Suggested Reading ......

[passacaglia]

Is alot of post asking for musical guidance, more brain food, if you will.

Of course, the internet has a wealth of knowledge available from great minds .... but man, there\'s nothing like a great book.

I thought i\'d compile a short list to \'composition\' related books that i either used during my time in an education instution, or books i found after - during my real-life education.

Some of ya all ready own these i bet ... so disregard this post.

Complete Guide to Film Scoring - Ricard Davis (Berkelee Press)

Psychology of Music - Carl Seashore (Dover)

Principles of Orchestration - Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov (Dover)

What to Listen for in Music - Aaron Copeland (Mentor)

Counterpoint - Knud Jeppesen (Dover)

The Musician\'s Business & Legal Guide - Mark Halloran (Prentice Hall)

Tonal Harmony - Kostka/Payne (Knopf)

Study of Orchestration - Samual Adler (W.W. Norton)
____________

Just a few, feel free to add to the list ... i omitted all technology based books i could think of, considering, their information is outdated.

passacaglia

[devinmaxwell]

there are a few other books I\'ve read that deal with form. I\'ll try and dig them up, but for now, these are some books I like:

(Something like...) Three Essays (Busoni, Debussy, and Ives)
Meta-Hodos by James Tenney (tries to shed some light on theory behind modern music)
Orchestration William Blatter
(article) Crippled Symmetry by Morton Feldman
Silence by John Cage
On a Cosmic Music by K. Stockhausen
(article) On being an American Composer by Milton Babbit
Orchestration by Cecil Forsythe
A generative Theory of Tonal Music (Fred Lerdhal (I think) and Roy (something like) Jackendoff...or something)
(article) Propositional Music by David Rosenboom
(article) the Mike Patton article in...
ARCANA edited by John Zorn
Talking Music edited by William Duckworth
Pyramids at the Louvre by Glenn Watkins
Anthiel and the Treatise of Harmony by Ezra Pound and George Anthiel (WOW!)
Genesis of a Music by Harry Partch. (funny book.)
Soundings by Glenn Watkins

I\'ve read some Schenker and I have probably about 100 or so articles on \"traditional\" theory.
I don\'t like some of th 20th century books and I won\'t put them up here. I\'d listen to what my refrigerator has to say about 20th century music before reading some of the books that are out there.

I also read a lot of chaos theory stuff and systems theory stuff. And Hemingway. And arcane texts on the Medieval mystical world view (Hermes Trismagistus and Alchemy and stuff like that.)

Most of this stuff just amuses me. It\'s amazing how little we actually know about music. Anyone got a good explanation for rhythm? I certainly don\'t.

When I had to do my species counterpoint from the Jeppesen book, I always used the text: KNUD KNUD KNUD (etc....) I just thought it was funny that I was taking someone seriously that was named Knud. He had some real problems with Fux.

It\'s funny that this thread started because I\'m right now going through all my books and articles (my wife and I are moving our stuff from L.A. to Philadelphia.)

Anyway, I ramble.

Devin Maxwell

[PolarBear]

And the best to start with?

Hansi

[passacaglia]

hehe, nice suggestions Devin .... you complimented my traditional/conservative books quite well, with some unconventional/liberal writings ... very nice! some i am familiar with, others i will have to look into images/icons/smile.gif

polarbear : be specific ... what knowledge are you seeking ?

passacaglia

[ursatz]

I\'ll just add my single favorite book on music theory - _Counterpoint_in_Composition_ by Salzer and Schachter. IMHO, it\'s *the* place to start. I don\'t know of any counterpoint text that does a better job of showing 1) the theoretical foundation and 2) how it applies in practice.