Product Description

Bringing together the analytical, aural, and tactile activities that Iomprise a tonal theory curriculum, The Complete Musician, Second dition, relies on a diverse repertoire and innovative exercises to xplicitly connect theory (writing and analysis), skills (singing, playing, and dictation), and music-making outside the theory class. It provides students with a strong foundation in the principles of writing, analyzing, hearing, singing, and playing tonal harmony and enables them to understand the most important musical forms.

Features of the Second Edition:

* Enhanced and supplemented by five music DVDs--two packaged with the text, two with Student Workbook I, and one with Student Workbook II. These DVDs contain a total of more than sixteen hours of high-quality recorded examples--from solo piano to full orchestra--of the examples and exercises in the text and workbooks, performed by soloists and ensembles from the Eastman School of Music and the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra. In addition, examples and exercises are included on the DVDs in downloadable MP3 format.
* Significantly revised in order to improve general ordering between large topics (for example, the pre-dominant function is introduced earlier) and organization within chapters (particularly in Parts 1-4)
* Offers new topics and expansions: a new chapter (16) devoted exclusively to the motive; new sections on analytical decision-making through Gestalt techniques (Chapters 2 and 7); lead sheet notation (Chapter 6); harmonizing florid melodies (beginning in Chapter 9); and an expanded section on musical texture and harmonic analysis (Chapter 6)
* Introduces numerous analyses throughout the book, including thirteen "Model Analysis" sections, that provide extended analyses of canonical pieces
* Includes more than 200 new examples, many from wind and brass literature
* Explanations and definitions have been carefully revised for clarity, with added summary charts and step-by-step procedures
* Offers new types of exercises--in both the text and in the workbooks--including exercises for single-line instrumentalists, listening exercises, and more graduated exercises
* Workbook exercises are now structured in a consistent format of discrete assignments (four to eight assignments per chapter) that usually fit on one or two sheets of paper for ease in handing in to the instructor. Each assignment contains a variety of exercises, crafted for students with a wide range of abilities. Supplementary exercises are also included for further practice.
* Expanded Instructor's Manual adds model solutions for more than 200 analysis and part writing exercises; each chapter includes teaching guidelines and supplementary analytical, dictation, playing, and writing exercises

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #71771 in Books
• Published on: 2007-06-18
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 912 pages

Review

"I really enjoyed the complete integration of Theory and ET--and these students are significantly more advanced than any sophomore class in the seven years I've been at St. Olaf College, especially in the aural skills department. I did supplement with . . .melodies, but the arpeggiations in the text and also the plethora of harmonic dictations were especially helpful. Having tons of materials to choose from in the workbook was helpful as well, although we didn't begin to use all of it."--Dr. Catherine Rodland, Artist-in-Residence in Organ and Music Theory, St. Olaf College

About the Author
Steven G. Laitz is Associate Professor and Chair of the Music Theory Department at the Eastman School of Music, University of Rochester.

Customer Reviews

An excellent linear approach to common-practice harmony
This book is best for those who have already taken a full course in tonal harmony and understand it well from a functional perspective but want to understand it better from a linear perspective.

It is a very complete course in common practice tonal harmony. It is in many ways an updated successor to Aldwell & Schachter in that it pays attention to every minute detail of voice leading and part-writing. Varieties of V-I take over 100 pages alone. For those interesting in mastering the common practice writing style, this is much better than, for example Benward or Piston, which focus more on the functional aspects of harmony, but neglect the linear. If you have this, W. A. Mathieu's Harmonic Experience, Bert Ligon's Jazz Theory text, and Ludmila Udmela's text on contemporary harmony you have 90% of what you need to know about tonal harmony.

Who is this book not for? It is not for those interested in learning harmony in Jazz, Pop, or 20th century styles. Also, the title "Complete Musician" is a misonomer. It is only common-practice harmony.

This book requires a solid foundation of the basics of music theory to absorb--I can imagine it being very confusing if used for unprepared college freshmen, because it doesn't spend much time on fundamentals.

Excellent textbook...
...comprehensive, detailed but nevertheless succinct and to the point...the writing is a bit dry but after all it is a textbook.

Very Detailed text
I used this in college along with a few others. I have studied Harmony from Shoenburg, Piston, Adwell, Laitz, and another Programmed Course whose name I forgot. This text is by far the most detailed and progressively topical. The amount of examples are ok. The best thing is that they present the subjects all hanging from the frame work of the phrase model. It is INDISPENSABLE to learn harmony in this way. Unless you are writing or studying special polyphonic forms like fugues of newer modern forms this is the only serious way to understand music. Most of baroque, classical, and romantic, post-romantic, and jazz are based on the phrase model. I recommend reading Piston's Harmony too which is the opposite treatment to harmony. Piston is wordy and loose, his examples more free and although he mentions the phrase model it is by no means so systematically elucidated. I do not recommend Piston to create a "working" knowledge of harmony. Observe these two authors treatment of the Sequence to get a good idea of what I'm talking about.
The only thing wrong with this series is that the workbooks are simply ok and more specifically the DVD's that accompany the workbooks and text are so poorly organized that it is impossible to use them correctly.