Composition Literature

Hey Forum

I am thinking about studying composition at my local university and i was hoping to get a heads up on my studies. Does anyone have any good recommendations for composition literature?

I would suggest to study music in all periods and styles; that way you're well versed.

You'd probably want to start with a harmony textbook, if you don't know that already, and voice leading and maybe things from Fux's Gradus ad Parnassum. If you know them, you could check out schoenbergs fundamentals of musical composition or something like that (it refers to a lot of scores which you need to find somewhere else, like on imslp.com http://imslp.org/wiki/Main_Page)

Fux might be a bit too technical for what you need right now. Still check it out. Also What to Listen For in Music by Aaron Copeland is a decent read, and can be found at most bookstores. Also, any sort of "For Dummies" or "For Complete Idiots" or "Everything On" book will do a great job with a lot of introductory themes, and can actually teach you a lot about theory, style, and history. I highly recommend these sorts of books as a starting point/intermediate point. Partly because they can be found almost anywhere, and partly because they're much easier to understand than Fux. Now if you need a legit definitive textbook, then I recommend Tonal Harmony by Kostka and Payne. This will tell you everything you need to know about music theory from the basics of rhythm all the way to 20th century practices. Remember though, this is a legit textbook, so it'll only be available at places where you can find textbooks (e.g. online, school stores, school libraries, borrow from teachers/students). Also it's a heck of a lot more expensive than any other book anyone on this thread's mentioned so far. Still, it's a great read.

As I said before, I highly recommend those "for dummies/idiots" books. They also come with sections on further reading, so that's useful. I think I still own a few by Michael Miller. Pretty handy....

Hope this helps!!! :)

--Miggy

EDIT: Also, try to get your hands on the scores to all your favorite songs, even if it's not classical music. Studying scores and seeing what's going on on paper to produce the sounds you hear can be more useful than even the greatest textbook. For Pop music I recommend Musicnotes.com. For Classical/anything else, I recommend JWPepper.com.

I am sorry Im not completely aware of the levels one is talking about when mentioning different schools (never have, probably never will be... sorry).

Listen to Migg :)