Thinking about delving into "Theory of Harmony" book by Schoenberg- any thoughts?

[jpiscitello]

Well, I've no doubt Schoenberg has his fans. But I've spent a lot of time with the Schoenberg book, and I can't in good conscience recommend to anyone who is looking to expand their harmonic horizons in a practical way go out and buy Schoenberg when there are so many better choices out there.

Schoenberg's book does indeed, burden the student's time with pages and pages of "philosophizing", which IMHO is a kind euphemism for "rambling". Most chapters are a jumble of loosely related topics. There is precious little discussion about how tonal music *functions". And no musical examples from literature, really none at all. Instead you get permutations of, for example, every kind of seventh chord possible.

However, there are *lots* of critiques and wanderings about aesthetics, beauty, and historical evolution. You may find them delightful. But I've spent a lot of time with them, and in my judgement it was wasted time.

The strength of Aldwell and Schachter is the organization, and the use of musical examples from literature. Neopolitan sixth? Beethoven, Schumann. Applied 7th chords? Mozart. Tchaikovsky. 9ths? Ravel, Debussy. What's so good about this is you can connect the technique in question to actual music.

Everything is built upon logically. Tonic and dominant first. Then substituions and expansions of the dominant. Then we get into inversions. VII is treated separately. iii comes later. Always with an emphasis on function. iii in Major functions differently from III in minor. etc.

There is some validity to the point that the Aldwell/Schachter text is exhaustive at times. But the organization is so strong - you can dive into a topic and really get your head around it quickly. Here is a web page that talks about how to get the most out of it (they don't think you should read cover to cover):
http://www.sfcmtheory.com/essays/harmon ... ngtext.htm

Lots of good, but also some inadequate posts on here, especially the one before my post.

I think all the books by Arnold Schoenberg are great and the fact that one has been unable to get something from them doesn't make them bad and a waste of time. This is the way Schoenberg taught his students. And his students include Alban Berg, Anton Webern, John Cage, to name a few. Those books are written by one of the most important 20th century composers; I repeat - by a composer, not just the next theory professor, who easily falls into over-intellectualizing and over-elaborating the matter, ending in teaching you to memorize 'formulas', some of which unessential details, without helping you to form better compositional thinking and understanding of the essential technical principles, which is in the end the most important thing for a composer. Schoenberg's approach is different - far from stiff and dull, more compositional, provocative and intelligent; he makes you think, and not just think, but think more compositionally, so one could greatly benefit from his textbooks. These books have nothing to do with dodecaphony (i.e. the 12-tone method). They are about the classical tonal music from the common practice period... and to the end of the 19th/beginning of 20th century. But bear in mind that there is a lot of text in Theory Of Harmony - sometimes Schoenberg gets overly philosophical, though I find his writing interesting and if you want to dedicate some time, you might find it interesting and useful.

The 600+ pages book called 'Harmony and Voice Leading' is a typical big american book on classical harmony that is fully elaborated with details and dissections, some of which more burdening than essential, but is a good one and the material seems well organized, though I don't like the approach very much. I think the combination of this book with Schoenberg is the best choice.

.

[herodotus]

Well, I've no doubt Schoenberg has his fans. But I've spent a lot of time with the Schoenberg book, and I can't in good conscience recommend to anyone who is looking to expand their harmonic horizons in a practical way go out and buy Schoenberg when there are so many better choices out there.

Schoenberg's book does indeed, burden the student's time with pages and pages of "philosophizing", which IMHO is a kind euphemism for "rambling". Most chapters are a jumble of loosely related topics. There is precious little discussion about how tonal music *functions". And no musical examples from literature, really none at all. Instead you get permutations of, for example, every kind of seventh chord possible.

However, there are *lots* of critiques and wanderings about aesthetics, beauty, and historical evolution. You may find them delightful. But I've spent a lot of time with them, and in my judgement it was wasted time.

The strength of Aldwell and Schachter is the organization, and the use of musical examples from literature. Neopolitan sixth? Beethoven, Schumann. Applied 7th chords? Mozart. Tchaikovsky. 9ths? Ravel, Debussy. What's so good about this is you can connect the technique in question to actual music.

Everything is built upon logically. Tonic and dominant first. Then substituions and expansions of the dominant. Then we get into inversions. VII is treated separately. iii comes later. Always with an emphasis on function. iii in Major functions differently from III in minor. etc.

There is some validity to the point that the Aldwell/Schachter text is exhaustive at times. But the organization is so strong - you can dive into a topic and really get your head around it quickly. Here is a web page that talks about how to get the most out of it (they don't think you should read cover to cover):
http://www.sfcmtheory.com/essays/harmon ... ngtext.htm

If you want a more organized treatment of harmonic relations written by old Arnold, try 'Structural Functions of Harmony'. It's filled with examples from the literature, as is his 'Fundamentals of Musical Composition', which was mentioned previously.


Really, the point of his 'Harmonielehre' was not at all about providing students with a convenient guide to composing. It is the document of a musical genius struggling with the profound changes implicit in the late romantic harmonic tradition.

Not all music theory books are meant to be textbooks, just like not all math books are meant to make it easier to learn algebra. Godel's Theorem certainly wasn't. Nonetheless, many mathematicians seem to think that this theorem is worth studying, even if it doesn't help students to 'do math' in the most convenient fashion.

[Km7]

I see herodotus already replied what I was thinking to reply before seeing his post - mostly about looking into Structural Functions of Harmony for those who want to see examples from the repertoire. It should be used together with Theory of Harmony. I think that combining this with his books on counterpoint and forms is very good and I even think one could base most of one's tonal study on these books, despite they are not part of the formal / academic standard (if you care about this at all). I've always prefered to have more than one book on these subjects, though, since every author has something to offer. The fact that Theory of Harmony doesn't include examples from the repertoire doesn't make it less useful - it still does teach harmony in the form of a framework of principles in a more isolated manner before showing real examples in Schoenberg's second book, and Schoenberg also used it to share his explanations on those principles as well as his aesthetical views. He also criticizes many of the standard teaching approaches in the academic educational system and I personally tend to agree with him on many points. But I think the learner is expected to undertake analysis (both visual and aural) of various works from the music repertoire, just as one gets really good with a foreign language by reading and writing in it and not by dwelling on large textbooks with hundreds of dissected details. Schoenberg, as he himself explained, studied mostly Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and Brahms (not only, of course). He has read textbooks, but certainly not like the one by Aldwell and Schacter. So, basically, I think textbooks are ment to provide you with knowledge and understanding of the principles, the framework; not to teach you completely in all details of something (especially when it comes to art) - they cannot, - but to prepare you for making decisions and evaluations on your own in various new situations.
And I think Schoenberg's textbooks are more compositionally oriented than most texts and this is clear from his own words.

I cannot deny that the Aldwell & Schachter text is powerful and as it seems is one of the good books available. But the overly-elaborated and stiff style may seem somewhat annoying at times when they start dissecting the 'formulas', even though they often try to explain the reasons behind many of them, but not always in the most satisfying manner. Probably one of the reasons for this remark of mine is that I don't really favor the approach of rote learning harmony as a bunch of many exact little formulas like "root-position variant of descending 5-6", "5/3-6/3 pattern" or some excessive listings and writings on the chords and on exact patterns of chord progressions, but learning based on more creative approach to their exploration by the composer together with understanding of the underlying principles (which btw are related to the way we perceive sound and music - something I think people should dedicate some time to), from which most of these little things tend to follow naturally and become evident. Here, I think, Schoenberg succeeded in setting such a creative 'environment'; he would rather say: "We could use this, or perhaps this, if we want that". And speaking of all this, among the good points in Schoenberg's textbook is that he talks about the root progressions, which have acoustical basis and the importance of which I cannot stress enough, as well as his concept of pivot tones 'neutralization', which is meaningful and helpful for one in one's way to writing balanced and logical tonal progressions. He also treats the modulation in detail.

I hope people are not going to compose by memorized formulas from books, at least I don't and wouldn't. I find this detrimental. Having all that said and provided people don't try to rote learn nearly everything the big 600+ pages book says, but rather look at it freelier as various characteristic examples and possibilities, and extract the most important things together with their own thinking, then I suppose everything is fine. I am mentioning this because the way this particular book is constructed, I think, could affect one's thinking in this direction. Unless of course one wants to imitate _exactly_ the style of Mozart, Bach or Beethoven, but thanks God, I don't think many people want to do that. And even if they do, it's better to analyze directly their works. But, I think, trying to sound like someone else is a bad taste, and in the end - an artistic suicide. So, in this regard, I tend to see the numerous concrete details in this book more as a large reference one may check from time to time.

I would like to stress that this is my view and I don't want to enter into polemics on which book should be used, nor my intention is to impose anything on anyone - there are lots of books available today, so let people make their choice depending on their approach and learning style. But all in all, I don't think that a classical harmony textbook should be that large.

[jpiscitello]

Excellent points. I confess I have not read into Schoenberg's other books.

I can agree that Aldwell and Schacter often give rather rote directions. But they're just so darn *useful*. Not that I use them (I never have the text open when I'm writing a piece), but knowing, for example, that a iii chord in major is often useful when supporting a ^7 in the melody - that is a rote piece of information, but if you internalize it, then when you are playing and writing, you end up reaching for it.

anyway, let me plug another book, which I think can be helpful in a Nashville context - Kennan. Now i expect many will howl at this, because yes, it is rote. It teaches counterpoint. But oh has it done wonders for me. this is a case where the rote work pounded a way of thinking into me. The main thing I tok away was to have awareness of every interval as you are writing independent lines. I think for c/w music, you have a constrained harmonic structure, often major or blues. But you can really enliven a song with a counterpoint guitar line behind the vocals or a dual vocal line. Or even writing 2- or 3-part harmonies. Kennan teaches very specifically - 18th-century counterpoint. But as you dive in, you can start to learn all the tricks and the little ins and outs of how to make independent melodic lines.

The way I think about it is, OK, you take these rules, they're really just a set of constraints. but within those constraints, you have a huge field of possibilities. If you break the rules, that's fine - but you break them better if you know which ones you're breaking, and why.

Let me give a few brighter comments on Theory of Harmony, after how much I've bashed it. I see it as interesting reading, but very theoretical - in fact, it has "theory" in the name. He will tell you why a descending 3rd progression is stronger and more right than an ascending third progression (the weaker tones of the chord, the 5th and 3rd, get promoted to stronger positions in a rising 3rd progression, which runs counter to nature). At times, I find his arguments intelligent and clever, but academic. I loved reading a quote from Debussy, who once said he didn't care about theory, he just used his ears. I see in this a connection to how Schoenberg ended up at serialism, which is a purely logical and abstract idea, an engineered approach to music. Ironically, very counter to nature (where in nature do 12 independent elements all receive equal weight?) Audiences have a hard time with it, even eager symphony goers. They like to hear the hits.

Of course, that gets us into the whole discussion of whether something that is popular can still be art...and there is a GREAT book on all of this, "The Rest is Noise", written by Alex Ross, a music writer for the New Yorker. not a harmony book, but a thorough and journalistic survey of music in the 20th century, how audiences responded, the cultural orientations of all the great composers. You can pick it up and put it down, read a chapter or two here and there. Schoenberg and the 2nd Viennese school are well-covered.

[Km7]

Nice post. Kennan's book is great and I think it is comfortable for the reader, much more than Aldwell & Schacter. I myself recommended it just a few days ago in one of the threads here. Overall, some people think that counterpoint is easier than harmony, but this is misleading. Theoretically, perhaps it is easier, but it's harder in the practical way, when you have to act and combine melodic lines, especially if we consider that combining melodic lines to fulfill an exercise and to create an expressive piece of music with artistic value are two different things.

I understand what you mean by 'internalizing' regarding the rote piece of information, but it isn't really rote unless you study that way. I mean, it is quite obvious that ^7 can be triadically harmonized with iii, but also with vii, V. Now, which one you will use depends on the context and the composer's needs. You may choose to not harmonize it at all.

Yes, Debussy is one of these composers who prefer using mostly their ears. Of course, everyone is different and we have such a colorful musical world thanks to the various styles and approaches. Some people are more theoretically oriented. Yes, Schoenberg tends to be somewhat more theoretical in his book, but I personally like this. But he has nothing to do with the traditional academic community - he is an autodidact. I tend to agree with his views on teaching and appreciate his method - that both writing parts above a figured bass and harmonizing a given melody are not good approaches, but composing harmonic progressions from the very beginning.

Schacter is a student of Schenker. I don't really like some of these influences in the book. There are generally two things in the domain of music that I avoid like a plague: (1) Schenkerian analysis, which is one of the most pseudo-scientific theories, and to me, personally, it is a waste of time, and (2) Allen Forte's Set theory. Thanks God, some conservatories and universities don't teach these two theories or at least list them as selectives.

[StudioDave]

A couple of other books you might try, worth checking out.
Vincent Persichetti - Twentieth Century Harmony.

Agree++. However, as you say, Persichetti's book is not a treatise on harmony. It's really more of a catalog of the new harmonic possibilities employed by various 20th century composers. Its recommended listening is worth the price of the book, and I've used this book's examples as starting points for many compositions.

Did anyone mention Piston's Harmony ? It was the first harmony text I ever worked through, and I still consider it a solid introduction to common practice harmony. Alas, his book on counterpoint is nowhere near as good, and I suggest using someone else for counterpoint studies.

I've gone through all the Schoenberg didactic works, some a number of times. The Fundamentals is still valuable, ditto for Structural Functions. Btw, I also recommend reading his letters. He was an amazing character. And if you haven't made a study of his music, I seriously suggest it. His works are quite varied, and going through his major works is a grand tour of early 20th century harmonic practice. At the same time, I agree with the posters who suggest that the Harmonielehre is probably not where you want to start with Schoenberg's teaching.

Roger Sessions wrote a harmony text that's pretty usable. Obviously I tend to avoid music theory and harmony texts that are not written by composers, though I don't doubt that a non-composer can write a good music theory book. It's just my preference.

For counterpoint, use Kennan and any good book on modal counterpoint.

Train your ears with Solfege, Modus Novus, and Modus Vetus.

Great thread, btw. I am very pleased to see that so many others have read and understood these books. Nice to know the stuff still matters to some people.

[Km7]

Interestingly, I tend to prefer books by composers, just as you do. I second your opinion on Piston's book, it was my first text on classical harmony, too, a very good one and using it together with Schoenberg, IMO, is one of the best combinations.

I thought to mention Roger Sessions, but I have never had the chance to see this book, though I've read rather good words about it - as I know, it tends to explain the working of many things from psychological point of view, right?

[strav101]

A couple of other books you might try, worth checking out.
Vincent Persichetti - Twentieth Century Harmony.
This is more of a quick run through almost everything your might use harmony wise, from triadic to quartal and secundal. Compound, polychord, polytonality and more.
Ludmila Ulehla - Contemporary Harmony.
A lot of theory and history, covers most of the ground above, but explains how this works in a deeper way.

Theory of Harmony does go into how Harmony works in a deeper way, but does take a lot of reading time. If you don't have the time to give this book, these two are an easier, and more enjoyable read (my opinion only of course).

I agree that these books are pretty good but only cover 20th century harmony.

Persichetti - Good book, but rather brief and musical examples used to illustrate the techniques are poor and rather unmusical (composer's own)

Ulehla - I really prefer this book - complex, but you get the feeling at the end you can write anything then fit the theory to explain it (!(. It has the advantaged that the music examples are from proper compositions by other composers e.b Bartok, Ives, Debussy etc.

For tonal harmony - I like Gauldin - better than the old Piston book

Schoenberg - Theory of harmony is wordy and full of philosophical ramblings - the actual theory itself consists of 20% of the book

Use Structual Functions of Harmony by Schoenberg - much better - much shorter but no waffle - the text is extremely dense but you'll learn a lot about key relationships etc. and very complex chromatic harmony and monotonality

Also get a good Jazz Harmony book as well - I think it's called the Jazz Theory Book...a wire bound one.

[strav101]

Interestingly, I tend to prefer books by composers, just as you do. I second your opinion on Piston's book, it was my first text on classical harmony, too, a very good one and using it together with Schoenberg, IMO, is one of the best combinations.

I thought to mention Roger Sessions, but I have never had the chance to see this book, though I've read rather good words about it - as I know, it tends to explain the working of many things from psychological point of view, right?

I used Piston first, then Schoenberg Structural Functions, Theory of Harmony, then the Gauldin. IMHO that's enough for tonal harmony

20th Century - Persichetti (not my favourite book), Ulehla and Kostka (rather brief)

Of course, you learn a hell of a lot more analysing scores - especially 20th century ones. With 20th century stuff I have learnt 10% from books 90% from the music.

20th century counterpoint --- Hmmmm nothing really - a bit in Ulehla, that's all. Personally, again scores - Bartok is good one to look at - seems to be trial & error and using your ear IMHO (e.g Ruggles Sun Treader)

Counterpoint - I've had difficulty learning this out of books - Piston (OK), Kennan is nice but the exercises are a bit simplistic. I think I'm going to attack the magnum opus of Tanayev for this one and stuff the conventional approach

[strav101]

Great thread, btw. I am very pleased to see that so many others have read and understood these books. Nice to know the stuff still matters to some people.

Agree - I thought nobody was interested in this stuff - I've been working in isolation for years! Last proper conversation I had with someone on this ...err...16 years

[koolkeys]

Wow, lots of great and informative posts here! Thanks guys.

I will say that I did go out and buy the Theory Of Harmony book a few weeks back. I really did get it cheap with a killer coupon, so I'm not out much.

That being said, I think the book will still be a benefit because my goal isn't to look for the most "proper" use of harmony and theory. Most of my previous training was more along those lines anyways. I'm just looking for DIFFERENT ways of thinking about harmony, even if they don't match up to the most proper means. I do also plan on looking into the other suggestions from people here as well, so keep 'em coming!

Brent

[strav101]

The big problem with harmony books is that they concentrate too much on the vertical dimension - it is required for learning purposes - but when you have studied the system when it all links up ( by learning advanced chromatic harmony and modulation) - strangely, the advanced stuff including enharmonic modulation / complex modulation / altered chords becomes easier - all the voices are sliding around in semitone or wholetone steps -- then you see its all about the horizontal dimension - really harmony is counterpoint. So e.g ii6 V7 I in chords is purely counterpoint (OK boring rhythmically) -- think in terms of what each part is doing horizontally. E.g with Fux studies there is hardly any consideration of the vertical component

[Km7]

True. Harmony developed from counterpoint. Pay attention to the horizontal as well as the vertical dimension. Some chords arise exclusively as products of melodic activity / voice leading and unless you look horizontally at this, they might seem stranger than they actually are.

[wrench45us]

The big problem with harmony books is that they concentrate too much on the vertical dimension - it is required for learning purposes - but when you have studied the system when it all links up ( by learning advanced chromatic harmony and modulation) - strangely, the advanced stuff including enharmonic modulation / complex modulation / altered chords becomes easier - all the voices are sliding around in semitone or wholetone steps -- then you see its all about the horizontal dimension -

this was more or less the 'intuitive' (may not be the right word) of the bebop movement -- a new way of combining the vertical and horiziontal

one book that covers this primarily through that era, buit also reaching back to Bach
Bert Ligon's 'Connecting Chords with Linear Harmony'

http://www.amazon.com/Connecting-Chords ... 0793561930

[Z1202]

Hi

I'm an amateur, so it's very likely what I write further is nonsense Nevertheless, I would appreciate constructive criticism

IMHO, harmony is only one means of expression. There are great musical pieces built around only 3 or 4 different harmonies (if we allow things which are not too elaborate in technical means to be also considered great, simply because of their emotional value). In that respect the development of the piece on the timeline is probably the most important thing. As Schoenberg put in his Fundamentals of Music Composition (which is probably the most useful book on music I ever read), music is a balance between unity and variety. Since music develops in time, so are the unity and variety existing on the timeline.

IIRC, Hindemith said that a student shouldn't invest more than several months into harmony studies. After having invested much more, I tend to think the same. Harmony theory is not bringing any revelations. It's just providing a set of useful tools. Understanding melodic development is probably way more important to make a good piece of music. In that respect, besides Schoenberg's Fundamentals, I think Kennan's book is quite helpful (make sure you get the workbook too). However, in the beginning I tended to oversee the important aspects of the melody, which are rather briefly outlined in the beginning of the book. Even a simple melody (if it's a good one) is a rather complicated living organism with a multilevel structure. I believe it's very important to be aware of those structures (unless you're an intuitive genius in this aspect, that is ).

So, assuming you have basic harmony knowledge, I'd suggest not to go much deeper, but rather switch to Kennan and then Schoenberg's Fundamentals.

As to different views on harmony, I've used Piston's book to study it, and I still think it's the best choice, because it's less restrictive than the others. Gauldin provides a nice alternative approach (I believe it's Schenkerian), but I would take it as *the* approach to the harmony, just one of the approaches.

Regards,
{Z}