Reddit reviews A History of Western Music

A History of Western Music

Norton Anthology of Western Music

I'd recommend the Norton History of Western Music; it's a fantastic textbook that covers just about everything you could ever need.

Ahh, that makes sense, sorry \^\^;

There are books on a huge variety of subjects in music, so it does depend a little bit on what you are interested in specifically. For a broad overview, I liked A History of Western Music - the current edition is the 8th, but much of the materials from the 7th edition are available online. Another book I recommend is Harold C. Schonberg's The Lives of the Great Composers. It is less in-depth, but is written in a more narrative style while still hitting on a lot of the "who's who" in classical music from the Baroque to the 20th century (although it's maybe a tad outdated in the later 20th and 21st century).

Besides those two, I actually don't have any others on the top of my head that are good overviews. /u/m3g0wnz does have a guide to music theory textbooks on the sidebar that details out some of the main texts in that area. And, of course, there are books that specialize on a variety of subjects within music theory and history - Ebenezer Prout's book on fugues is one such example that I've looked at, as well as both the Kennan and Adler on the subject of orchestration. (Actually, Kennan also wrote a book on Counterpoint.)

On the subject of sight-singing, I've used both Rhythm and Pitch and A New Approach to Sight Singing in my aural skills classes - I like the Berkowitz a little better in the way it's organized, but both offer plenty of examples for practice. Alternatively, picking up a hymnal is possibly an easier alternative to sightsinging that gives you lots of tonal material for practice.

With most of my other suggestions, though, you don't really need a book. Print out some scores on IMSLP or pick up a cheap study edition (like this one of Mozart piano sonatas) and work through a harmonic/formal analysis.

With transposition, I think probably just working through some scores on IMSLP would be a good start, as well - I can't think of any other better way to get exercises for that. It's one of those topics that's pretty easy to quiz yourself with as long as you keep yourself honest. :)

Edit to add: As far as specifics of literature, that is obviously pretty instrument-dependent. I am a vocalist, and I usually choose language first and then begin exploring pieces that might work with my current technical goals. I know a lot of instrumentalists treat genre/time period the same way. So depending on your instrument, you may have a different approach, but it helps to narrow things down to a few composers you might like to explore for your instrument, and then seeing if anything works for you. Although be wary - for me I end up getting so involved in lit studies that I have a list a mile long of pieces I want to study in the future. It's a double-edged sword for sure.

http://www.amazon.com/History-Western-Music-Eighth-Edition/dp/0393931250/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1333575376&sr=1-1


Fantastic text if you ever get a chance to read through some of it. It provides a lot of historical background for Western art music, as well as the historical events that coincide. I'm looking forward to seeing if I can find any information on these chords. What is interesting to me is that, if these ARE actual chords by our definition, they will predate the earliest chordal harmony that I know of by more than 1000 years. I haven't studied much ancient music, so I will get my learn on soon.

Burkholder/Grout/Palisca

You most definitely can get away with an earlier edition (6th is probably the earliest I'd go. Get the anthologies with it if you can.)

Online, they have some study outlines and practice quizzes too, which helps you get the basics down for a grad school exam. I was able to pass mine just reviewing this for 30-60 minutes a day for a few weeks.

Tip: Focus on concepts. Learn style. If you can associate styles with dates and composers with styles, you're going to get a rough idea when composers were alive and writing. It's far easier than memorizing composer's dates.

I went on a trip with my university's band and my backpack got stolen from the hotel during a game. All my textbooks and my laptop were gone. This book was the worst part of the theft. But it's a textbook so it's not cheap. Yay.

1. Janet Schmalfeldt - In the Process of Becoming: Analytic and Philosophical Perspectives on Form in Early Nineteenth-Century Music
   
   
2. Not sure whether you're going for organology, ethnomusicology, orchestration, instrumentation or what. Would you please clarify your intention?
   
   
3. Whose history? And history of what? You could go with Burkholder/Grout/Palisca for the narrative we feed undergrads, or something really particular like Marina Frolova-Walker's Stalin's Music Prize: Soviet Culture and Politics, or Comolli and Carles' Free Jazz/Black Power. Really depends on what you're asking about.

When I was in school I read "A History of Western Music" which is a great text book
http://www.amazon.com/History-Western-Music-Eighth/dp/0393931250/ref=pd_sim_b_1

but im sure that your local library has a few books that would be good too.