Another good book on composition?

[Z1202]

Hello everyone

Recently, I discovered Schoenberg's Fundamentals of Musical Composition. Which seems to be an exceptionally good book to me, in regards of teaching one to compose. It looks like much more than a simple book on musical form, because it's written with composition rather than analysis in mind. A good complement to this book is of course Schoenberg's Models for Beginners.

However both of these books assume the presence of a teacher. If used for self-study, one is pressed to invent his own exercises out of the materials. So my question is, does anyone know other books of similar quality, preferably with a set of exercises in composition (not only/just the analysis)?

On another note, I'm also looking for good books on basic drumming. Carmine Appice's Realistic Rock Drums seems very good for a start, but I'm looking for something (of similar quality!) which goes beyond that, particularly I'm interested Latin rhythms.

Thanks
{Z}

[MoreDread]

"Composing Music - A New Approach" by William Russo

[gravehill]

+1 for the Russo book.

If you're determined and ready to spend some cash I can recommend the Equal Interval System taught by ex-students of late Lyle "Spud" Murphy. www.equalinterval.com (Don't let a crappy looking webpage fool you).

[Z1202]

Thanks to everyone who replied.

I have the Russo's book, but somehow it didn't work for me. The equal interval thing looks interesting, although I didn't immediately feel sold on it I'm going to take another look later.

I'd still be thankful for other suggestions, either on composition or drumming.

Regards,
{Z}

[freddemillio]

You could take a look at this:

http://northernsounds.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=77
Garritan Interactive PRINCIPLES OF ORCHESTRATION by Rimsky-Korsakov

[Z1202]

You could take a look at this:

http://northernsounds.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=77
Garritan Interactive PRINCIPLES OF ORCHESTRATION by Rimsky-Korsakov

While not exactly what I'm looking for at the time (as it's definitely not a composition course), that looks like a good option to learn orchestration. Thanks a lot for the link.

Regards,
{Z}

[memyselfandus]

I just ordered the "Idiots Guide To Composing"
and it seems to be very good for what I and you are looking for with examples and such in the book to try.

[Z1202]

I just ordered the "Idiots Guide To Composing"
and it seems to be very good for what I and you are looking for with examples and such in the book to try.

You mean the one by Michael Miller? Would you mind to post your comments on how good the exercises are, after the book arrives, as that's my main problem with Schoenberg's text, which is otherwise very good. Maybe I will order the book anyway though, just to broaden my view.

Just in case anyone's interested, regarding the Garritan forum, I found there another two. One about the orchestration, and another one about the form, which looked interesting.

Regards,
{Z}

[beboop]

This is something I've wanted to pursue too. I just got the Russo book, glancing through it looks promising (just getting started, I've only done the exercises through chapter 2). Also ordered the Alfred Mann translation of the Fux counterpoint book.

Anybody work all the way through Russo? Any comments? Z, what didn't you like about it?

[Dewdman42]

Here are a couple interesting books:

"Simple Composition" - Charles Wuorinen

"Musical Composition" - Reginald Smith Brindle

"The Craft of Musical Composition vol 1 and 2"
- Paul Hindemith

"The Art of writing music" - John Cacavas

I also happen to think the Russo book is quite good in terms of providing exercises and alternative thinking to spark creativity. Maybe a bit rudimentary for some people.

Of course you can always get the ever controversial Schillinger books.

[Dewdman42]

Regarding the equal interval system, I looked into it a while back. Its VERY expensive. You can't just buy a book about it. You have to basically sign up for online private lessons where an EIS independent teacher will send you a chapter each week for your lesson, you do the homework and so on...until you've spent several thousand dollars over the course of a couple years. If you have the time, money and inclination for private lessons, its probably very effective, but you will not be able to just buy an EIS book. You can buy the first chapter, which I did and have here somewhere. It did look intriguing, but its really designed to work with an instructor as a workbook, not so much to study on your own. Its unfortunate that one of those guys doesn't publish a book about EIS that we can buy for a modest cost, but at this point in time the EIS experts seem to be holding onto their knowledge as a bit of a cash cow when they can find students to study it under them. If you are in a position to study under an EIS trainer, it could be interesting, but don't expect to spend less than thousands of dollars to do it. Its also a fairly unorthodox approach from what i do understand. The trainers think its genius, but until you learn it, there is no way to know for sure.

[memyselfandus]

I just ordered the "Idiots Guide To Composing"
and it seems to be very good for what I and you are looking for with examples and such in the book to try.

You mean the one by Michael Miller? Would you mind to post your comments on how good the exercises are, after the book arrives, as that's my main problem with Schoenberg's text, which is otherwise very good. Maybe I will order the book anyway though, just to broaden my view.

Just in case anyone's interested, regarding the Garritan forum, I found there another two. One about the orchestration, and another one about the form, which looked interesting.

Regards,
{Z}

Will do, just arrived today.

[nuffink]

Regarding the equal interval system, I looked into it a while back. Its VERY expensive. You can't just buy a book about it. You have to basically sign up for online private lessons where an EIS independent teacher will send you a chapter each week for your lesson, you do the homework and so on...until you've spent several thousand dollars over the course of a couple years. If you have the time, money and inclination for private lessons, its probably very effective, but you will not be able to just buy an EIS book. You can buy the first chapter, which I did and have here somewhere. It did look intriguing, but its really designed to work with an instructor as a workbook, not so much to study on your own. Its unfortunate that one of those guys doesn't publish a book about EIS that we can buy for a modest cost, but at this point in time the EIS experts seem to be holding onto their knowledge as a bit of a cash cow when they can find students to study it under them. If you are in a position to study under an EIS trainer, it could be interesting, but don't expect to spend less than thousands of dollars to do it. Its also a fairly unorthodox approach from what i do understand. The trainers think its genius, but until you learn it, there is no way to know for sure.

I'm fascinated by the secrecy surrounding the EIS. If it weren't for some high profile endorsees I'd dismiss it as a scam. I'm still fairly sceptical about any system that can't be outlined in a (very) slim volume.

[Z1202]

Here are a couple interesting books:

"Simple Composition" - Charles Wuorinen

"Musical Composition" - Reginald Smith Brindle

"The Craft of Musical Composition vol 1 and 2"
- Paul Hindemith

"The Art of writing music" - John Cacavas

I also happen to think the Russo book is quite good in terms of providing exercises and alternative thinking to spark creativity. Maybe a bit rudimentary for some people.

Of course you can always get the ever controversial Schillinger books.

Wow, that's an impressive list. Looking at some of these books I realize that there are very different things being labelled as "the musical composition", including harmony, counterpoint, orchestration etc. So perhaps I should try to reformulate my question.

Presently, my main area of interest is the construction of musical forms. Schoenberg fits very well here, because he really dissects the whole down to finest parts and gradually builds more complicated constructions from them. Half of the book is just dealing with theme construction. At the same time, the harmony and the melody are treated as a single whole, not as two separate, although dependent things. And, Schoenberg really treats the subject of the form from the constructive, rather than analytical point of view. I was looking for some books which go in similar direction, as my only complaint about Schoenberg, as I wrote earlier, are missing exercises.

Regards,
{Z}

[Z1202]

This is something I've wanted to pursue too. I just got the Russo book, glancing through it looks promising (just getting started, I've only done the exercises through chapter 2). Also ordered the Alfred Mann translation of the Fux counterpoint book.

Anybody work all the way through Russo? Any comments? Z, what didn't you like about it?

If you're interested in counterpoint, I'd suggest besides Fux looking at other books. My impression is that with Fux you don't get beyond thinking of what's happening over the duration of a whole note. My recommendation would be Salzer and Schachter's text. It's much more difficult, but you learn to think of melody+cpt as a whole. Fux makes a nice adition to it, though.

Regarding Russo's book, it was quite a while ago, so I don't remember what didn't work for me. I guess it felt too unsystematic, and I couldn't grasp practical meaning of introduced concepts.

Disclaimer: I'm basically a hobbyist musician in the process of self-teaching. Don't take my word as professional advice

Regards,
{Z}