(Part 2) Reddit mentions: The best books about classical music

Rewatcher/”Isn’t it funny how the most unforgettable scenes can be so trivial, and vice versa?”

The Performance

• I am of the opinion that Your lie in April turns into a magical realism show at the end, sort of like Clannad, where it takes place in the “real world,” but fantastical things can happen. When Kaori dies (which, by the way, is a statement I always hate typing), I think she has an ethereal duet with Kousei one last time before passing onto the next plane of existence. The air violin in episode 21, Kaori’s ability to respond to things Kousei says in his mind, and the ability for musicians to communicate and understand each other in complex thought through music aren’t things that I think happen to Kousei in his imagination, but actually do happen to him. But on the flip side, Kousei does have psychological trauma, so it very well could be in his head…
  
• I’ve always loved the scene before when Kaori appears: with the footprints in the snow on the roof, and Kaori being carried down the stairs by Kousei as a single snowflake lands on them as she whispers “thank you” to him.
  
• Chopin’s Ballade No. 1 in G minor, Op. 23 is a piano piece for a solo pianist—Kaori’s violin part that makes it a duet was written specifically for the anime. By the way, I want to draw attention to the two musicians who “play” music for Kousei and Kaori throughout the series: Tomoki Sakata for Kousei on the piano, and Yūna Shinohara for Kaori on the violin. They are just as important as the VAs in bringing these characters to life.
  
• Just as their time together ends, the sky darkens, and it becomes twilight—a metaphor for Kaori, the light in Kosei’s life, sunsetting and joining the infinite night sky as a twinkling star. Remember how I asked y’all to pay attention to the new OP in episode 18? And remember how Watari pointed out before that the stars are always out, but you only see them at night? Kaori is always with Kousei. I love this show to pieces, but it does hit you over the head with symbolism hard. I’m sorry if pointing this out is readily obvious to you.
  
  The Letter
  
  
• It takes Kousei and month and a half to gather the courage to read Kaori’s letter. It’s implied that during these six-ish weeks, Tsubaki doesn’t know what to do for or say to Kousei, while Watari puts up a positive front for his best friend, even though its clear, during Kaori’s letter, he’s also hurting a little bit inside.
  
• Kaori wrote this letter immediately after the snowy rooftop. I’m thinking had she survived the surgery, she would have said the things she said in this letter to him personally. Yes, I wish she would have said all of this sooner… like way sooner, but KimiUso is overdramatic and “needed” this plot device. Uh oh, the snark and criticism of one of my favorite anime is coming out. Brace yourself.
  
• A lot of mirror moments happen during the second half of the episode. Kousei passes the same street we see Kaori pass through in the beginning of the first episode (with another black cat!). When Kaori mentions in her letter trying to approach Kousei when they first start middle school, it mirrors the same scene as when Kousei tries to approach Kaori after her Towa Hall prelims, but they both stop themselves when Tsubaki and Watari, respectively, pass by to intercept.
  
• In JP, Kaori addresses her letter to Arima Kousei-sama (instance of Kaori using his full name, plus -sama). The English dub changes it to “Hey you! I mean, Dear Kousei…” Honestly, both are acceptable to me, because they both indicate how Kaori felt towards Kousei.
  
• Kaori knew about Kousei since she was five. She used to study the piano but switched to violin so she could do a duet with Kousei after being blown away by his performance. I wonder how much this story would be different if someone told smol!Kaori that four-hands piano and multiple piano duets were a thing.
  
• If you rewatch this show, you will see smol!Kaori in the audience multiple times when smol!Kousei performs, now that you know what she looks like as a child. Go back to Emi’s backstory episode, Tsubaki’s perspective of Kousei’s collapse, and even the first scene after the OP in episode 1. Kaori is in all of them.
  
• It takes a great measure of maturity from a 14-year-old to realize you are terminally ill, develop a bucket list, and enact a plan to live your life to the fullest, but clearly Kaori doesn’t have it all together. Yes, she may seem like all sunshine and rainbows, but she does have her dark and hopeless moments throughout the story. Remember when she cried and felt like she was losing heart in episode 4? That necessarily wasn’t a tantrum. She was so close to failing her prime bucket list item so soon: to perform a duet with the Kousei Arima.
  
• Kaori wasn’t crying in the park in the first episode because she blew too hard, or because of seasonal allergies: it’s because she finally gets to meet and befriend Kousei. The lie was necessary to get close to Kousei and get cover through Watari, who it’s hinted in the supplemental side novel “A Six-Person Etude” was able to deduce the situation the whole time and saw it as a way to get Tsubaki and Kousei together, while hanging out with a cute, fun girl. And when he realizes how much Kousei is in love with Kaori and likewise, uses his Best Boi powers to get them together.
  
• Kashiwagi is good at reading people and the theory of romance because she owns HUNDREDS of boys love manga. Maybe use some of that knowledge to get yourself a boyfriend, Nao-chan.
  
• Guys, if you didn’t know, Kaori Miyazono loves Kousei Arima. Always has. Always will. The last 10 months of her life centered around becoming his friend and bringing this piano prodigy back on stage, so he could share his talent with the world once again. I don’t think she intended on having him fall in love with her, but it happened anyway. And as a pleasant, intended side-effect, it sprung her classmate/acquaintance-to-new-bestie Tsubaki Sawabe into action and made her finally confront her feelings about Kousei that were readily obvious to everyone except those two.
  
• A comment that stuck with me in one of the previous rewatch threads from 2 years ago: “The letter's postscript is a reminder that Kaori's confidence and bravery was an act. ‘If you don't want [this picture I've always treasured], please feel free to tear it up and throw it away.’”
  
• Tsubaki resolves to never, ever, leave Kousei. What happens in the future for these two is anyone’s guess.
  
• So who is your OTP here? Kousei x Kaori, or Kousei x Tsubaki?
  
  What’s Next?
  
  Want to know more about Kousei, Kaori, Tsubaki, Watari, Emi, Takashi, and Nagi?
  
  

1. There is an OVA (not available for legal streaming in English) that is a flashback episode to the main characters and Kousei's rivals as children. It’s not hard to find online, and if anyone wants to talk about it tomorrow (or now), we can. Kousei's dad makes a quick appearance.
   
2. There is a side novel available legally in English as a paperback or e-book, Your Lie in April: A Six-Person Etude, that takes place during Vol. 6 and 7 of the manga, or roughly between episodes 11 to 15, from the perspectives of Kaori, Watari, Tsubaki, Emi and Takashi.
   
3. There is a single volume manga of side stories, Coda, that includes:
   
   > • "Summer's Twilight" and "Summer's Illusion", two chapters dedicated to the day of Kousei’s first performance.
   >
   > • "Two Years Later", which follows up on Nagi and Miike as middle school third-years.
   >
   > • "Summer's Vestiges", which reveals a bit of Kaori’s backstory as a child and before her meeting with Kousei in the park.
   >
   > • And "Secret Society KKE", which paints a portrait of high school life for Emi.
   
   …This is also legally unavailable in English, but fan translations are not hard to find.
   
   Thank you for tolerating my long thoughts and analysis of Your lie in April this month. Did you know I only first watched this in August 2018, and have rewatched it, read about it, and thought about it a lot the past 8 months? I really ought to read the manga and Six-Person Etude... I've only seen the OVA, read Coda, and skimmed Six-Person Etude. I guess I'll be back tomorrow with closing thoughts.

Book wise, the two things I could not be without, both for initially learning technique and also revisiting as well are the Whitehouse Scale and Arpeggio Album (UK|US) and then also the Feuillard Daily Exercises (UK|US) (both Schott published).
Record yourself playing and watch it back, don't be afraid to use a metronome and a tuner.

Personally I'm looking in to learning to draw right now, but the approach is very similar for effective learning, focus on technical skills as they are the base to build off. Style is great to develop, but without the technique there to support it you could be building fundamentally poor habits. Things like bow control are honestly easier to understand when being observed, but Scales and Arpeggios will help you understand basic shapes you should form for each key helping you to not fear key signatures with more sharps and flats.

Feuillard is key to building all technical habits. The book is split in to 5 sections so you can focus on one part at a time, and once you've built up your skills can then mix and match exercises from each section to make sure you keep on top of everything. The book helps build a solid left hand, good transitions between hand positions, smoother bow control and for the bolder also working on thumb position technique.

It's imperative you have the cello tuned properly when you play, and from early on be relentless on ensuring you are in tune, so if necessary go very slowly and use a tuner to check each note is right before moving ahead. This will help train your ear to pick out when a note is not only out of tune, but better understand whether you are flat (under) or sharp (over). A good way to mix this would be using a tuner while you approach the first exercises in Feuillard as they focus on smaller shapes such as moving between two close notes. There are a great many free apps out there for smartphones that can help with tuning (personally use insTuner on iOS).

The other side to understand would be rhythm. Again, a good thing to revisit even if you have musical history elsewhere as it never hurts to check. Metronomes are an essential tool for learning in my opinion. When approaching a new piece of music it is best to ignore style initially to focus on accuracy. Once you know the music then you can play with how you want to present it, but until then, keeping a steady and consistent pace is a good habit to build. Again, many great free apps for this, (personally using Metronome by Soundbrenner on iOS). I'd personally recommend focusing on note accuracy before rhythm as a priority to ensure that what you're playing is correct before adding the pressure of time constraints through keeping tempo.

I started learning when I was 6, and for 10 years of learning through teachers my schools had there was a focus only on learning the music for each graded exam and barely any focus on the scales and arpeggios part and worse still no real focus on understanding technique beyond the music I would be examined with. It wasn't until 10 years later, well after finishing the graded system and getting a private teacher that I was completely pulled apart for my lack of technical understanding and foundation. From here I was told I had to get the two books I mentioned at the start and they formed the basis of not only my practice at home, but also each lesson I had with them. I noticed a rapid change in what I could do as a cellist though, seeing sight reading become incredibly more simple having the shapes and sounds already in my head. The movements and habits you build speed up your learning process everywhere else too, so technique always and first.

Lastly, even if you don't pursue a teacher right now, still get others opinions on how you are progressing, even if that means putting a recording of yourself and sharing it with other cellists to receive feedback. I've seen others do that here and until you build enough knowledge to be able to check yourself effectively, it's always good to get another's opinions on where you are at in case you subconsciously have been maybe avoiding improving on one skill or maybe even just need to return to another.

Hope that helps.

EDIT:
If you want a good selection of music to learn alongside technical development, baroque music in general is perfect for that given the way music and harmony was approached during that era of music, but I'd recommend the Bach Six Suites for Cello (Barenreiter BA 320 UK|US).

My suggestions are going to be very simple. I highly recommend you don't try to skip anything thinking it's too easy for where you are. This is how you end up with lots of gaps. I speak from deeply personal experience and some of the best improvements in my playing have come from realizing that unless it's easy enough that I can sightread it perfectly and effortlessly the first time, it's worth working. Every small thing even in children's beginner books helps build that scaffolding that remove ability gaps and helps you be a better and more consistent player.

>1) get some classic stuff that we learn at the begining and

Not entirely clear about what you want in terms of if you just want the basics or you specifically mean you want some classical style stuff. Either way, here are some recommendations.

Alfred All-In-One - This is just a generally good book to work through with a lot of fairly basic stuff mostly sticking to a very small harmonic palette used in a ton of music. You can carry on to level 2 and 3 when you're done.

Masterwork Classics - If you're looking for actual simple literature, this is a great place to start. Very easy pieces and a great progressive series of books.

Burgmuller Op. 100 - Probably a it more challenging, but great progressive stuff as well and very classical.

Czerny Op. 139 - More progressive goodness.

Czerny Op. 821 - Not progressive, but lots of very short, bite-sized exercises that isolate specific things that show up in classical music, but in a fun musical way rather than just dull exercises.

>2) get better at sight-reading. I have lots of gaps in my piano skills.

Progressive Sightreading - These are ridiculously easy, but this is really where you should start. They are easy enough to let you be successful quickly and focus on keeping your eyes on the page because they are all within a 5 finger pattern reach covering all keys.

Paul Harris books - These are progressive sets of books that slowly introduce specific concepts. My favorite part about them is the articulations and stylistic directions that go beyond just having you hit the right notes, but have you actually thinking about how you want a piece to sound.

Mikrokosmos - These start a bit easy, but get hard very quickly. They also tend to not stick to predictable western harmony, which helps with getting your reading out of its comfort zone. Additionally, there tends to be a good deal more left hand motion and even melodies which really helps your left hand not just be the accompaniment hand.

Bach Chorales - I'm honestly not a huge fan, but some people swear by these. I would actually instead recommend finding a hymnal instead. These chorales are not only more difficult than most hymns, but will be extremely frustrating if you don't have a comfortable 10th.

In general, you should be learning lots of small pieces constantly. A huge part of sightreading is actually being technically capable. If you can't execute it technically, you can't read it. So find lots of pieces in a variety of styles that you can learn in no more than a week, or better, several of in a week. Lots of short focused pieces will chip away at very small weakness in your playing very quickly and efficiently. This will make your reading much better. Better technique and reading will lead to you being able to learn increasingly difficult music much faster. You'll likely find that something that once might've taken you a month to learn could be learned in a week. Something that could be learned in a week might be learned in a day or even sightread.

Try to remember when learning new, simple pieces, to try to keep your eyes on the page. Not matter how slow or out of tempo you need to go, really learn to trust your ability to feel the distances and shapes of chords you need to play. You might need to look early on for stuff that is more difficult for you, but try to get to a point where you don't need to look. When you can trust yourself in that regard, your reading ability will increase a ton.

Saaay!! What an exciting adventure for you! I wish you the best. I absolutely adore Mahler and in a way I'm kind of jealous that you get to experience these for the first time.

I really love his first symphony. It's such an exciting and rich piece that is pulsating with energy, and he wrote it when he was only 19! You've the second symphony to enjoy next (I don't see why you shouldn't go through them from 1-9, not forgetting that Das Lied Von Der Erde comes between 8 and 9) and that really is a different beast to the first symphony entirely, much bigger and grander if you can imagine that. It's fantastically dramatic and powerfully uplifting, it shows you the apocalypse and the opening of the heavens and and and .... and it has a choir so you will have to read the words to find out what they are singing about.

May I suggest "The Mahler Symphonies: A synoptic survey by Tony Duggan" to you? It has a short article on each symphony, and then an exploration of the best recordings of each symphony. A nice introduction to each symphony.

If you really do come to like Mahler then you simply must read Why Mahler? How One Man and Ten Symphonies Changed the World, by Norman Lebrecht. It's a biography of Mahler that explains how the events of his life fed into his music, and after reading that I felt like his music was so much more meaningful to me, so much more emotional.

Lenny Bernstein was giving a children's concert way back in the 50s (60s?) and he described Mahler to his young audience as a conflicted, double man. On the one hand, he was a very unhappy man, Lenny said, who wrote music that was terribly dark and emotional and powerful (leading some people to dismiss Mahler as "angsty", but their loss). But on the other hand, he was a cheerful boy at heart, and in amongst the darker music there is interspersed some of the most joyful and upbeat music, like a certain theme from the opening movement of the fourth symphony which Lenny describes as like skipping down the street and whistling away to yourself.

I'm rambling. I love Mahler because to me he is a very real person and his music discloses his person to me, in a way no other composer does. I was recently on holiday to Vienna and I made a special visit to his grave (which is not in the main cemetery, like the other famous composers, which is an awful shame), which does show you that I'm a bit of a Mahler nutter. But basically, yes, happy listening, I hope it gives you much enjoyment.

And why not report back on each symphony you discover? It would be nice to have an opportunity to discuss each one in r/classicalmusic.

Hi, I created my own Wagner Opera major at Conservatory, so I'll do my best to help:

I have to say that live performance is the best way to experience the Ring, but otherwise the Solti recording is one of the best (Levine, Barenboim, and Janowski/Staatskapelle are up there too). The music is made up of leitmotivs, or musical phrases associated with characters, ideas, feelings etc. The leitmotivs constantly change based on context, and there are around 100 of them (pending on who's counting). To make sense of the opera, you need to have just a basic understanding of them. This is a good list of the more important ones: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLcPgcaow01FUWAH-b-z6Ix7W3_7QBBjLN Don't bother memorizing them, just familiarize and listening to the operas will do the rest :)

Additionally, a basic plot understanding is useful, and the Wikipedia articles for each individual opera are sufficient:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Das_Rheingold#Synopsis

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_Walk%C3%BCre#Synopsis

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siegfried_(opera)#Synopsis

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6tterd%C3%A4mmerung#Synopsis

I also find that listening along to a text and translation is most effective, which you can find here:

http://www.murashev.com/opera/Richard_Wagner

There is one book I would strongly recommend to any Wagner newbie: Bryan Magee's "Aspects of Wagner." In my opinion, it is by far the best short book on Wagner. While not about the Ring itself, it covers exactly how all of Wagner's operas function (I think they are really quite different from all other opera), his concept of art, his influence, and his controversies. It should give the proper frame of mind to dig into the operas. If you really want something focused just on the Ring, however, I'd recommend M. Owen Lee's introduction. It's a slim volume with a summary, a motif index, and some commentary on the big ideas. Or, there's a nice Ring companion book put together by Barry Millington with a full text translation that also has scholarly essays on conception and context, as well as index of important leitmotivs:

https://www.amazon.com/Aspects-Wagner-Bryan-Magee/dp/0192840126

https://www.amazon.com/Wagners-Ring-Turning-Sky-Round/dp/0879101865

https://www.amazon.com/Wagners-Ring-Nibelung-Barry-Millington-ebook/dp/B00D3F94RE

Apologies for the length, I hope this was at least a little useful, and let me know if you'd like to know any more :)

I'm going to teach you all the mistakes I made in hopes that you won't make them yourself, if you aren't getting a teacher. A teacher is easily the best route, no comparison, without one, you're going to have to work your ass off.

1. Make use of every piano teacher on youtube, the best ones being Lypur,and Josh Wright. Their may be others, but those are essential.
   
   
2. Watch ALL Lypur's videos on the "Learn How To Play Piano (NEW) " playlist and "LEARN FREE MUSIC THEORY". I say start with watching the first 5 of each in a week, and then 1 a week as they get more complicated. And take good notes, just like in school.
   
   3)You need to buy books. I would say to start off with Josh Thompson's first grade one and then buying other ones such as Hanon, which is a MUST, and some like this one.
   
   4)Eventually after about a few months of practice, you can buy introductory books to certain composers, such as these: Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven. I wouldn't recommend the Chopin one, since his most easiest pieces can be quiet hard until you have a good 2 years of practice and playing in. And eventually Schumann's or Tchaikovsky's Album for the young, I don't know which would be better.
   
   5)This site is very good, and gives a nice breakdown of how you should spend your time practicing.
   
   6)And possibly most importantly, you have to find pieces that you like outside of books that you can learn. It's nice to learn little pieces that are in books, but the most satisfying feeling is playing a piece that you love.
   
   
   

>TLDR: I'm looking for a book/books(?) that discuss the composition of different works and how the compositions are arranged to represent the intent of the original composers.

>...

>To help foster his interest i'm investigating whether there are any books that take compositions and break them down to explain how different sections have been structured to represent the composers intention to convey specific emotion or actions and so on. Ideally it would be something that's engaging in more of a story-telling style to get him thinking more deeply about the music he sees, hears and plays, rather than a dry textbook.

This doesn't sound like a good plan to me. These sorts of narrative analyses, especially those which ascribe agency to music and claim to (or attempt to) tease out a composer's intent run a strong chance of dissolving into baseless conjecture. Bryan Parkhurst discusses the semiotics of musical analysis in this paper. The thesis statement is worthy of your meditation:

"... the elemental statements of musical analyses, statements I call 'analytical utterances,' are not best understood as descriptions
(either of music or of one’s mental states), but instead as normative claims about how one ought to hear music."

In other words, the statement "the C♭ is unexpected" reflects a specific person's reaction and interpretation. Rather than revealing something that is happening on a quantifiable level, such analyses (and I suppose all analyses) are meant to persuade a listener to hear a piece a certain way or to enforce certain social values.

This points to a larger and more crucial realization: music does not exist in a vacuum. Music has a social and cultural context. If you think that stories will help foster your son's interest, I would direct you toward music history. History is not without its flaws either, but I've learned far more about Debussy's style and (presumed) motivations from biographies and histories than from looking at his music and saying, "Okay, there's a G7... and there's and E♭7... and there's an A♭7 over there." It helps to know that he was fairly closely aligned with the Symbolist school of poets (and not the Impressionist school of painters, as the plebs would have you believe). I think it's a good idea to get a window into the lives of these people, if only to see how similar or different they are to us now.

The Phaidon biographies do a good job of engaging the reader, and they're all 240 pages long for some arbitrary reason. I think they only did 20th century [male] composers:

Claude Debussy

Igor Stravinsky

Béla Bartók

Sergey Prokofiev

Benjamin Britten

You get the point.

I also really enjoyed the Great Courses series on all those dead white dudes, such as this one on Beethoven. The analyses are surprisingly well-done, and you don't have to know too much jargon to understand what's up. However, at the end of the day, is your son going to be interested in any of this stuff? When I was that age (well... a little older), I taught myself the guitar and got the most mileage out of my listening habits. It wasn't until a bit later that reading books and watching movies about music held much interest for me.

A collection of thoughts

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As has been said

> Don’t be afraid to build up a giant stack of half formed ideas on top of your piano.

Beethoven is notorious for his sketch books, and for playing with and developing ideas for years and years and years after the initial thought.

The original ideas for the 5th symphony are junk, for example. but he kept playing with it

get this book for more on this

https://www.amazon.com/Beethovens-Sketches-Analysis-Style-Sketch-Books/dp/0486230422/

part of music is the actual musical architecture and structure of the music. This is covered in the subject of "musical form" but this goes deeper

see this short video by whitacre on the subject

"Discovering the Golden Brick"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwjqptQ5R-w

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for more general instruction on the basics and the bigger issues of music composition, see this YT channel by Alan Belkin

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUQ0TcIbY_VEk_KC406pRpg

for a more popular music perspective, see Rick Beato and related channels

https://www.youtube.com/user/pegzch

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One of the longest traditions in music education is the making of arrangements and transcriptions of other people's music. This seems to far more effective if you do it by hand, and copy out all the parts yourself (again by hand)

Bach arranged Vivaldi, Mozart arranged Bach, Beethoven arranged Handel, etc.

If these masters did this as part of their own musical studies, maybe you could so this for your own education, using the music you admire most.

Even if it is arranging the music to a new key or mode (major to minor, etc)

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As a general thing I recommend books by Charles Rosen for music of the Classical era

https://www.amazon.com/Sonata-Forms-Revised-Charles-Rosen/dp/0393302199

https://www.amazon.com/Classical-Style-Mozart-Beethoven-Expanded/dp/0393317129/

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Probably the best place to start is by writing "etudes" which basically means "Studies" You could also call them "Experiments".

These would be shortish pieces where you try out different things. Thus if you do not know which way to go with something, you try them all or most of them, and flesh them out into separate things. Each is an experiment.

one idea might give a dozen experiments (major vs minor, slow vs fast, 3/4 vs 4/4 vs 5/4 = 12 combinations)

As experiments, not everything has to work. (but you might come back to it later)

Nothing has to be perfect, They are experiments

Later own, you experiment with ways to make it better. (see the Beethoven sketches again)

---

part of the musical problem of form is to how to continue something in order to maintain interest, without it getting boring for a variety of factors. Traditional forms are solid solutions to the problem but you can come up with your own.

As an example, check out the old popular songs of John Denver (!) many of which do not follow a conventional common practice song format. What is he doing there?

A lot has already been said that needed to be said, but I want to add that little bits of writing everyday goes a long way. Like training for a long race, building up your creative stamina bit by bit will give you a lot of ability when sitting down to write.

There aren't a whole lot of inspiring books on composition, but reading books by composers (ex Schoenberg, Hindemeth, Messaien, etc...) will give you an interesting insight into their creative process. I'd also recommend The Muse that Sings which is a nice collection of interviews from major living composers who talk about their processes as well.

Other than that, learn theory/form, analyze a lot of music that you like, and learn instrumentation. The rest will be up to you.

Hey, I’m kind of a book junkie when it comes to common practice stuff, so I’m gonna throw a bunch of em at ya. The common practice era of composition can be broken down into 3 major fields of study: Form/Composition, Harmony and Orchestration. Form/composition is about how music develops over time harmonically and melodically. Harmony is about how vertical sonorities interact with one another, this is one of the most fleshed out aspects of music theory. Orchestration, usually the capstone discipline, dives into how groups of instruments interact with one another on a harmonic level and a melodic one. Harmony+composition can be studied simultaneously considering there is so much overlap, orchestration usually comes after you have a middling understanding of the other two subjects.

There are a bunch of free online materials on these subjects, but here is my personal favorite:
http://openmusictheory.com/contents.html

There are also a few free books on harmony, orchestration and composition, but most of them were published a very long time ago. As a consequence, you may run into outdated or poorly explained concepts.

Harmony:

Guide to the Practical Study of Harmony

Orchestration:

Principles of Orchestration

Composition:

Fundamentals of music Composition

Exercises in Melody Writing

Most of the stuff with comprehensive+up to date information on these subjects is going to be something you pay for. Here are my favorite textbooks. One thing I value in a textbook is an accompanying workbook and/or some sort of exercise based learning, so I’ll be listing the workbooks (if applicable) as well.

Melody in Songwriting

Craft of Musical Composition Parts One and Two

Models For Beginners in Composition

Harmonic Practice in Tonal Music

Workbook for Harm Practice

The Study of Orchestration

Workbook for The Study of Orchestration

This isn’t an exhaustive list but it’s pretty solid.


Recording orchestras is out of reach for most, so you’ll probably need some good VSTs to use and some knowledge of how to make them sound ‘real’. Building an orchestra template is key to making music quickly and efficiently. It’s a massive headache to have to wait for Kontakt to load and instrument every time you want to add a flute or violin to your score. Here are the basics of what you’ll need:


Woodwinds:

Flutes

Clarinets

Saxophones

Oboes

Bassoons



Brass:

French horns

Trumpets

Trombones

Tubas

“Low brass”


Strings:

1st Violins

2nd Violins

Violas

Cellos

Bass

First chairs of each


Others:

PIANOS

Harps

Choirs

Guitars

Vibraphones

Glockenspiels

Etc


Orchestral percussion

Concert Toms

Taikos

Snares

Concert bass drums


Here are some places to get all of that:

Audio Bro (the ARC system is awesome)

Spitfire

8Dio

Orchestral Tools (my favorite)

CineSamples

EastWest Sounds

Heres a resource to make all of that stuff sound ‘real’. It’s a lot more difficult then you may think.

The Guide to MIDI Orchestration 4e

There's a book called Solos for the Double Bass Player which is an Oscar Zimmerman edited collection. It's got a few good early pieces, and some pieces for you to grow into.

When I was going to school I used it quite a lot in my first year, and every time I play Bottesini's "Elegy" in orchestral tuning, I can conveniently just give my accompanist that book, because it has the accompaniment in the right key. It's a good buy for that reason alone, frankly.

Other fun starters are around - "The Elephant" from Carnival of the Animals is a great early piece that allows you to focus on musicality without a huge level of technical difficulty.

If you want a growing challenge, Dragonetti's 12 Waltzes for Double Bass solo are super idiomatic to the instrument, but have a good level of technical challenge in addition to their musicality.

As for high level pieces, some people worship the Cello Suites. I differ, and think they sound very bad on the bass (and that's me using my most politically correct language on the subject). However, they do present a useful technical exercise if one really is determined to play them. They require a lot of extended technique and creative fingering choices, so they're good for making you "think with Portals". As an alternative I would recommend the Weinberg Solo Bass Sonata (which is written in the style of the Suites, but not the harmonic language) or the Fryba Suite in the Olden Style. Both were actually written for the bass, and are much more musically rewarding to complete.

My Recommendation? Start with the Elephant. if you find it too easy, buy the Zimmerman book. Once you get bored with that book, try out the 12 Waltzes, then branch out from there.

Can we get some book recommendations?

I just finished Elevator Music: A Surreal History of Muzak, Easy-Listening, and Other Moodsong and greatly enjoyed it.

I am also in the middle of reading A Beautiful Noise: A History of Contemporary Worship Music in Modern America

I'd love to read a book on Ehtiopian music (espcially one covering ethiojazz, and the Ethiopian 'Divas" such as Hirut Bekele), Library Music.

I saw a book about unsung Illinois bands from the 60's which mentioned my hometown heroes The Lemon Drops, but I didn't end up purchasing it.

I am SURE there are plenty of books out there that would be of interest to us.

Side note: I have this ambition to write a book that profiles the records and cassettes that I find and post here. As a start, I am in contact with B.T. Kimbrough, who is a blind organist (and incredible man) that released a pretty obscure record back in the 70's.

I'd love to compile say, 2 dozen songs by different unsung musicians, release a V0 Compilation through a cool record label (Light In The Attic, for example), do some research and conduct interviews with the musicians in order to tell their story.

I've been trying to get a hold of the guys from The Lemon Drops for years, too. Legend has it, they (or some of them?) were still in High School when they got their record deal. When the record was finished, they convinced their school to play "I Live In The Springtime" over the PA system during school hours. This was at the school my mom and her siblings attended, but they missed it by a few years.

Anyway, wouldn't it be cool to have a compilation by various Vintage Obscura artists with an accompanying book? I'd even settle for writing some lengthy liner notes.

I read a biography of Mozart this week. Very detailed biography, really narrows it down to where Mozart was and what he was doing on specific dates. The author did his research very well. My only complaint is that it was too detailed. The book did have substance to make me think about Mozart as a person, but I wish it delved more into a substantive thought process of who Mozart was, and how he shaped music today, just felt dry. Felt like it was more fact finding and reporting. However, to say the least I did learn a great deal about Mozart, his mannerisms, and his upbringing all the way until his mysterious death. It's interesting how nobody knows where he was buried.

I chose Mozart because I ABSOLUTELY love his musical compositions. I practically started playing the Piano because of him.

Anyway I would rate the book a 6.7/10. I'm sure there are better books out there in terms of substance, maybe even shorter. However, in terms of fact finding and following his life step by step, this author does a phenomenal job.

http://www.amazon.com/Wolfgang-Amadeus-Mozart-A-Biography/dp/0226519619

As music education major, here are a few tips that I have found useful.

• Modeling - Ask your students to repeat after you. Show, don't tell.
  
• Feels like, Sounds like, Looks like (sound before sight) - Start with the rhythm (clap the rhythm if necessary), next add the notes with the rhythm, then go to the notation on the page. (If you're interested in learning more about this method/concept it is called the Gordon/Froseth method)
  
• You do not need to reinvent the wheel - Find a good beginning method book (or more advanced method depending on what level your student is at). Personally I use this one for beginning classical guitar. For the most part any method book will be fine in the beginning since they will mostly be learning notes and chords.
  
• Sight read in every lesson - Start off with very simple and short phrases that use quarter notes and simple rhythms and note combinations. Doing this in every lesson will aide in the development of their music reading skills.
  
• Have fun with it! - create little games based on notes on the fretboard, chord shapes, rhythm patterns, etc. if you don't have fun with it neither will they.
  
  Well that's about all I can think of at the moment, feel free to PM me if you have any specific questions, or if you need some music I have plenty of music/etudes/warm-ups for beginners that I can send you if your are interested.
  
  Edit: grammar

If you've only been playing for 6 months, this piece may be too difficult for you. I learned the Waltz in b minor by Chopin (Op. 69 #2) before I learned the c# minor waltz. I found that what I learned from the b minor waltz transferred very easily to the c# minor waltz.

For both Waltzes I've mentioned here in general, start off as slow as you need to, and make sure that you get all of the nuances right. This c# minor waltz was the first time where I had to deal with repeated notes, and it's quite awkward at first, but if you practice slowly and keep a metronome going and build up your speed, you'll notice that the technique will eventually develop. The metronome is particularly important so that you maintain a rhythmic pulse, can keep your notes as even as possible, and can gauge where your progress is.

If you've only been playing for 6 months, you will probably have to practice either waltz (the b minor one I mentioned previously or, if you dare pursue this c# minor one) hands separate. Again, practice slowly with a metronome.

Another thing to take into account is that improving your sightreading ability helps for learning these pieces, and in my experience, made learning the c# minor Waltz a much less painful experience than for the b minor waltz (I had done a lot of sightreading practice after learning the b minor waltz). I had finished the three Kember series books (Book 1, Book 2, and Book 3 ), making sure that I didn't look at the keys for each exercise.

Hope this helps.

I am assuming you already know how to read sheet music and are already experienced with some pieces under your belt. So this book will be great for you: Piano Masterworks -- Early Intermediate Level. It's a great book and comes with easy beginner songs to some songs that will introduce you to more intermediate pieces. Though if this is too easy for you then this book is also part of a series that gets progressively harder.

Chopin national edition is very good. Their editors make it as close to original manuscripts as possible, so I think it’s very authentic. It’s what my teacher insists I use, and I can’t complain.
Here’s a link:
https://www.amazon.com/Nocturnes-National-Published-Chopins-Lifetime/dp/1480390763/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?keywords=chopin.+national+edition+nocturnes&qid=1565933179&s=gateway&sr=8-1

Another great Chopin resource is this:
http://Www.chopinonline.ac.uk. They have PDFs of all the original manuscripts as well as first editions of chopins work.

You don't necessarily have to, I used this book: Schirmer's Early Intermediate Level halfway through Alfred 1. It's got a lot of fun pieces, Petzold (Not Bach)'s Minuet in G major, Clementi's sonatinas, Burgmueller's Ava Maria.

You get a variety of different pieces from different periods, which is great.

You want the Polish National Editions of most of Chopin’s works; I’ve found them to be the best.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Nocturnes-National-Published-Chopins-Lifetime/dp/1480390763

http://www.amazon.com/Modern-Approach-Classical-Guitar-HL00695114/dp/0793570654/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1411670652&sr=1-1&keywords=duncan+guitar

The link above is to Charles Duncan's A Modern Approach to Classical Guitar: Book 1. The rep is very accessible to beginners without any sissy tunes. On the other hand, you will not be so frustrated with tunes such as Romanza or advanced studies of Sor's or Giuliani's.

I think this is the one I used years ago. Enjoy! Beethoven's Sketches: An Analysis of His Style Based on a Study of His Sketch-Books https://www.amazon.com/dp/0486230422/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_20AbAb5TEY2FP

There are some that have physical release and have only one or two volumes: Another, Your Name, The Boy and The Beast, and Your Lie in April

These are the ones that I have on top of my head right now.

It seems that your comment contains 1 or more links that are hard to tap for mobile users.
I will extend those so they're easier for our sausage fingers to click!


Here is link number 1 - Previous text "One"

Here is link number 2 - Previous text "Two"



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Please check

• Hannah Smith: Progressive Sight-reading Exercises
  
  
• John Kember - Piano Sight Reading Volume 1, Volume 2 or Volume 3
  

Have you watched the OVA? Can't remember if we've discussed it before. It's the story of the piano competition that takes place before the show. There's also a collection of side stories for most of the characters but it's in manga form only. It's called A Six-Person Etude. I just ordered mine and can't wait to read it.

Link: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1945054263/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1


Edit: Adding to this there's another collection of short stories called Your Lie In April Coda/ Shigatsu Wa Kimi No Uso Coda, that I'm currently trying to find in physical form. It was a special inclusion with the first launch of the DVD.

Damn.

https://www.amazon.com/Elevator-Music-Easy-Listening-Moodsong-Expanded/dp/0472089420

It's an actual book. Impressive