Harmony
by Walter Piston, Mark DeVoto · first published 1941
5mentions
3recommended by
3HN commenters
2012–2020first – last mentioned
100% recommend
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Math books are very cheap and very information dense. I'm going through Mendelson's "Introduction to Topology" right now. It's very good and cost only $10. Harmony by Walter Piston (and also "Twenty First Century Harmony," the book it inspired) is IMO one of the better books I've read on western music theory. I got my copy used for $20. SICP is nice to loan out…
on “Ask HN: You've got $300 to fill an empty library. What do you choose?” ↗Perhaps relevant to some other HN users... This list has a recommendation for Introduction to Tonal Theory over Piston's Harmony. I am not familiar with the former, but I found Walter Piston's books to be fascinating and generally very good. It's an older book and so, as I've found with most textbooks from its time, it is somewhat…
on “The Best Textbooks on Every Subject” ↗…beginning (or even at the end). Here are some of my favorites: The Jazz Theory Book (Mark Levine) Huge series of play-along books by Jamey Aebersold The Geometry of Musical Rhythm (Godfried Toussaint) Harmony (Walter Piston) A Geometry of Music - Harmony and Counterpoint in the Extended Common Practice (Dmitri Tymoczko) Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organization (George Russell) Augmented Scale Theory…
on “Ask HN: What are you learning in 2019?” ↗If you want something structured like a math book, I learned from Walter Piston’s “Harmony.” I can’t find a place to pirate it (actually I did find an incredibly low quality scan somewhere after a week of searching) but it’s not an expensive book. I found it used (signed by “dean Howard” I…
on “Ask HN: How Can I Learn Music Theory?” ↗Just checked my shelf– I have the third edition of Harmony and 4th of Counterpoint, terse is a fair judgement. I'll have to give the later editions a look, but judging by the reviews (and the Revised by MARK DEVOTO tag...) I'm not going to like what I see.
on “The Best Textbooks on Every Subject” ↗