The Complete Musician: An Integrated Approach to Tonal Theory, Analysis, and Listening

by Steven G. Laitz

Bringing together the analytical, aural, and tactile activities that comprise a tonal theory curriculum, The Complete Musician , Second Edition, relies on a diverse repertoire and innovative exercises to explicitly connect theory (writing and analysis), skills (singing, playing, and dictation),
and music-making outside the theory class. It provides students with a strong foundation in the principles of writing, analyzing, hearing, singing, and playing tonal harmony and enables them to understand the most important musical forms.

Features of the Second Edition :

* Enhanced and supplemented by five music DVDs--two packaged with the text, two with Student Workbook I, and one with Student Workbook II. These DVDs contain a total of more than sixteen hours of high-quality recorded examples--from solo piano to full orchestra--of the examples and exercises in the
text and workbooks, performed by soloists and ensembles from the Eastman School of Music and the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra. In addition, examples and exercises are included on the DVDs in downloadable MP3 format.
* Significantly revised in order to improve general ordering between large topics (for example, the pre-dominant function is introduced earlier) and organization within chapters (particularly in Parts 1-4)
* Offers new topics and a new chapter (16) devoted exclusively to the motive; new sections on analytical decision-making through Gestalt techniques (Chapters 2 and 7); lead sheet notation (Chapter 6); harmonizing florid melodies (beginning in Chapter 9); and an expanded section on
musical texture and harmonic analysis (Chapter 6)
* Introduces numerous analyses throughout the book, including thirteen "Model Analysis" sections, that provide extended analyses of canonical pieces
* Includes more than 200 new examples, many from wind and brass literature
* Explanations and definitions have been carefully revised for clarity, with added summary charts and step-by-step procedures
* Offers new types of exercises--in both the text and in the workbooks--including exercises for single-line instrumentalists, listening exercises, and more graduated exercises
* Workbook exercises are now structured in a consistent format of discrete assignments (four to eight assignments per chapter) that usually fit on one or two sheets of paper for ease in handing in to the instructor. Each assignment contains a variety of exercises, crafted for students with a wide
range of abilities. Supplementary exercises are also included for further practice.
* Expanded Instructor's Manual adds model solutions for more than 200 analysis and part writing exercises; each chapter includes teaching guidelines and supplementary analytical, dictation, playing, and writing exercises

Genres: Music, Nonfiction, Textbooks, Reference, Theory

912 pages, Hardcover

First published March 20, 2003

About the author

Eastman School of Musi
Associate Professor of Theory
Affiliate faculty, Chamber Music Department

Interim Associate Dean of Graduate Studies, Fall 2009 Semester

BA, MA, University of California-Riverside; PhD, Eastman. Piano studies with Rebecca Penneys, Donna Turner Smith, and Leigh Unger; harpsichord studies with William Sherwood. Numerous lecture recitals and solo and chamber music recitals. Research interests in 19th-century music and pedagogy. Publications in Theory and Practice and Integral. Author, Developing the Complete Musician: An Integrated Approach to Theory, Analysis and Listening, Oxford University Press (July 2003). Member of Society for Music Theory. Faculty member, Chaffey College (1979-80), Eastman (1989-).

Reviews

[Richard Pohl · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely exhaustive work on the common music practice... if you are an aspiring composer, music analyst or just a performer hoping to get more under the skin of works you study, this is just the book you should get... Covering only common practice and tonal harmony, but along with general counterpoint and voice leading issues offering an overal comprehensive and deep analysis of works from Early Baroque till mid-20th Century.

[Barack Liu · Rating 5 out of 5]

312-The Complete Musician-Steven Laitz-Tool-2003

Barack
2021/02/20

" The Complete Musician " was first published in the United States in 2003. It covers all the topics necessary to understand music theory, including written theory (writing and analysis), skills (singing, playing, and dictation), and music composition.

Steven Laitz studied at the University of California at Riverside and Eastman School of Music. He started teaching at Eastman School of Music in 1989 and is the chair of music theory at the school. Representative works: " The Complete Musician " and so on.

Table of Contents
CHAPTER 1A Musical Space
CHAPTER 1B Musical Time: Pulse, Rhythm, and Meter
CHAPTER 2 Harnessing Space and Time: Introduction to Melody and Two- Voice Counterpoint
CHAPTER 3 Musical Density: Triads, Seventh Chords, and Texture
CHAPTER 4 When Harmony, Melody, and Rhythm Converge
CHAPTER 5 Tonic and Dominant as Tonal Pillars and Introduction to Voice Leading
CHAPTER 6 The Impact of Melody, Rhythm, and Meter on Harmony; Introduction to V 7; and Harmonizing Florid Melodies
CHAPTER 7 Contrapuntal Expansions of Tonic and Dominant: Six- Three Chords
CHAPTER 8 More Contrapuntal Expansions: Inversions of V 7, Introduction to Leading- Tone Seventh Chords, and Reduction and Elaboration
CHAPTER 9 The Pre- Dominant Function and the Phrase Model
CHAPTER 10 Accented and Chromatic Embellishing Tones

Music theory ( music theory ), that is, music theory, is a discipline that studies music practice and feasibility. "Oxford Music Guide" gives three related uses of the term "music theory": The first is "basic principles", that is, musical symbols that must be understood, including key signatures, time signatures, and rhythm symbols. The second is to learn about the study of music by scholars from ancient times to the present. The third is a subfield of current musicology research, which aims to "seeking to define the procedures and general norms of music". It is different from music analysis in that it does not target individual works and performances, but focuses on the fundamental rules that constitute music.

Scale ( Scale ) means that each tone in the formula. Starting from a certain pitch, that is, starting from the tonic, arrange the notes from low to high in the order of pitch. Such a sequence is called a scale. There are many different scales all over the world. With the progress of music level, music has a very complete theory and system. Almost all the world uses the twelve equal temperaments as the basis for learning music. Therefore, the scales we are talking about today are based on the most common major scales (major) and minor scales (minor).

The sum of sounds with a fixed pitch used in music is called the music system. The tones in the music system are arranged in ascending or descending order, which is called a tone train. Each tone in the musical tone system is called a tone level. There are two types of sound levels: basic sound level and variable sound level. Tone system, only seven have a sound stage name Li called basic sound level. The name of the basic sound level is marked in two ways: letters and roll names. Two adjacent sounds with the same name are called octaves. The sound obtained by raising or lowering the basic sound level is called the variable sound level. Raise the basic sound level by a semitone with "raise" or " # "; lower a semitone with "drop" or " b " to show; raise a whole sound with "heavy rise" or "※" to mark; lower a whole sound with " "Re-drop" or " bb " to indicate; restore with " n ".

In music, many tones (generally no more than seven) connected together according to a certain relationship form a system with one tone as the center (the tonic). This system is called mode.

According to the system of twelve equal temperament, we can start from any semitone ( DO, #DO, RE, #RE, MI, FA, #FA, SOL, #SOL, LA, #LA, SI ), according to the major To make a brand new major, take the C major as an example:

The so-called interval refers to the mutual relationship between two sound levels in pitch, which is the distance between two tones in pitch, and its unit name is called a degree. As the unit of the interval, a degree is a quantitative unit of several natural sound names between two notes. For example, a fourth-degree means that four natural sound names are counted from this sound. For example, the degree algorithm between DO and FA is DO, RE, MI, FA are four natural phonetic names, so the degree between DO and FA is four degrees. There is no way to show the exact distance between DO and FA in degrees. The exact distance must be calculated in semitones. Because if you only use degrees to calculate intervals, there will be a problem: although some degrees are called fourths, the number of semitones between them is different. For example, there is a difference of 5 semitones between DO and FA, and between FA and SI. The difference is 6 semitones. The degree is the same, but the actual distance is different. Therefore, after determining the degree of this group of sounds, adjectives such as major, minor, increase, and decrease are added to the front of the degree to further determine the correct interval of this group of sounds.

The advantages of numbered musical notation are a strong sense of mode, ease to learn, and ease to spread.
The shortcoming of numbered notation is that the image of the pitch is poor because it relies on the dots up and down to indicate the octave of the note. If there is negligence in the notation, it will cause acoustic errors. Secondly, it lacks the three-dimensional sense of multi-voice, and it is troublesome to read the score when transposing, which makes it impossible to sing the frequently transposed passages. Therefore, the numbered musical notation can be used to record some simple monophonic melody, but it is more difficult to use it to record music with a wide range, many parts, and frequent transitions. Therefore, it gradually fails to keep up with people's growing need for music. Therefore, even in France, where the musical notation originated, and Japan, where it was once popular, it has disappeared, and it has been used in very few countries.

The advantage of staff notation is that the pitch has a strong sense of image, and it can also easily record many voices and chords that are pronounced at the same time. Therefore, it can not only record a single-part melody but also record large-scale music works with complex tones and various parts. Its melody lines are clear, and the harmony is three-dimensional. You can know the outline of the music at a glance. Because the staff is more scientific and has many advantages, it has been widely used by countries all over the world to record music, and it has become a universal notation in the world.

Sound-As a physical phenomenon, the sound is produced by mechanical waves of objects. The object generates mechanical waves and acts on the human auditory organ through the air. The auditory organ transmits information to the brain, giving people the sensation of sound.
The properties of sound-the physical properties of sound are called the properties of sound. There are four types: high and low, duration, strength, and tone.
Fundamental tone-Taking the string as an example, the longest-wavelength sound produced by the whole string is the fundamental tone, and the wavelength is generally denoted as λ.
Overtones-The tones produced by the string part are overtones, and the wavelength is usually an integer fraction of the fundamental (such as λ /2, λ /3, λ /4... etc.).
The compound sound-the sound we usually hear is not just one sound, but a combination of many sounds, so a compound sound is produced.
Pure tone-relatively speaking, a sound with only one wavelength is called pure tone. For example, the sound of a tuning fork is pure tone.
Range-the range of high and low sounds. Usually refers to the range that a vocal or instrument can reach in the entire music system.
The sound area-Sound area is a part of the sound range, divided into three types: high range, mid-range, and low range.
Twelve equal temperament-Divide the pure octave (two adjacent sounds of the same name constitute a pure octave) into twelve equal parts. This temperament is called the twelve equal temperaments.
Bar line-The vertical line separating bars from each other in a musical score is called a bar line. Its function is to write in front of the strong beat as a mark of the strong beat.
Beats-the same time segments with strong and weak cycles repeating in a certain order are called beats.
Tempo—The unit beat of the beat is represented by a fixed note, called the beat. For example, for a two-beat beat, the unit beat is expressed in quarter notes, which is called a four-two time; when expressed in eighth notes, it is called an eighty-two time.
Strength-the strength of the music is the strength of the music midrange. The intensity in music, like other elements in music, has a close relationship with the content of the music. There are three types of velocity signs: letter velocity signs such as p (weak), f (strong), mf (medium strong), mp (medium-weak), ff (very strong), pp (very weak), etc.; text strength The notation: Crescendo abbreviated Cresc (fade), diminuendo abbreviated Dim (fade); graphic symbols such efforts: < (fade), > ( fade ) and the like.
Interval-the high-low relationship between the two in the music system is called an interval. The interval can be represented by some numbers. The number of intervals contained in the diatonic scale is called the series of intervals. Generally, "degree" is used to indicate the number of intervals of the interval, which contains several levels, which is called several degrees.
Chords-in music, the combination of more than three notes stacked according to the third or non-third interval relationship is called a chord.
Triad-The combination of three notes, that is, the combination of a certain note as the root note and the third and fifth above it is called a triad.
Seventh chord-the combination of four notes, that is, a certain triad, and the combination of the seventh note above the root note, called the seventh chord.
Chord progression-a set of chords are played continuously, which constitutes the chord progression (harmonic progression). How to effectively distinguish the various chords in progress is a prerequisite for having a good sense of harmony. This mainly depends on the receiver being able to correctly grasp the tonic that determines the tonal character of the harmony, so as to determine where each chord is located. The location of the harmony function. Harmony function can be simply identified by some Roman numerals, such as Ⅰ, Ⅱ, Ⅲ, Ⅳ... etc. They represent the sound level of each component tone (and its functional chords) in the scale.
Mode—Several sounds are combined into a system according to a certain relationship (high-low relationship, etc.), and a certain tone in the center (tonic). This system is called a mode.
Scale-the tone in the mode, from tonic to tonic, arranged in the order of tone, called the scale.

" The Complete Musician is founded on two simple premises that I believe in strongly:
1. Students can learn to hear, comprehend, and model the structure and syntax of the music that they love.
2. Students will rise to the challenge when all of their senses are stimulated and they are immersed in instrumental and vocal music from the tonal and post-tonal repertoire. ”

The premise of our sincere willingness to learn something is to have a real passion for it. The same is true for learning music theory. We must first be interested in music before we are willing to take the initiative to understand the principles behind the music.

“ Music students often suffer through their theory and aural skills courses, viewing them as not particularly relevant— perhaps even painful— sidelines of their musical studies. This is a shame because an unsatisfying experience with theory early on in students' studies frequently has a negative effect on their attitude throughout their college years and beyond into their professional lives. ”

Whether it’s music or other sciences, you must try to understand the theory behind it as much as possible when studying, not just at the application level. The so-called teaching them to fish is worse than teaching them to fish. The more we understand the theory, the higher the upper limit we can reach, and the more we can deal with various challenges independently.

" During the Baroque, Classical, and Romantic periods
(ca. 1650–ca. 1900) is called tonal music, or music of the common- practice period. Compositions written during these three centuries have a point of gravitation, an explicit or implicit center around which all its pitches orbit. This phenomenon is called tonality, and the gravitational center— a single pitch (labeled using letters of the alphabet from A through G, plus various possible modifiers, including “flat” and “sharp”)— is called the tonic. ”

The modern mainstream musical expressions were greatly influenced by the musical expressions of the Baroque period. We need to understand why modern music is like this? It is necessary to understand this history. If you are familiar with history, you can understand the present and predict the future.

" In fact, E often occurred conspicuously just after the bar lines, which indicate the beginning and end of measures (mm.); see Example 1A.1. Pitches occurring after the bar lines have a special function in tonal music because they are accented. Accented musical events stand out because our attention is drawn to them. We will examine a variety of ways in which composers create accents in their music. ”

Different tones can give people different feelings, and the difference between rising and falling tones can also achieve different purposes. The essence of musicians is to use objective principles to carefully combine tones and beats to achieve specific artistic goals.

[Jin Shusong · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is really hard for an amateur. By struggling the concepts and skills in the book, I find I can now understand musics deeper than before. In fact, I want to read this book once more. I believe that I would find many new things in the second reading.

[Christian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Review for The Musician's Guide (Clendinning) and The Complete Musician (Laitz). I wanted to dust off my music theory a bit and thus loosely worked my way through both texts in rather quick succession. Here are some observations:

The CM takes often longer to drive its point home, so some might consider it verbose. On the other hand is the MG more superficial (just by a degree), at least that's how I feel. In general I like the presentation of the CM better, but then again I like a rather "dry", orderly format. MG leaves more space and has better design in respect to info boxes and overall quick accessability. Additionally MG has always all measure-numbers in place, at least as far as I have seen it, while that is not the case with Laitz. It gets annying to look for the right part in the piece for playback. Apropos playback, apart from the measures, Laitz does the better job in offering additional material. While both have online presences with a huge bulk of the contained material to listen to, the stuff for CM is readily availanble on a website without one having to get an account or log in. Additionally, exercises and especially solutions to exercises are always a problem with such study material. In GM you get some exercises and else have to buy the workbook, solutions are obtainable basically only for US instructors. The same goes for CM, but there are additional exercises on the website I mentioned, complete with solutions for every chapter of the book.

When you want something more "easy" going (just a bit) and snappier presentation, then maybe GM is more for you. But on the whole I found Laitz' CM more satisfying and superior, being somewhat more in depth and especially since the bonus material was easier to use.

[Hunter · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Complete Musician can be best described in one word: exhaustive. This is both a strength and weakness. Laitz leaves no stone unturned. It is a truly comprehensive exploration of the theory of tonal art music.

The downside is that he tends to err on the side of verbosity. Countless times I found myself feeling "that paragraph could have been a sentence or two." The book is around 900 pages, and I can't help but feel a couple hundred could be shaved out without much loss of information. Someone without prior theory knowledge beyond reading music will probably find this book pretty intimidating. In my opinion, Stone's Music Theory and Composition is a much better book for the purposes of a college-level general theory course.

Despite those criticisms, I definitely love this book, and it holds a special place in my heart. It is truly impressive all the material covered in this one book. It is the sort of text that is loved by theory nerds and composers, but probably not those who are just trying to get through their general theory requirement.

[Evan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brief note to say I haven’t read this from cover to cover just diving in to different sections. From what I have read this appears to be one of the best laid out books on music theory I have read. I studied under Dai Griffith’s in Oxford Brookes university and this book seems to cover the topics we studied and more.