Customer Rating:  
Summary: Schönberg mystique!
Comment: I took Composition and Double Counterpoint, Canon and
Fugue from Arnold Schönberg at UCLA in 1942. People associate him with the 12-tone theory and atonal music, whereas in his composition class he started on square one.
You began with a simple triad [three-note chord] and took it thru rhythmic variations, like a bugle call. Then you added a second chord. Later you added passing notes creating themes, which you eventually developed.
The text books for the class were the first volume of J. S. Bach's
Well-Tempered Clavichord and the first volume of Beethoven's Piano Sonatas. He would silently pace for a while and then fill the blackboards with musical notation [examples of the subject of the day]. Two teaching assistants copied every note, and this materials was used in his later books on harmony and composition.
He loved my Germanic name, and would ask, "Wilhardt ZAHN, was denken Sei?" My noncommital answer would be, "Herr Professor, sehR InteRResant!"
One of his assistants and book editor was Gerald Strang who had taught me Diatonic and Chromatic Harmony and Counterpoint at Long Beach Junior College 1940-2. Gerry and I corresponded while I was in New Guinea and the Philippines, correcting and critiquing music I would submit. He was a master mentor and dear family friend.
While still at LBCC Gerry took me with him to a UCLA symposium to demonstrate a Schoenburg Harmonieleur Pianostück. It was in the 12-tone format, and I had to play it a thousand times before I knew when I had made an error.
I'm still not sure what that episode of musical development accomplished.
Gerry Strang and his avante-guarde cohorts would have jam sessions. The poor piano--they would do fist and arm clusters, and swirl metal pans on the exposed strings. Ah, modern music!
Willard F. Zahn, M. D. Long Beach, CA [...]
Customer Rating:
Summary: New Revelations of Old Forms
Comment: Schoenberg writes from a traditional harmonic standpoint. But he is aware of the fact that the primary systems of analysis are very limited to these traditional sounds and harmonies. Therefore Schoenberg sets out to put into work a new system for harmonic analysis which will work fine on traditional harmonies as well as on newer, more outside progressions. He achieves all of this through his idea of regions within music, a specific idea with a broad goal. By leaving the intricacies of traditional harmonic analysis and widening his scope, Schoenberg presents a system we may all need to take a second look at.
Customer Rating:
Summary: not for beginners
Comment: Well it looks like naj "jak" here is almost as clueless as he thinks the book is. He should know that Theory of Harmony is not a book to LEARN harmony, its a book that teaches you in detail the purposes and most advanced properties of such. If you're looking to begin music, do not buy this book. If you are a musician looking for a (in my opinion) genius's perspective on one of the most fundamental elements of music...then thats the book for you.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Important book, but make sure you have a solid background before you take this on.
Comment: This is an important book because it is a document written by Arnold Schoenberg. He wrote it from the way he taught his students harmony. If you know Schoenberg's tonal music you know how highly chromatic it is. It moves from tonal center to tonal center almost without the listener understanding how far they are traveling. This book uses his concept of region and that is not something taught in your freshman - sophomore theory courses.
If you want to read this book, make SURE you have a strong grounding in traditional theory first. Then ground yourself in Schoenberg's treatise on harmony. Then take on this little book. Otherwise it will be opaque to you.
However, just because you can't understand what the composer wrote, don't suppose that it is nonsense or dismiss it because of your own lack of comprehension. Schoenberg was a very important composer and understood the methods of composition very well. He certainly had his own views, however idiosyncratic they may be. It is simply that when you are Schoenberg you can do things lesser musicians cannot.
Customer Rating:
Summary: pure nonsense
Comment: From the very start this book did not do a good job of clarifying its title or it vocabulary used in its analyses.I think that he thought by using the word function that it would add some esteem or he fancied himself a mathematian. The writer schonberg at the begining of the book first page after the title page the uses word triad a ,three note chord, which I never understood and I think involves a lot acoustic science that mr. schonberg never had or b.s.ed that he had. Succesion, progression,tonal all vague or historically obscure. The entire book has sheet music in it and parts from scores whichs seems to me he could have simplified and condensed his thinking. I think anyone who read/reviewed this book and liked it is putting on the airs because it is in style or the hip thing to like schonberg and it would be uncool amongst intellectuals not to like schonberg. Time to search for alternative ways of understanding music for anyone really is interested in bringing music out of the educational stone age because it has been neglected for to long and has been everyones side project.Fractal science shows progress.
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