The Elements of Music: Melody, Rhythm and Harmony

Wooden Books

by Jason Martineau

An elegant primer on the principles and theories of music.

This innovative book presents the elements of music by building upon the long-known fundamentals of acoustics, proportion and relationship--a kind of musical metaphor. In combination with novel graphics and symbols, the principles behind melody, rhythm, and harmony come alive, along with those of Western musical notation. From intervals, triads, and the circle of fifths to major/minor keys and modulation, Dr. Martineau presents a splendid primer on music theory for the novice and professional alike.

Genres: Music, Nonfiction, Art, Science, Spirituality, Mathematics

64 pages, Paperback

First published November 15, 2008

About the author

Jason Martineau is an award-winning composer, pianist, arranger, and instructor, and has been active in the San Francisco Bay Area since 1995. He is a graduate of the University of South Florida, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and Manhattan School of Music, and has composed numerous works for orchestra, chamber ensembles, solo piano, and chorus, as well as a full-length musical, multiple film scores, and over 200 songs, both instrumental and vocal. Dr. Martineau has recorded over twelve albums in various genres, and has also been featured on numerous other artists' recordings, as pianist, music director, and producer. He provides scores, arrangements, original compositions, soundtracks, sound design, accompaniment, private instruction, and musical direction for a diverse and eclectic client base.

Dr. Martineau works in multiple capacities with many different idioms and styles, from world fusion and jazz, to industrial, rock, pop, and classical. In 2007 he orchestrated string arrangements by Vanessa Carlton for her album "Heroes and Thieves." He has also authored a book on music theory released October 2008 entitled "The Elements of Music," published by Wooden Books and Bloomsbury, distributed both nationally and internationally. That book has since been translated into German, Czech, Portuguese, and Japanese, and has been included in a larger, multi-author 6-book volume entitled "Quadrivium", which is available in English, Italian, French, Dutch, German, Portuguese, Spanish, Czech, and Russian.

His film scores have been featured in documentaries broadcast on PBS stations around the US since 1998. He also provides music cues and backgrounds for a large variety of multimedia projects. He has been playing the piano since the age of 5, and has been performing since 1989 at numerous venues in the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, New York, and more recently, the 10th International Festival of Dance and Music in Bangkok, Thailand. In 2011 he joined the faculty at the Academy of Art University, teaching music notation, theory, composition, orchestration, and counterpoint. He has been a featured columnist for FSHN magazine since 2011, writing monthly articles on the subject of love. He also has been a guest lecturer at UC Berkeley, the California Institute of Integral Studies, and was adjunct faculty at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music for the 2014-15 academic year. His second book for Wooden Books, entitled "Love: The Song of the Universe" was released worldwide on December 30th, 2014.

Reviews

[S117 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Personally it's 2 stars. I thought it would be more introductinonary and brought down to a level for those that don't really have much musical experience, but it was like reading a language you just know the basic of. The author is experienced and knowledgeable, and the book is rich, (hence the 3 stars) unfortunately I'm not able to grasp it.

[Alexander Kuznetsov · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very well-crafted brief overview of the music theory.

A remarkable thing is the illustrations, half of the book consists of them (literally, 30 pages of pictures and 30 pages of the text).

So the book is only 60 pages long, and hence the information is very dense, each book turn introduces a new topic.
There is no basics, and no really advanced stuff, it is more like "intermediate" level book.
It will be good for structuring your knowledge, assuming that you already know the basics.

[El archivo del druida · Rating 3 out of 5]

Definitely has good intentions, but it's ultimately useless if you don't know at least the very basics of music theory, and even if you know them, some concepts are explained in a way that it was very hard to wrap my head around.

[Lancen Davis Harms · Rating 5 out of 5]

read alongside keyboard and coffee

[Paige McLoughlin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've mentioned the charm of wooden books this one is on music I am going to drop a related video on Music and Measure theory.

https://youtu.be/cyW5z-M2yzw

[Luka Kawashima · Rating 3 out of 5]

Makes some interesting visual analogies. I would like to see how much larger critical support these sort of ideas have

[Filip Engler · Rating 3 out of 5]

To owercomplicated musical theory. It is hard to understand it.

[Evilbjork · Rating 3 out of 5]

More like a fun visual reference for people already experienced with music theory than anything someone could learn useful theory from.

[Andries Nieuwenhuize · Rating 5 out of 5]

A brilliant little book.

[Sten Bolander · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quite the intense book with some terms I was not aware of after starting piano lessons 45 years ago. The book is split up into 24 two-page sections, the left page presenting the topic and the right page providing supporting information in a visual form. I found this supporting information quite helpful although the text was quite small for my mature eyes. I have been aware of the harmonic structure of music, but never knew all of the terms describing the specific harmonies. This book will be a good reference. Also included are a glossary of terms and five appendices. Especially intriguing was the Appendix for Selected Rhythms, breaking down 33 rhythms from the somewhat conventional funk to the never-heard-of-before Samai Thaqil in 10/8 time. I would recommend this book for the beginner or professional alike who would like to expand their musical knowledge.

[Thebruce1314 · Rating 4 out of 5]

While I wouldn't recommend this for someone who has no prior knowledge in music, I liked the author's poetic-yet-technical manner of describing the building blocks of music. Presented in bite-sized chunks, this is a short book packed with tons of information. The best features, in my opinion, are the visual representations of the concepts described.
This book will be going on my musical reference shelf for sure.

[Jennifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

An elegant brief and very visual presentation of music theory. Excellent for anyone who knows music theory and wants to look at it from different angles. Inspiration for possible composing or arranging.

[Emma · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very thorough, short and comprehensive overview of music and musical theory with beautiful illustrations,, but not the easiest of reads and I found it confusing on occasions (even with a pretty solid grounding in music theory)

[Jonwillum Duurnenbol · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overview for dummies, quite nice.

[Alva Ware-Bevacqui · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty interesting book about what makes music, well, music. Nice pictures. A little bit too technical for me, but I think that's just personal preference.

[Will]

i know nothing about music