Edly's Music Theory for Practical People Level 1

by Ed Roseman, Peter H. Reynolds (Illustrator)

Music theory need not be dreary! This eBook is the first in a two-part e-series of this well-loved book. Its clear and friendly writing and wry humor, coupled with fun illustrations throughout, makes the topic that music students think of as dry and boring, into something approachable, attainable, and yes, even enjoyable. For players of all instruments and singers, and—something that sets it apart from most theory books—even those who don't read music; it is applicable to all genres of music.Level 1 (of two) covers the natural and chromatic musical alphabets, triad and 7th chord construction, major and minor scales, keys, and key signatures, intervals and inversion, diatonic chords, functions, and inversion, 12 bar blues, the circle of fifths, ear-training, secondary dominants, an introduction to transposition, and finally, cadences. It features a fully-linked “Glossarindex”—a combination glossary and index.

Genres: Music

247 pages, Kindle Edition

First published July 2, 2013

About the author

Ed Roseman is the author, publisher, and primary distributor of the well-loved books "Edly's Music Theory for Practical People" and "Edly Paints the Ivories Blue." The theory book is used by individuals and high school, college, and community theory classes throughout the United States. He was music columnist for the Maine Times in 1992, and his article "Teach Your Children Well" was published in the 1/93 issue of Keyboard magazine as a guest editorial. He is also a composer of many styles of music, some of which incorporate world music elements, and has written for diverse acoustic ensembles as well as for synthesizers. Commercially, his music can be heard on videos for clients such as Fablevision Animation Studios and Motorola Codex. His spirited and quirky "Uncle Stumble's Dance" and "Sweedler's Dance" were premiered by the Community Orchestra of the Portland Symphony in 1999.

He has performed extensively as a solo multi-instrumentalist in California and elsewhere, as well as with the folk music show band Shanachie. He played on, produced, and arranged much of the material for (Klezmer band) the Casco Bay Tummlers' debut CD.

He teaches privately at his studio in Kennebunkport, Maine, and is currently teaching the York County Regional Fine Arts Gifted and Talented Composition and Arranging Class.

Having attended the Berklee College of Music and the University of Michigan at Interlochen, he received his B.A. with honors in music from Wesleyan University. Major areas of study included Western classical and jazz composition and theory, Ghanaian drumming, and solkattu (South Indian percussion solfege), as well as forays into Celtic and Chinese musics. He is an overtone singer, and plays bones, among other instruments.