Theory & Harmony for the Contemporary Musician

Theory & Harmony for the Contemporary Musician is a great theory book for musicians who would like to learn practical theory. Instead of focusing on symphonic theory, specific instrumentational theory, tone rows, or the like, Arnie Berle goes over the basics of theory that all musicians can use, whether they play jazz, classical, pop, or 12-tone styles.The book starts the reader with the basics and fundamentals of musical concepts, and quickly jumps into scales, modes, chords, and progressions.Highly recommended for anyone who wants to have a better grasp on what is going on "behind the scenes" in music, or even for those who want to get a head start to learning and playing music at a more professional level (ie, great for teens who will study music theory in college).

I'm a mostly self-taught musician and play a lot by ear, primarily guitar. I've found Theory & Harmony for the Contemporary Musician to be quite accessible and useful. The material is easy to understand and apply, with good categorization and progression of subject material. The book provided me the ability to understand and use the concepts of music theory that resulted in tremendous growth as musician.This book is one of the few music books I own that I refer to regularly. My recent purchase is actually my second copy - I loaned the original to a friend and it never came back.

My friend said: If you have insomnia, just read a harmony book or textbook and you would fall asleep in 10-15 minutes. I did not fall asleep with this book because it gave me helpful explanation about chords and chord progression than other books. May be it is too simple for an advanced student but it is enough for me. With a piano/keyboard in front of you, you would learn Simple, Elementary concepts in harmony with not too much diificulty. I think Arnie Berle wrote a lot of good books.

Excellent book for self-study for the upcoming jazz artist. Great Vendor too, deserves 10 stars but only allowed 5 so i gave it 5stars...

This is a well written, easy to read. large print book. It's full of a wealth of information and compliments my other music theory books. I highly recommend it.

I’ve owned a handful of music theory books. This is the best by far for me, a beginning jazz guitar student. The book is written simply and progresses at an easy pace that assumes you know NOTHING about music theory. What I love is that the author tells you the WHY behind every concept in music theory, filling in many holes in my knowledge of theory. His teaching method is very effective for me. Although it may be possible to use this book without being able to read music, I would not recommend it unless you already read music.

The book has sat on my shelf for a while...i finally decided to just go through it. Its great...its little over 100 pages so how daunting can it really be?? On the other hand to my satisfaction there is very little wasted in those 100 pages. Meaning its just terse enough...i found it just perfect.Working through the exercises i was actually happy that the solutions werent sitting there. It forced me to go back and reread some things or make sure i understood the material. They werent very difficult, its easy to find the solution you are looking for for any question in the example material albeit probably in a different key. But the nice thing about music theory is that once you understand it in one key the rest is just transpositional work which the exercises seem to be there to encourage you to do.Its the strangest thing, i take this book around with me during the day and read it when i get a chance and do the (non instrumental)exercises and then when i go home i find i sound much better! :)looking for a good follow up book, so far iv been disappointed. The other books iv seen have not been nearly terse enough and too short. The great thing about this book is that he doesnt assume just because you may be unfamiliar with music theory that you are a completely inept thinker.

This book was ok but it doesn't really go into enough detail about one subject for the next to make sense. I would recommend using a more complete Theory like the Shoenberg A Theory of Harmony.