Music Theory Secrets: 94 Strategies for the Starting Musician

Brent Coppenbarger

doi:10.5771/9781442233249

Summary

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.

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Bibliographic data

Edition: 1/2014
Copyright Year: 2014
ISBN-Print: 978-1-4422-3323-2
ISBN-Online: 978-1-4422-3324-9
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham
Language: English
Pages: 136
Product Type: Monograph

1. Contents No access
2. Tables No access
3. Preface No access
4. Acknowledgments No access
5. Prelude No access
CHAPTER 1. Pitch and Rhythm Basics No access Pages 1 - 20
CHAPTER 2. Major Scales and Major Key Signatures No access Pages 21 - 30
CHAPTER 3. Minor Scales and Minor Key Signatures No access Pages 31 - 38
CHAPTER 4. Other Scales No access Pages 39 - 48
CHAPTER 5. Scale Degree Names and Intervals No access Pages 49 - 56
CHAPTER 6. Triads No access Pages 57 - 60
CHAPTER 7. Chords No access Pages 61 - 66
CHAPTER 8. Roman Numeral Analysis No access Pages 67 - 74
CHAPTER 9. Inversions of the Chord and Figured Bass No access Pages 75 - 82
CHAPTER 10. Nonchord Tones No access Pages 83 - 90
CHAPTER 11. Singing with Solfège Syllables No access Pages 91 - 100
CHAPTER 12. Transposition No access Pages 101 - 106
CHAPTER 13. Advanced Concepts No access Pages 107 - 120
Appendix 1. Chorale Analyses from Chapter 13 No access Pages 121 - 126
Appendix 2. Suggested Further Reading No access Pages 127 - 130
Index No access Pages 131 - 134
About the Author No access Pages 135 - 136