What is your opinion of the Tonal Harmony textbook?

Question

As i understand it tonal harmony is the standard textbook for music theory in the u.s. so i was just wondering what students/teachers think of it. i know iv had a lot of difficulty in understanding many of the concepts :/

Answer 1

Tonal Harmony by Kostka/Payne?

The book is crap. Yes, it is widely used in the US, because it is easy to teach from, and there are too many people teaching theory who don't know what they're doing. But it's not a good book, in my opinion.

This book's fundamental flaw, as I see it, is that it assumes we understand music in a completely "vertical" manner. By that, I mean that this book treats every set of simultaneous notes as a chord. Just because three notes happen at the same time does not mean that they are a chord. There is not enough emphasis on the linear dimension of music, especially counterpoint. I6/4 at a cadence? No! It's not a chord. It's a bass note on scale degree 5 with two NON-CHORD TONES above it, which will resolve to the notes of a V chord.

Answer 2

Tonal Harmony

Answer 3

I'm not in the U.S. but I'm in a US-based conservatory, so I use that book also. It's pretty helpful, though not everything was explained clearly. But compared to other books, this one gives more direct answers than leaving you to wonder what they're talking about. Maybe I don't find it that difficult to understand because I've already learnt 3/4 of that book in UK syllabus..so it's just sort of getting used to the different terminology used and the different ways chords are indicated.

Edik, what are you talking about - I 6/4 is a chord. It's a cadential 6/4, and CAN be considered a chord. There are some who argue that it's simply, as you put it, 2 non-chord tones resolving to a chord V, and in fact, the book does bracket it as a V as a whole. But ever since I've learnt theory - no doubt in the UK syllabus of course - I've been taught to treat Ic (the british way of notating I 6/4) as a chord. It's even used as a passing 6/4 in both US and UK syllabus if you don't already know. Meaning it doesn't always have to resolve to V. Progressions like IV-Ic-IVb (or IV-I 6/4-IV6) and vice versa are actual chord progressions. How can you say that the I 6/4 can't be considered as a chord on its own? Are you going to call those progressions simply a decorated version of chord IV moving to IV6 as well? Well then you can practically call most common 6/4 chords decorations...which is a gross generalization.

Answer 4

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Like most text books, it certainly isn't great literature. But it does offer clear, if somewhat long-winded, explanations of all the basic topics of tonal harmony. That said it's rarely a good idea use only one book as a source for any topic. I found a weakness of Kostka-Payne to be the open endedness of their explanations. Kostka-Payne offers very little explanation about how tonality changed over time, and how it varied by region. I would supplement it with Tonal Harmony by Walter Piston, Aldwell-Schacter, or A Theory of Harmony by Schoenberg.

Answer 5

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RE:
What is your opinion of the Tonal Harmony textbook?
As i understand it tonal harmony is the standard textbook for music theory in the u.s. so i was just wondering what students/teachers think of it. i know iv had a lot of difficulty in understanding many of the concepts :/

Answer 6

I didn't use it for my freshman or sophomore theory, so I can't give an opinion on the book. I will say, though, that the book used when I started theory (Elementary Harmony: Theory and Practice and Advanced Harmony, by Robert W. Ottman) was absolute crap. So many editing mistakes which were never corrected, even by the time the final edition came out. Also, you were better off reading stereo instructions than trying to read the paragraphs in the book.

Answer 7

I took AP music theory my sophomore year and we had that book, but my teacher never really used it at all. We used the workbook but even that not so much. The textbook is really difficult because it's a college textbook, and I was lucky enough to get a really good teacher so I didn't have to use the book as much. The listening examples in it are very helpful, though.

Answer 8

I'm in AP Theory know and we use that book. I find the concepts quite easy to understand, however I had a fair bit of preexisting knowledge before beginning the class. It can also depend on your teacher or professor, my teacher is a phenomenal instructor and conveys the concepts the book presents very well.

Answer 9

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Answer 10

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