The Musician’s Guide to Theory and Analysis
Description
A theory text that speaks to today’s students
The most pedagogically sophisticated text on the market, The Musician’s Guide is the most complete resource for the theory curriculum that anyone can use. Successful online Know It? Show It! pedagogy and a comprehensive workbook help students develop theory skills inside the classroom and out. With a wider, more inclusive, repertoire than ever, the text explores music that will be relevant to every musician with clear, accessible prose.
Pathbreaking pedagogy helps students learn in class and at home
The Musician’s Guide is the most comprehensive set of resources available for the theory classroom. The text highlights what students need to know, while an interactive ebook makes listening simpler than ever. Successful Know It? Show It! online pedagogy, consisting of assignable interactive video tutorials and adaptive quizzes, prepares students for workbook assignments. Finally, the workbook features a wide range of easy-to-assign exercises.
An expanded repertoire keeps students engaged
The Musician’s Guide has always placed music before theory, introducing every concept with examples from real music. The text embraces a wide range of repertoire, from Bach to Lin-Manuel Miranda. New for the Fourth Edition, the text features a more inclusive repertoire than ever with new examples by women and composers of color in every chapter and expanded coverage of popular music.
Flexible and integrated materials that support any course
The Musician’s Guide covers every topic in the undergraduate theory sequence—from fundamentals to form to post-tonal theory—eliminating the need for expensive additional books. And by adding the volumes of The Musician’s Guide to Aural Skills, the content of theory and aural skills courses can be easily coordinated so that they are mutually reinforcing.
Review
The Musician’s Guide to Theory and Analysis is my primary recommendation for those wanting to learn music theory on their own. Not only is the style of writing approachable to musicians of any level, the musical examples Clendinning and Marvin chose vary much more than the other big music theory text books. This series includes not only classical examples, but also examples from folk music of many cultures worldwide as well as from pop music.
It does leave out some specific details for particular topics, but I think this was deliberate, as too much information when students first learn concepts can be overwhelming and detrimental to actually comprehending the material.
I give The Musician’s Guide to Theory and Analysis 5 out of 5 stars for its comprehensive content, diversity of musical examples, and approachability for musicians of al levels.