This is the first volume of Harmony, Counterpoint & Improvisation, a textbook which offers each of these three facets as one organic course of study. The harmony section covers the whole technique of common chords and their inversions. Counterpoint is initially discussed as a vocal art and the early exercises explore the art of Palestrina and the English Tudor composers. In the improvisation section many keyboard techniques are introduced, such as transposition, chord progression and simple harmonisation.

A new method of music theory education for undergraduate music students, Harmony, Counterpoint, Partimento is grounded in schema theory and partimento, and takes an integrated, hands-on approach to the teaching of harmony and counterpoint in today's classrooms and studios. A textbook in three parts, the package includes: - the hardcopy text, providing essential stylistic and technical information and repertoire discussion; - an online workbook with a full range of exercises, including partimenti by Fenaroli, Sala, and others, along with arrangements of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century compositions; - an online instructor's manual providing additional information and realizations of all exercises. Linking theoretical knowledge with aural perception and aesthetic experience, the exercises encompass various activities, such as singing, playing, improvising, and notation, which challenge and develop the student's harmonic, melodic, and rhythmic imagination. Covering the common-practice period (Corelli to Brahms), Harmony, Counterpoint, Partimento is a core component of practice-oriented training of musicianship skills, in conjunction with solfeggio, analysis, and modal or tonal counterpoint.

This is the second volume of Harmony, Counterpoint & Improvisation, a textbook which offers each of these three facets as one organic course of study. The harmony section covers the whole technique of common chords and their inversions. Counterpoint is initially discussed as a vocal art and the early exercises explore the art of Palestrina and the English Tudor composers. In the improvisation section many keyboard techniques are introduced, such as transposition, chord progression and simple harmonisation.

The first book to teach the necessary mechanisms in an organized format that will be used for improvising two lines at once on the guitar (bass lines and melody lines). The material covered in the method includes: All of the diatonic seventh arpeggios in both ascending and descending forms, organized by the root in the bass, third in the bass and the fifth in the bass. Scale fragments with both static and moving bass lines. Basic rhythms with moving lines and syncopation. Each of these sections is further broken down into individual chapters focusing on a specific aspect of the topic. The material is geared towards both the intermediate and advanced guitarist. Topics such as fingerings, finger stretches and finger independence are also discussed. Having taught professionally for 35+ years, the author has the experience and curriculum to help takes students to the next level. The book is suitable for guitarists interested in players such as Ted Greene, Chet Atkins, Howard Morgen, George Van Eps, Jimmy Wyble and Charlie Christian. Classical guitarists looking to build a foundation on learning how to improvise multiple lines, will find the material suitable for their technique. Although improvisation is the focus of the book, the material can also be used for composition and song writing.

(Jazz Book). A study of three basic outlines used in jazz improv and composition, based on a study of hundreds of examples from great jazz artists.

This collection of etudes, written during the 1970's, was composed as a result of Jimmy Wyble's explorations into the musical worlds of counterpoint, harmony and chord melody improvisation for the jazz guitar. the right and left hand fingerings presented in this book were also developed as techniques needed to improvise jazz in two lines. Jimmy uses very standard jazz guitar chord shapes in these etudes; however, these shapes move through the harmony in lines rather than block chord structures. This broken chord technique creates a unique contrapuntal sound that separates Jimmy from the rest of the fingerstyle jazz guitar world. It is hoped that jazz and classical guitarists playing and working through these etudes will see many familiar chord shapes moving in new ways and creating new sounds. These new harmonic sounds combined with beautiful melodies will inspire any quitarist to new levels of musical creativity. Written in notation and tablature. 92 pages.

Designed for Music Theory courses, Music Theory Through Improvisation presents a unique approach to basic theory and musicianship training that examines the study of traditional theory through the art of improvisation. The book follows the same general progression of diatonic to non-diatonic harmony in conventional approaches, but integrates improvisation, composition, keyboard harmony, analysis, and rhythm. Conventional approaches to basic musicianship have largely been oriented toward study of common practice harmony from the Euroclassical tradition, with a heavy emphasis in four-part chorale writing. The author’s entirely new pathway places the study of harmony within improvisation and composition in stylistically diverse format, with jazz and popular music serving as important stylistic sources. Supplemental materials include a play-along audio in the downloadable resources for improvisation and a companion website with resources for students and instructors.

This book is a study and critical edition of Mendelssohn's composition exercise book from his early period of study with Carl Friedrich Zelter (1819-1821). The workbook illustrates in considerable detail the young musician's struggle to master the rules of part writing and principles of counterpoint. Much of Zelter's systematic teaching method is grounded in the eighteenth-century theoretical tradition of Berlin; not surprisingly, the exercises bear the stamp of the music of J. S. Bach, which heavily influenced such Berlin musicians as C. P. E. Bach, C. F. C. Fasch, Marpurg, Kirnberger, Zelter and Mendelssohn. There is little doubt that the historicist attitude of the mature Mendelssohn - as seen in his efforts to revive the works of Bach and Handel and in his propensity toward strict contrapuntal techniques in his own music - was conditioned by these studies with Zelter. The publication of the workbook sheds new light on the early development of one ofthe most important nineteenth-century composers who, though affected by the new wave of romanticism that swept over Europe, never lost his respect for the past. No less important, the manuscript includes several previously unpublished pieces which rank among Mendelssohn's earliest compositions.

At the height of the Enlightenment, four conservatories in Naples stood at the center of European composition. Maestros taught their students to compose with unprecedented swiftness and elegance using the partimento, an instructional tool derived from the basso continuo that encouraged improvisation as the path to musical fluency. Although the practice vanished in the early nineteenth century, its legacy lived on in the music of the next generation. In The Art of Partimento, performer and music-historian Giorgio Sanguinetti chronicles the history of this long-forgotten Neapolitan art. Sanguinetti has painstakingly reconstructed the oral tradition that accompanied these partimento manuscripts, now scattered throughout Europe. Beginning with the origins of the partimento in the circles of Corelli, Pasquini, and Alessandro Scarlatti in Rome and tracing it through the peak of the tradition in Naples, The Art of Partimento gives a glimpse into the daily life and work of an eighteenth century composer. The Art of the Partimento is also a complete practical handbook to reviving the tradition today. Step by step, Sanguinetti guides the aspiring composer through elementary realization to more advanced exercises in diminution, imitation, and motivic coherence. Based on the teachings of the original masters, Sanguinetti challenges the reader to become a part of history, providing a variety of original partimenti in a range of genres, forms, styles, and difficulty levels along the way and allowing the student to learn the art of the partimento for themselves at their own pace. As both history and practical guide, The Art of Partimento presents a new and innovative way of thinking about music theory. Sanguinetti's unique approach unites musicology and music theory with performance, which allows for a richer and deeper understanding than any one method alone, and offers students and scholars of composition and music theory the opportunity not only to understand the life of this fascinating tradition, but to participate in it as well.