, it is now unfortunately out of print, but if you can get a copy of it, do it. It's a much easier read.


inferior college textbook   May 22, 2000
 7 out of 17 found this review helpful

This is tedious, but I suppose it must be said. Unlike Mark Harrison's "Contemporary Music Theory Level 1", for example, this book is not intended for amateur pop musicians; it is a college textbook intended for freshmen music students. Thus useful reviews will be addressed primarily to college teachers, those who assign textbooks. On the other hand, a prospective student may wish to choose his teacher by what text he assigns or he may wish to supplement his assigned text. There are many freshmen harmony textbooks available. This is not more "serious" than any other, but its current (fifth) edition and the edition preceding it make a complete botch of teaching harmony.

(Self-styled autodidacts beware: The essence of harmony is part-writing, and part-writing skill can not be acquired without objective and independent critical evaluation of part-writing exercises--you can't learn it solely from a book.)