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Title: Tonal Harmony by Stefan Kostka, Dorothy Payne ISBN: 0-07-285260-7 Publisher: McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages Pub. Date: 10 June, 2003 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $68.20 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.36 (14 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Much improved but still has a ways to go
Comment: I've used this book for my first-year theory class for nine years, through three editions. I haven't found any better but that doesn't mean I think it's perfect. I agree with some of the other commentaries about the errors and the poor choice of musical examples. Students of mine have frequently complained about this. In addition, the book is very keyboard-centric and thus creates difficulties for people who don't play the piano and who aren't used to reading keyboard score. One can argue, of course, that keyboard facility is a skill any serious musician ought to have (being a pianist myself, I agree in principle), but still, there ARE good musicians who are not pianists who will struggle unnecessarily with this material.
Other, specific things I would change about the book: 1) The chapters on part-writing emphasize too heavily the minutiae of voice-leading and thus obscure the point that we're talking about the relative motion of complete melodic lines. More exercises involving only two parts, to give students a thorough grounding in the basics (i.e., no parallel fifths and octaves), would really help. 2) Although including discussions and examples from popular music is a good idea, the section that tries to explain the concept of "suspension" in pop chord symbols is skimpy and confusing. 3) I find the whole explanation of harmonic progression, based on the circle-of-fifths progression, unconvincing. Piston's looser cataloging for me better fits the reality of tonal music.
Rating: 4
Summary: Outstanding and thorough guide to music theory.
Comment: Music theory is kind of like math. Some people are good at theory, but hate studying it; some have a complete theory block and can't understand even the fundamentals. And some, like me, love it, are good at it, and enjoy it for its own sake.
For those who are interested in this vast and sometimes intimidating subject, Kostka's "Tonal Harmony" is a superb, well written, extremely thorough, and largely lucid guide. This is the text I used in both college theory classes and in the independent study I did with a University of Oregon doctoral student, and in both cases I found it very useful. To get much out of it, one really should have some background in theory, but with at least a modest understanding of the subject, this book is one that can be used alone by the self-motivated musician.
Everything from four-part writing and figured bass to secondary functions and French augmented sixth chords is covered here. In fact, unless you are getting a Ph.D. in music theory, there's a lot here you'd never need to know. Kostka and his co-writer include many exercises at the end of each chapter, and there are a couple of chapters on post-tonal theory at the end of the book.
There will never be a perfect guide to music theory, since it's such a complex subject. There will also never be a perfect guide to physics. That doesn't mean this book can't be of use to you. Highly recommended.
Rating: 4
Summary: review for the fifth edition
Comment: I'm a guitar major and this book, to some extent, frustrates me. All the examples are given on the piano. I have a limited knowledge of piano. That aside, I had no problems understanding the book, especially the parts about the various kinds of chords. However, the book features several obvious mistakes, such as an instance where a 32nd note is listed as a 16th note (how obvious could you get? It's not as though you could miss the extra stem!) In a few other instances the book mismarks a few chords. It also has several typos in it, which caught me by surprise. This book is also a little dry. But as far as music theory books go, I have seen far, far worse. This book is the better of the lot. I've seen more errors an mismarkings in my guitar and bass guitar books, so I gave this one 4 stars. It's not too bad.
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Title: Student Workbook and CD for use with Tonal Harmony by Stefan Kostka, Dorothy Payne ISBN: 0073035122 Publisher: McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages Pub. Date: 28 July, 1999 List Price(USD): $38.00 |
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Title: Tonal Harmony Wkbk with Wkbk Audio CD and Finale CD-ROM by Stefan Kostka, Stefan Kostka ISBN: 0072918969 Publisher: McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages Pub. Date: 13 August, 2003 List Price(USD): $42.60 |
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Title: Audio CDs for use with Tonal Harmony by Stefan Kostka, Dorothy Payne ISBN: 0072897856 Publisher: McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages Pub. Date: 22 July, 1999 List Price(USD): $27.70 |
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Title: A History of Western Music, Sixth Edition by Donald J. Grout, Claude V. Palisca ISBN: 0393975274 Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: December, 2000 List Price(USD): $69.60 |
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Title: Music for Sight Singing by Robert W. Ottman ISBN: 013070587X Publisher: Prentice Hall Pub. Date: 01 May, 2001 List Price(USD): $61.00 |
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