Music Theory Secrets: 94 Strategies for the Starting Musician

· Rowman & Littlefield
5.0
7 reviews
Ebook
156
Pages
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About this ebook

Modeled on the brilliant approach first formulated by distinguished professor of music and master clarinetist Michele Gingras in Clarinet Secrets and More Clarinet Secrets (both available from Rowman and Littlefield), Music Secrets is designed for instrumentalists, singers, conductors, composers, and other instructors and professionals seeking a quick set of pointers to improve their work as performers and producers of music. Easy to use, contributions to the Music Secrets series fill a niche for those who need quick and easy methods for learning what they need—from those just starting to the advanced musician in need of a refresher or new insights.

Rhythms, melodies, and harmonies are the building blocks of music. In Music Theory Secrets: 94 Strategies for the Starting Musician, Brent Coppenbarger offers a full range of methods to help musicians, not only grasp, but remember those key elements upon which the music they play is built: pitch, rhythm, scales, key signatures, and harmony. With over eighteen years of experience teaching music theory, Coppenbarger offers the various teaching and memory strategies he has designed to help musicians understand and retain what they need to know.

Coppenbarger covers critical information on how to determine pitch, the use of meter, and how to count rhythms in simple and compound meter; explains major scales and major key signatures, as well as minor scales and minor key signatures; surveys other types of scales (such as those used in jazz) and explains how modes work; presents necessary data on scale degree names and intervals; covers triads and various types of chords; touches upon Roman numeral analysis, inversions, and figured bass; presents non-chord tones and discusses solfege singing, including several pages of sight singing using various clefs and keys (strongly recommended for instrumentalists for practicing transpositions for the appropriate clef and range) demonstrates the different techniques musicians can use for transposing keys; and finally discusses more advanced concepts such as part-writing rules, the use of sequences, and form.

Music Theory Secrets: 94 Strategies for the Starting Musician is an indispensable resource for instrumental teachers wishing to incorporate music theory into lessons, classroom teachers, high school and college students, amateur musicians, those wanting to learn to read music, home-schooled students, and college bound music students.

Ratings and reviews

5.0
7 reviews
BHAKTI BROPHY
March 11, 2017
Having studied music theory for years, there are only a few books I highly recommend: this is one of them. The chapter on Compound Meters is worth the price if the entire book. For the advanced players, it's a wonderful refresher course, however I think it's best suited for the intermediate theorist/player. I would feel comfortable using this book to help introduce students new to music theory the basics, leaving out the advanced teachings for their studies down the road. Mr.Coppenbarger explains things with ease. I wish I had this book in the early 1980s.
1 person found this review helpful
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Rose
August 25, 2024
This is Worth Reading.
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About the author

Brent Coppenbarger is professor of music at the Cline School of Music at North Greenville University in Tigerville, South Carolina where he has taught music theory and woodwinds since 1995. He has published in The Clarinet, NACWPI Journal, and The Instrumentalist. He is also a composer who works are available from Dorn Publications and Musica Rara.

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