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Sorry, this is going to sound a little polemical. I'd like to use this comment as a springboard for discussion.

>You don't. You're going about it backwards.

>Instead, you find realizations and learn from them.

For once, this is misleading. Musicians realizing figured bass back in the day would have studied a shit ton of theory and followed literal rule books (The horror!) to produce original realizations. Nowadays, it's pretty common in early music ensembles to refer to the same treatises, but of course they lack the cultural immersion and must supplement with scholarship. (And we don't have many examples of realized figured basses from that time anyway; they might appear as pedagogical content in treatises, if at all.) Joel Lester describes the nature and proliferation of figured bass literature in Compositional Theory in the Eighteenth Century:

>>The existence of compositions for which a performer had to furnish harmonies and voice leadings above a bass necessitated a new species of text—the thoroughbass manual. Scores of such publications and reprints appeared in a remarkable variety of formats and approaches from the earliest years of the seventeenth century into the early nineteenth century, complemented by an even greater number of manuscript methods. They range in length from a single broadsheet (Bianciardi 1607) to 960 pages (Heinichen 1728); they appeared in collections of published music (Viadana 1602, Albert 1643, Telemann 1730), as part of composition treatises (Ebner 1653, Penna 1684), as the second part of keyboard treatises (St. Lambert 1707, Bach 1762, Türk 1791), and as independent publications. They were written by major composers like François Couperin (1668-1733), Georg Philipp Telemann (1681-1767), and C.P.E. Bach (1714-1788), as well as by authors whose names survive only through their treatises (St. Lambert). (50)

(That last sentence is applicable to a recent discussion we had too.)

So if you look at modern published scores of 18th century pieces, like Telemann's Violin Sonata TWV 41:A4 for instance, you might see a realized figured bass. That's a Bärenreiter Urtext edition. The right hand of the continuo part is engraved with reduced-sized notes to indicate that an editor did the realization, holding the hand of the performer who hasn't gone and done their homework. The manuscript only has a bassline and figures, naturally. You could go your whole life learning these continuo realizations and really not understand when and why you add or drop voices or how to use diminutions and ornaments because the theory is not there. The performance would be a static, ossified thing. This was the case back in the 18th century too. Niedt spends a lot of time admonishing adherents of 'Tabulatur' who refuse to learn thoroughbass in his Musicalische Handleitung. (Nothing ever changes, eh?) Here are just a couple out of many such remarks:

>>When the beer was passed around it excited all manner of discussion among the Herren Musicians on their art, quite like gatherings of sailors on the winds, of peasants on their cattle, of hunters on their hounds, and everyone who likes to discourse on that in which he possesses skill and understanding. But just as the person who has learned the least and has the smallest brain in his head wants, over a draught [of beer], to be the cleverest Master, thus it happened here, too. Mopsus, whose playing had just offended our ears the most, now imagined that he should be considered the best organist and composer, in a word, the most proficient musician. He boasted mightily that he had been apprenticed to a world­-famous Master and, with great and untiring diligence, had finally reached the stage where he himself could not only set everything in the Tabulatur of German letters but also play it after a brief scan. Meanwhile, he criticized others who claimed that music was an easy matter and said boldly that a person could sooner become a Master, or even a Doctor in all three faculties, than a skilled musician. Mopsus' neighbour, Fidelio by name, an organist in the little town of Lauterbach, wanted to contradict Mopsus and said he had heard that a Master existed who did not value the stiff German Tabulatur and could teach music based on the Fundament to a reasonable person in a short time, so that he need not feel ashamed of his playing in front of anyone. (11)

'Fundament' being figured bass theory. And here he is even more explicit in his opinion that simply learning to play tunes does not result in the magical acquisition of thoroughbass improvisation abilities:

>>a person who knows a little bit about notes and is then led immediately to the thorough­bass will not only grasp it as soon and probably sooner than those who have played for years according to the German Tabulatur, but also such a person, after he has practised and varied it some, will be able to play by himself, out of his own head so to speak, a Toccata, Fugues, and the like. By contrast, the person who has learned to play three books' worth of Chaconnes and similar things written in Tabulatur will not be able to play even half a line of thorough­bass. (14)

More than that, he is adamant in his belief that the way to learn thoroughbass is to study the theory, and that should happen as soon as the student learns the notes.

An equivalent analogy in jazz (this forum's favorite fetish) would be to learn all of Charlie Parker's solos note-for-note. If you do that without any theory, is that going to make you capable of improvising like Charlie Parker? Probably not. You won't understand why and when Bird did what he did. You need the crucial elements of grammar and syntax. Bird's solos will only become more and more valuable studies once you have the theory, as I'm sure Johann Philipp Hinnenthal's realization of the figured bass in TWV 41:A4 will only become more valuable studies once you have some figured bass theory under your belt.

TL;DR: It's the theory that takes you the distance, in this case.

The theory is more than an abstraction — it is a process, the living soul of the music, the power that makes its vital organs work. The notion of scores as static objects to be studied comes to us in an era of commodification. In improvised music, there needs to be dynamism from the ground up. You state the importance of the reiterative process of learning the theory and practice here...

>You will, at best, sound inaunthentic without that kind of deeper understanding that comes from "living it".

>It isn't a bunch of rules. It's a very complex set of actions based not just on the figures, but what the other instruments are doing, where things are coming from and going to, and so on.

...so I don't want to accuse you of suggesting that we can learn all we need to know about writing or improvising fugues from analyzing or playing Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier. You'd probably be the first person on this board to point out that fugues (or figured bass or string quartets or symphonies) are something people did in Bach/Mozart/Beethoven's time and may not hold the significance now that they once did, and that this may complicate our modern reading. My aim here is to put spotlight on some of those cultural-temporal differences and deconstruct our tacit notions of music and musicianship along the way.

Start with Norton! The Norton music textbook series is personally responsible for any remotely good thing I've done in my life. But seriously, the writing is amazing, the anathologies are superb, the prices are mega reasonable (as far as textbooks go), and the selection is extensive. Of particular interest would be "Music in the 19th century," primarily European in focus. It comes with an anthology of musical examples and I know (from having read most of it from class) it's an excellent primer to Romantic music!

I'm a budding fan of Neo-Riemannian theory, particularly many of extensions to the theory and the varied ways it can be applied. It, just like Schenkerian analysis, sonata theory, and pc-set theory, is a powerful tool to have. Transformational theories can be used to analyze Romantic music but sometimes, it might not be the most appropriate tool for the job. I'd say definitely learn it (oh please, try to learn it!) but learn enough other theories (sonata theory especially!) to approach analysis from many different facets.

Speaking of, Romanticism as an era is close enough (temporally) to be well-documented but far away enough for us to fully view and appreciate the trends and impacts it's left. Definitely look into musicologists and what they've had to say about prominent composers/trends of the era. Two big names to get you started: Theodor Adorno and Susan McClary. Both addressed specific threads and motifs they found in Romantic music and their work continues to spark incredible discussion today (what either of them have to say about Beethoven is always a fun read). They also have a slew of associated controversies (word choice!), so always look for replies and dissents to their work, and in the work of any other musicologists you read.

This is a doozy of a question because "Romantic" music is a a century+ tradition that spans at least 3-ish continents and countless substreams and genres to consider. Are you interested in opera, chamber music, symphonies, concerti, choral music, piano music, or something else? Is there a particularly country/region you're interested in? Norwegian Romanticism is different from Russian Romanticism is different fron Mexican Romanticism. Perhaps there are certain composers who specifically interest you?

I'm sorry that this advice wasn't terribly specific but it should offer a few places to begin your quest. If you could narrow down your interests, we might be able to better point you to resources on the subject. In the mean time, hop on over to r/romanticism because I'm sure they'd love this quest just as much as we would. Also take a peek at r/classicalresources. Tons of awesomely curated playlists. I hope this helps and take care!

>I didn't study music theory in general but rather individual songs

Good.

>That gave me a solid grasp on how the most popular chord progressions work together(the all-time classic C-Am-F-G, basic blues scales, A minor pentatonic etc),

Good.

>when I listen to the three aforementioned artists, and when I study their songs, I can see all these wild chord changes, crazy melodies that I can't quite grasp due to my lack of knowledge in certain areas of music theory.

Not really. It's true that a lot of their songs go well beyond the I-vi-IV-V and other diatonic changes, but you can learn the principles through the same process as before.

How did you come up with C Am F G? You studied a whole load of songs before noticing that common pattern in enough of them that you can call it "classic". You didn't feel you had to study theory to get to that point. You just learned the songs you liked, because you wanted to play them, yes? And maybe write songs using similar material?

Now there's what seems like a big leap - a quantum jump - to the likes of Bowie, Elton, Queen (let's stop short of Steely Dan or Radiohead... ;-)). But a useful link here is the Beatles. None of those three would have done anything like they did - they might not even have taken up music in the first place - if it wasn't for the Beatles. Everyone post-Beatles took songwriting inspiration from them - picking up their tricks. (Other linking figures would be Stevie Wonder and the Motown and Brill Building writers.)

I.e., there is a continuum there, in the evolution of pop/rock songwriting. If you can stand paying for a hefty book, I highly recommend this. It takes various kinds of theoretical principles and examines how various Beatles tunes illustrate them. There is free Beatles analysis here, but it starts from the tunes, and I think you'd find it more useful to start from the principles and see how they're applied.

>I'd just like to take all the bits and pieces of information I already possess and place them within a bigger picture.

Well said. You start from what you know, and expand outwards from there.

Here's a couple of simple principles to get you started:

(1) Secondary dominants

This is mostly a jazz thing, but does occur in pop, way back in the 50s (and of course in classical!). It's the principle that any chord in the key (not just I) can have its own major V or V7 chord. In C major, you can have all these:

D7 - goes to G; A7 - goes to Dm; E7 - goes to Am; B7 - goes to Em; C7 - goes to F. (Only the last one really needs a 7th, they're optional on the others.)

Sometimes these are used in "deceptive cadences" - e.g. E(7) might well go to F instead of Am. But generally the reason for introducing these chords is to give more forward momentum towards the following chord.

(2) Mode mixture, aka modal interchange, or borrowed chords

The principle here is basically to blur the distinction between major and minor tonality. A major key can use chords from the parallel minor, and vice versa. It helps to darken the "too bright" major key, and to brighten the too weak or tedious minor key.

One thing that makes this really common in rock is down to which chords are easy on guitar! So you find this principle demonstrated mostly in the major keys of E and A, and the minor keys of Am and Dm, where all the open position cowboy chords can have a role.

The E major key can include D, G C and Am. The E minor key can include F#m and A. (B is already there thanks to harmonic minor.) IOW, both keys can share each other's material. The nature of the tonic chord may be the only thing that defines a key as "major" or "minor".

So, to take a common rock key of A major, you might find any of these chords used:

A, Bm, B, C, C#m, D, Dm, E, F, F#m, G. (No, not G#dim, forget that one. Use E/G# or C#m/G if you want a G# bass note.)

The key of A minor might feature any of these:

Am, Bm, C, Dm, D, Em, E, F, G. (No, not Bdim or G#dim. See above. Bm7b5 in jazz, yes, and just maybe in the writers you mention.) F#m and Cm might even make appearances ("chromatic mediants"), but they would be rarer. Likewise Bb from A phrygian.

Altered chords are actually rare in pop/rock, but one the Beatles (at least) liked was the augmented triad - which can be considered a V(#5) chord, often in secondary use. E.g., C+ can go between C and F or Am or A.

...

Obviously you want to bear in mind hear that Elton John is a pianist (as was Freddie Mercury), so doesn't have the same biases towards certain keys and chords that guitarists (such as Bowie and Brian May) naturally do. Elton had proper piano lessons! He knew stuff!

Anyway, all the above will give you ways of beginning to branch out from the old diatonic key sequences you're used to - ideas for chords you can add. Naturally, don't try and pile them all in at once. Try one at a time.

More importantly, study a few favourite songs by those artists and see if you can identify each chord used as fitting one of the above principles (remembering that songs can also change key in the middle). I.e., identify the key first - the "I" - and then how all the others relate.

Also study how the chords move: if a move seems weird, are there shared tones between the chords? How do the other chord tones move? Is there some kind of moving bass line (typically descending) providing a linking thread? How do the chords harmonise the melody (very important). Can the melody explain a strange choice of chord? Or vice versa?

IV. Voice-Leading Parsimony

("Parsimony" means "thriftiness, frugality; unwillingness to spend money.")

One interesting fact about P, L, and R: they leave 2 notes untouched, and the voice that does move only moves by a step. P and L only move one note by a half step, and R is a little more extravagant by moving a voice by a whole step. So these transformations are "parsimonious" (frugal) in the sense that they can get you new chords for very little effort (motion). It turns out that the triad is pretty cool for being able to do this: very few other chord types in the world can. (For example, you can't get from one French 6th chord or fully diminished 7th to another just by moving one voice a tiny amount.)

The next thing that Neo-Riemannian theory asks is "What happens if I chain a bunch of transformations together?" For example, what happens if I make a sequence by alternating P's and L's? Each step along the way changes only 1 half-step, but how many different notes does it use total? How long before I get back to my starting chord? (Will I go through all 12 major and all 12 minor triads? Or do I only use a fraction of the total?) Neo-Riemannian theory maps out the possibilities and describes them using a concept from modern algebra known as an algebraic "group." The transformations P, L, and R form a "group" of things that you can combine to make new things (e.g. imagine considering L-then-R to be a single transformation of its own). Group theory is used to explore the structure of the possibilities there.

V. Enharmonic Equivalence

(That is, the assumption that there are only 12 notes and that spelling doesn't matter, so G# = Ab.)

This doesn't sound very exciting, because we're pretty used to it by now. But it was a radical notion early in the Romantic period, and composers like Schubert got some cool effects out of exploiting it.

Earlier I asked "What happens if I make a sequence out of alternating P's and L's?" Well, it turns out that I go through 6 different chords, like this: CM - Cm - AbM - Abm - EM - Em (then back to CM). Every L takes me to a chord with a root a M3 lower, so that after 6 steps I've gone down by 3 major thirds and end up back where I started. This needs enharmonic equivalence to work, because without it I'd go C - Ab - Fb - Dbb... so that, in some weird conceptual world I'm actually not where I started. We're used to making that enharmonic shift, but it was relatively unfamiliar at the time. Partially that had to do with tuning, but also it had to do with the fundamental role of the diatonic scale at the time. Every interval had a meaning within a major or minor scale, and there were some combinations of intervals (like 3 M3's in a row) that couldn't be accomplished in any single scale. So shoving them all together like that, and forcing enharmonic equivalence on you, came very close to being a moment of atonality within tonal music!

This, again, is why the Neo-Riemannian approach of ignoring tonality and diatonic scales is useful: because there are pieces that do just that, in order to combine triads in weird ways (like the P-L sequence) that require enharmonic equivalence to make sense.

VI. The Tonnetz

In order to visualize the universe of possibilities that we've opened up with all this theorizing, Neo-Riemannian theory likes to create visual maps of the chord layouts that are possible. This kind of map is called a Tonnetz (German for "tone network"). Here's an example of a Tonnetz. Each letter represents a note (not a chord). Horizontal lines connect notes by perfect 5ths; diagonals that go up-right (or down-left) connect minor thirds; diagonals that go up-left (or down-right) connect major thirds.

The triangles that are formed in this picture represent triads: triangles pointing up are minor triads and triangles pointing down are major triads. So you can see the triangle framed by C, Eb, and G bolded in the picture, which of course is a C minor triad. Below it is the C,E,G of C major.

The nice thing about a Tonnetz like this is that it can also show our transformations. Consider the C major triad (just below the bolded triangle). Now look for the triangles that share a side with C major: they turn out to be exactly the 3 triangles that I can transform C major into via P, L, or R. So we can imagine those transformations as ways of flipping one triangle onto another inside the Tonnetz; we can make analyses of pieces by tracing out their chord progressions as if on a map.

---

That's pretty much all I've got stamina for, tonight. I've left a bunch out, so I'd be happy to get corrections/additions (or questions!), but I hope this has been a plausible overview of the basics of Neo-Riemannian theory.

If this stuff piques your interest, here are two books that are very much worth taking a look at:

Audacious Euphony by Richard Cohn, who is one of the founders of the theory, and who explores its possibilities through many nice analyses in this book.

A Geometry of Music by Dmitri Tymoczko, who is critical of standard Neo-Riemannian theory in many ways. His book (which builds two articles he helped write for Science in, I think, 2006 and 2008) offers another perspective on some of the same issues, drawing on geometry rather than algebra for his underlying mathematics.

Because you have an issue of constantly writing in the same key, I feel like your issue won’t be solved by just learning about modal interchange. I believe that thinking about harmony and phrase structure Functionally would be of more use to your process.


Every chord in a harmonic progression serves a function that can be broken down into 3 basic categories:

1. Tonic Function (Major: I, vi, iii) (Minor: i, bIII, bVI)
   
   
   
2. Subdominant Function (Major: ii, IV) (Minor: ii^o , iv)
   
   
   
3. Dominant Function (Major: V, vii^o ) (Minor: V, #vii^o )
   
   
   Each chord flows to the next, so a progression from:
   
   
   Tonic -> Subdominant -> Dominant -> Tonic
   
   
   Is atypical. It’s important to note that Tonics can come after a subdominant (T - SD - T), and the subdominant can be skipped and a tonic can lead directly to a dominant (T - D - T). Tonic chords can also lead to other Tonic chords (T - T), the same goes for subdominants and Dominants (S - S; D - D) so our new chart would look like this:
   
   
   Tonic -><- Subdominant -> Dominant -><- Tonic
   
   
   
   Harmonic progressions serve functions as well, and you can reduce almost every harmonic progression can into 3 basic categories (some would say there are only 2, but I prefer to think about it in terms of 3):
   
   
   
   

1. Prolongation (when you prolong any harmony by skipping or omitting a harmonic Function between 2 chords, or simply repeating the same harmonic function back to back) to for example:
   
   I - V - I
   
   
   I - IV - I
   
   
   i - ii^o - i
   
   
   V - I - V
   
   
   iv - i - iv
   
   
   I - vi
   
   
   IV - ii
   
   
   ii - ii^6
   
   
   I - vii^6/5ø - I^6
   
   Etc etc
   
   
   
2. Cadential function (when the sequence of chords flows from T - SD - D - T) ex:
   
   
   vi - ii - V - I, iv - V - VI, ii - vii^o - V - I, ii - I6/4 - V^7 - I
   
   
   Etc etc
   
   
   
3. Sequential function: when harmonic root movement moves in a fixed pattern. this can, and often, defies normal “chord logic” of a T - SD - D progression. You escape sequential movement by using a Cadential Function set of harmonies. Sequences are really good ways to migrate from one key center to another, or to just provide a continuation before a cadence in the home key. Diatonically, there are 6 kinds of sequences: ascending and descending 2nds, 3rds, and 4ths
   
   Ex
   
   (by ascending 4th) vii - iii - vi - (ii - V - I)
   
   
   (By descending 2nd) V - IV - iii - iii - (ii - V - I)
   
   
   (Descending 4th) I - V - ii - vi - (V/V - V - I)
   
   
   Etc etc etc etc
   
   
   You can interject prolongation and cadential functions in between each sequential chord: I (V - I) - ii - (vi - ii) - iii - (vii - ii) etc. you can also tonicize each chord in the sequence: I - vii^o / ii - ii - vii^o /iii - iii etc etc etc
   
   
   Phrase functions are also a thing, and these are strongly linked to Harmonic Progression Functions this is where both the theory behind natural chord progressions and sets of harmonic progressions come together. Understanding and being comfortable with phrase functions is extremely important.
   
   
   
   

1. Presentation (Prolongation; a small basic idea (b.i.) That repeats twice)
   
   
   
2. Continuation Function (Sequential, Cadential; a fragmented (smaller, incomplete) interpretation of the previous material that repeats, can lead into a cadential progression)
   
   
   
3. Cadential Function (Cadential)
   
   
   
4. Antecedent Function (Prolongation -> Cadential) (basic idea, b.i., followed by a contrasting idea, c.i. that leads to a half cadence)
   
   
   
5. Consequent Function (the same basic idea followed by a varied version of the contrasting idea into a Perfect Authentic Cadence)
   
   
   In a typical musical sentence, you would have phrase structure that looks like this:
   
   
   Presentation -> continuation -> cadential
   
   
   A typical musical period looks like this:
   
   
   Antecedent -> Consequent
   
   
   You can mix and match functions to your pleasure, (one b.i. followed by a continuation function; antecedent -> continuation; antecedent -> continuation -> consequent; presentation -> cadential; etc)
   
   
   Because you write rock music, adhering to Classical Formal structures is not gonna happen. However, each function and it’s interior components (b.i. , c.i., continuation, fragmentation, etc) are used in an altered way very very frequently.
   
   
   I did not cover modulation is this post, but I will link an article below.
   
   
   I hope this helps, bellow I will link some sites and books that could help with understanding these concepts beyond this post:
   
   
   Links:
   http://musictheory.pugetsound.edu/mt21c/HarmonicFunction.html
   
   
   http://openmusictheory.com/sentence.html
   
   
   http://openmusictheory.com/period.html
   
   
   http://openmusictheory.com/hybridThemes.html
   
   
   http://openmusictheory.com/themeFunctions.html
   
   
   http://openmusictheory.com/popRockForm-functions
   
   
   http://openmusictheory.com/Modulation.html
   
   
   Books:
   
   
   https://www.amazon.co.uk/Analyzing-Classical-Form-Approach-Classroom/dp/0199987297
   
   
   https://www.amazon.co.uk/Melody-Songwriting-Berklee-Guide-Perricone/dp/063400638X
   
   
   https://www.amazon.co.uk/Twentieth-Century-Harmony-Creative-Aspects-Practice/dp/0393095398

the reviews aren't really wrong... it does have its flaws, but there isn't really another book that does it better. i've read quite a few harmony books and it is the most comprehensive basic harmony book that i've found. it's also pretty much the standard for college courses.

Tchaikovsky also wrote a book on harmony. It is good and very inexpensive, but very short. he writes extremely efficiently though, so there is really a lot of info in such a small book, but obviously not as much as Tonal Harmony. It's also older than Tonal Harmony, so some more modern ideas are not included. That said, it's a great way to quickly learn a lot, and at the price it's really a no-brainer. It doesn't have exercises or lots of examples... just good info.

Also, I should mention that all these harmony books teach using the classical tradition of placing heavy emphasis on voice leading. If you are, for example a guitarist writing pop and rock songs, you may not see how the information will be relevant to what you do, but I would encourage you to go ahead and read through it, as it will make your writing better, and give you a more complete understanding of music. Also, there isn't really a good basic harmony book that doesn't teach this way.

Also, if you are interested in Jazz Harmony there is absolutely no better book than this one.

I get where you're coming from because I started in a very similar place, but what you want is really not compatible with the study of music theory. Music theory attempts to break down the structure of music to explain why it works by using other works as an example. It's not really about explaining cause and effect relationships or mathematics. (though there's certainly some of that)

Music theory has much more to do with pointing out similarities between pieces of music so you can say, "Well, these pieces of music are effective because they share these things in common, and you can use these techniques to similar effect."

It also has to do with auditory perception and psychology. "These notes are harmonically similar, so they will mask each other." "The change in harmonic relationships between these notes over time imply that something is going to change." Etc... It sounds like those are concepts you are already familiar with.

It's not that these things aren't science-adjacent, but it's not a formal science. It just integrates bits and pieces of science, history, convention, etc... Trying to reduce anything but specific subsections of music theory down to something adequately explainable by science or mathematics is not going to be helpful or satisfying.

The best recommendation I could give you is to find a good music history text that starts out somewhere around 570BCE or earlier and leads into modern day. I've found that for myself, the only satisfying way to understand modern music terminology and convention is to observe how it evolved. I think that's the most scientific approach you could take.

There are also a few extremely talented polymaths that have attempted to represent musical relationships in novel and useful ways using mathematics/geometry. Dmitri Tymoczko immediately comes to mind.

I also think you would enjoy reading this book and this book, as one explores some really fascinating and practical mathematical representations of musical ideas, and the other explores the tension/release mechanics that dictate/relate to much of the theory surrounding modern musical structure, rhythm, and harmonic progression.

Other than that, if you see a term that you don't understand, look it up. If you see a term in that term's definition that you don't understand, look that up. Follow that rabbit hole to the bottom. Draw a graph if you have to.

Diving down hierarchies of terms I don't understand in order to gradually pick apart texts is a skill I've had to develop as a software developer and DIYer, and training that muscle has been invaluable. It's the reason I don't kill plants anymore, how I was able to write a raycasting engine without prior 3D graphics experience, and how I taught myself music theory.

I took theory classes 15 years ago, and don't remember what text I used, but it was pretty generic as I recall. I'm thinking of any sort of classical music theory introductory text intended for use in a university course, since they will all probably begin with the same sort of progression of things which logically arises when describing how diatonic music works.


I did a quick search, and this is the sort of text I have in mind:


https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0393930815/


That one looks very good, and, looking at the table of contents, I'd say the Part I: Elements of Music is the essential part to familiarize with for the basics and then Part II: Diatonic Harmony and Tonicization would expand those ideas in the first part to show how those basics are applied in diatonic music harmonization (basically how to create nice-sounding chord progressions based on diatonic scales).


I would avoid books that are targeted to a specific instrument, or a more modern type of music - like guitar theory, jazz theory, blues piano theory, etc. Not that these books aren't good too, but I've seen plenty of guitar theory books that describe the basics in wacky ways, or in ways that are not really universally applied to all music. Classical theory books will mostly all be the same, and be a solid introduction to these very basics. If you see one that is 20 years old for two bucks at a yard sale it would likely be fine.


In my opinion starting to learn theory from this standpoint of classical music is a great way to start. There are a million ways to learn theory, and this might not be the preferred route for everyone, but it's so good in my opinion because Classical, Baroque, etc. - these early music forms were all about consonance, about how to make harmonic progressions and melodies, and so on, that were pleasing to the ear. They developed these stringent rules to describe methods for arranging sounds to make very pleasing compositions, rules which are very effective at what they are intended for. Once you learn these rules, it makes everything else so much clearer as to why other types of music that break every one of these rules are so effective.


It's maybe like learning to draw a face - you would probably start with learning to draw a face you are looking at, and making your drawing copy it as closely as you can. It's not easy to draw a realistic-looking face, and takes some practice to get it right, to make it look pleasing to people who spend their lives looking at faces and learning their intricacies. If you jump right into trying to do a stylized, artsy rendering of a face, it probably won't be very convincing, since you never learned how to draw a pleasing face to begin with! It would look like a child's drawing, certainly not realistic, but also not very interesting because it's not very sophisticated in how it goes about presenting that face.

I don't have any answers to any questions, but my two contributions are this book here, called "The Geometry of Music," and this, the wikipedia page on the isomorphic keyboard here. My hope is you'll like them both :)

>There are a million ways to approach this and its fun to consider different ways to try it.. Just wondering if anyone has attempted something like this?

I think the answer is very definitely yes! But beyond that, I can't offer much help :( haha Anyway, thanks for teaching me just by asking that question! lol. Peace, -Martin

>i modeled the notes like this: C, Cd, D, De, E, F, Fg, G, Ga, A, Ab, B;

Actually, most digital audio workstations like Logic do the opposite, and name everything in sharps. So, you might try doing that instead, if only because that's the convention. That is, C, C#, D, D#, etc. Just an FYI, although as I think other people have pointed out here, pitch classes are more popular now too...or whatever they call using a number for each note (C = 1, C# = 2, D = 3, etc.)

>It's perhaps the least romantic gift ever

Hahahahaha! I would definitely agree, though—I think the CHWMT would be an excellent book. If she goes through any sort of History of Theory course (which most PhD programs do), I can't imagine she wouldn't use this book. Even if she didn't have such a course, this book is a collection of (with perhaps one exception) excellent essays written by top scholars on almost every major theoretical approach or issue in the history of Western music.

I won't speak for other sub-disciplines—vornska's suggestions are definitely some of the central books in present theoretical studies—but let me make some suggestions for books more oriented towards Schenkerian analysis.

Schenker's Free Composition — this is Schenker's magnum opus in which he lays out his mature theory. For any Schenkerian, this is definitely a Bible of sorts, and a must-have. Just be sure, if you end up purchasing this, to get both volumes; one volume is the text and the second is the examples. You can also find the hardcover first English edition, sometimes even for less than the price of the two paperbacks.

Cadwallader and Gagné's Analysis of Tonal Music: A Schenkerian Approach — this has become the standard textbook for teaching Schenkerian analysis, and I still find myself referring to it after years of Schenkerian studies. A somewhat dry but very clear and beneficial book.

Schachter's Unfoldings: Essays in Schenkerian Theory and Analysis — Carl Schachter is one of the greatest Schenkerians; nearly everybody who's anybody in the world of Schenkerian analysis studied with him. This book is a wonderful collection of some of his greatest essays. His writing style is exceptional and his analysis are some of the best I've seen.

>Isn't there a whole course somewhere?

This is a fundamental theory crash course for total beginners who are interested in learning at a college level yet have no prior experience in theory. It was created by Steven Laitz, who also authored one of the best American undergrad theory text books. I haven't tried it, and I know it costs some moneys... but this guy has an awesome reputation and it looks super legit.

eTheory: Music Theory Fundamentals in 4 weeks

Trailer.

>what the chord progression is. I've come up with, what I believe, to be some pretty good "root notes" for the progression (is that a term??).

Your notes could be "roots" but I would call them "bass notes" or together a "bassline" and in this case that just means they are the lowest sounding notes of whatever chord they will end up being a part of, but not necessarily the root of the note. This might seem confusing but bear with me… if you have a chord with 3 notes, like C major for example. The notes: C, E, G make it up. C is your root note… hence the name of the chord (C Major). If that C note is notated below the other two notes then it is your bass. This is called C major in root position. Bass is just the note on the bottom of the chord. The lowest one. If you decide to put E in the bass and make the chord E, C, G, then now E is your bass notes but C is still your root. This is called C major first inversion. You can do the same and put G in the bass, and have G, C, E, This is called C major second in version, G is your bass but C is still your root. Sorry if this is confusing to you I might have skipped a little ahead in the theory, but it's a pretty basic topic.

>The notes are B-C#-D#-F#

As for your sample, and those 4 notes, I'd say you could be in F Major or B Major, depending on how you decide to harmonize the notes, you could even modulate between the two fairly easily, but that's a little more of an advanced topic.

>How do I determine the chord progression?

There are many ways to harmonize your bass line but if you need some direction, try using the notes in one of the aforementioned keys.

Not sure if I'm helping or just throwing you off even more so I'll stop here.

Edit: formatting and grammar.

If I understand what you're saying, then yes, Amaj7 with a 9 will sound good in certain cases. It's actually pretty popular to combine the 7 and the 9 in jazz chords. You can definitely have more than one extension to a chord, it's just pretty cumbersome to write Amaj7 add 9, so most of the time it is omitted to be just A9 or Amaj7.

If this kind of thing interests you (combining different types of chords and adding notes in the chord), definitely get a jazz theory book. Below is one a fairly popular one. It is one of the best ways to progress from amateur to journeyman, in my opinion. Get through that book and you'll be able to play in jam sessions with other musicians, be comfortable talking theory, while elevating your own playing to a degree you probably didn't think possible, etc.

http://www.amazon.com/Jazz-Theory-Book-Mark-Levine/dp/1883217040

Here's some other stuff for people interested:

Joe Straus' Introduction to Post Tonal Theory

• For solid post tonal and heavily set theory based stuff
  
  Introduction to Electro-Acoustic Music by Barry Schrader
  
  
• this book is old but has some cool stuff in it about earlier electronic music and it's cheap
  
  Samuel Solomon's How to Write for Percussion
  
  
• The best percussion book
  
  Rothenberg and Ulvaeus' Book of Music and Nature
  
  
• If you're in to, well music and nature this is a great anthology of writings by people like Cage, Takemitsu, Oliveros, etc. on the subject.
  
  Cope's Techniques of the Contemporary Composer is okay.
  
  
• for composery stuff
  
  My favorite orchestration book is actually the Blatter
  
  Composing Electronic Music by Curtis Roads is a very good new electronic book
  
  The Rest is Noise by Alex Ross
  
  
• Practically a must read
  
  On Sonic Art by Trevor Wishart
  
  
• is a must read also

Music Theory Remixed by Kevin Holm-Hudson, is a great book that covers all the typical concepts of a four semester university theory course (Theory I through IV) but supplements all the concert music examples with music from pop music. It's pretty fantastic. Sort of like a more relevant Tonal Harmony... I think it's fun to hear modern examples of cadences, modulation techniques, etc. along side examples from Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, etc.


Tonal Harmony, by Kostka and Payne, is in my experience the most commonly assigned text for Theory I - IV courses. It's very good.


Straus' Introduction to Post-Tonal Harmony, is incredible. This book helped me fall in love with post-tonal music. If you need to study post tonal music, this is the book to get.

You mentioned you like jazz, feel free to hang out with us /r/Jazz

Internet is great, and there is a lot for good free ressources. You'll have to go through a bunch of crap though, it can be confusing for a beginner and takes valuable time away to an already time consuming hobby.

So here are a few books I personally recommand.

Jazzology, an encyclopedia of theory centered around jazz that you can use with any genre. It's really good.

The real book, a good way to learn jazz standards with sheets that aren't so painful, using solfège for melody and letters for chords. This is the format I use with students.

The Jazz Theory book, or anything from mark levine.

The Complete Musician is good if you can find it for cheap, which is no easy task.

The definition of perfect pitch includes knowing the names of the notes. Without this knowledge, it's just "having a good ear". A good way to practice it is picking random notes and visualizing what the chord will sound like before playing it. That vizualisation aspect is the amazing thing about absolute pitch and helps with composing. The tuning or knowing what key you're in things are cute but fairly irrelevant.

Anyway, have fun.

There is a book called songwriting secrets of the Beatles.

It's the best I've found. Clear and concise. The author also takes into account how the Beatles would have written the songs given their limited theory. My take on it is that they didn't formally understand what they were doing but they had a couple of things going for them that their contemporaries lacked:

1. extensive chord library. They new a lot of different chords and how to apply them. They might not have understood dominant substitution but they new the E7 was great lead up to A. Or where a B6 would fit etc...
   
   
2. vast musical vocabulary. As the other poster said, they were very knowledgeable of many different styles of music. McCartney's father was a part time jazz musician. Classical influences were also very present. Not to mention George Martin's traditional scoring approach (he was instrumental in the songwriting process)
   
   
3. lack of knowledge. I always found really interesting anecdotes of Lennon in the studio saying to Martin or the engineers that he wants the song to do this or that and they reply "it's not done that way", "nobody does that" "it can't be technically done" but it's the Beatles so they humour him. And that's how a lot of innovative or interesting parts were created. They thought outside the box.
   
   
4. rock boot camp. The Beatles early on in Germany sometimes played hours upon hours in clubs every night. They had honed their technique in front of a live audience in a way most artists today don't. . By the time they were recording their first album they already keenly aware of audience taste and how to temper their own choices with what a listener wanted to hear.
   
   Another thing about the Beatles is to understand their recording process because later on, the studio became instrumental in how they approached their songwriting (key change in strawberry fields, reverse guitar solos, limitations of 4 track recording).
   
   There is an INCREDIBLE book about abbey road recording innovations.
   
   Edit. And about the poster that said they stole liberally (in a good way) I would argue that this isn't particular to pop music. All musicians and composers do this.

I'd recommend this book. I don't have this particular version, but the one I've had I've used for years. It's a great quick guide to stuff like this. It won't replace a better orchestration book that covers considerations of extended technique and volume by range, etc., but you can keep it handy to always be able to figure this stuff out. Honestly, if you're curious about these kinds of things you could open your mind a huge deal just thumbing through it and getting a better ideas of how various instrument work and the notation that they might use that you're less familiar with. The first page of a given instrument or family will have range, sounding range and the transposition (octave displacement as well.

I think theory as a whole has reached a very comfortable spot. Sure, we might still not have a tuning with perfect ratios of its harmonics on the octave, perfect fifth, mayor third, etc etc. But humanity knew how to adapt to what was already available and theory has gone beyond music to blend itself with non-functional sounds very useful for movies, video games or theater.

​

I think the guinea pigs are the people themselves: we collectively decide what we like and the people who write for the big names take note.

​

With that said there's a lot of experimentation with microtonality in both music (king gizzard & jacob collier are the first to come to my mind) and we have books that look to implement math into theory and expand whats possible:

​

a geometry of music: a study in counterpoint: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0195336674/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&psc=1

​

The geometry of rhythm

https://www.amazon.com/Geometry-Musical-Rhythm-Godfried-Toussaint/dp/1466512024/ref=sr_1_1?__mk_es_US=%C3%85M%C3%85%C5%BD%C3%95%C3%91&keywords=geometry+of+rhythm&qid=1563542715&s=books&sr=1-1

Not that this doesn't belong here per se, but you should also post this over on r/OrchestrationHub. You might get a better answer.

My answer to your question would be: a mixture of both.

My favorite book when it comes to orchestration and topics like this would be The Essential Dictionary of Orchestration. It has everything a composer or music enthusiast would need to know about just about every orchestral instrument out there, including timbre and mood-creating descriptions. It's a fantastic reference tool. (I know it looks like I'm advertising for something but I'm serious; worth every penny.)

I learned a lot from taking classes and private lessons, as well as self study by reading books and analyzing music. I'm not really aware of that many good resources for jazz theory online unfortunately, but there is this site: http://community.berkleejazz.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

EDIT: I love the Jazz Piano Book, it's not really a theory book but I thought it was great. The author has also written a Jazz Theory Book which a lot people seem to like, but I haven't really gone through it yet. Some other options are the Berklee Book of Jazz Harmony and the Jazz Harmony Book

Cadwallader/Gagne is the standard text to use. There's also the Forte book which I haven't personally used but my friends that have used it don't like it.

You could also try the Salzer/Schachter book on counterpoint: it's heavily Schenkerian and just a great read. But its goal is to instruct you in counterpoint, not in Schenkerian analysis per se...that said, counterpoint is obviously very influential on Schenker's theories and it's important to understand counterpoint to succeed at Schenkerian analysis.

I feel you. Counterpoint would certainly be a good starting point, but it almost certainly isn't going to be useful to you except as a bridge upon which you might arrive at 4-voice-land.

Bach is an incredible study in counterpoint, but you'll likely not understand how to write simply by analyzing his counterpoint (unless you're peculiarly keen on intervalic analysis and pick up on nuances like a lack of parallel 5ths and 8ves, contrary, parallel, similar or oblique motion between voices, etc).

I'm not aware of any online resources with which one can learn counterpoint (someone else might be able to direct you there).

This is the book we've used in all of my theory classes, I through IV so far It's not a particularly cheep cheap (god it's late)* book, but it's been worth it for the wealth of knowledge. It does a really good job of taking theory step by step from the smallest of pieces (notes on a staff) to crazy complex serial compositions and other awful stuff like that ;)

There are entire fields of study in this area. I've done a fair bit of work looking at harmonic theory, where the main focus point is in coming up with mathematical abstractions, i.e. structures, that capture various things we care about in harmonic theory.

For example, the set of integers is a mathematical structure, and the traditional thing we get taught is to put scale notes in correspondence with ordered integers. All this really does is capture our intuition that notes come in a particular order (low to high).

In practice, we don't just play notes in order of low to high, instead our melodies tend to jump around between notes, tending to prefer certain intervals. So a more elaborate example would be to use a graph structure that connects each note to other notes that are fundamentally related, by an octave, or a fifth, or a third, and so on.

Yet another example would be to connect chords to other chords that differ by only a single changed semi-tone. In this case, the act of moving a note to form a new chord could be described as a group operation. In fact, most mathematical approaches to music tend to rely on group theory, and other areas of abstract algebra.

Structures like these definitely can be used as tools for composition, or even can be used to build programmed composers. The core idea is to formalise our discovered or intuited knowledge of what makes good music sound good.

See:

• The Haskell School of Music - http://haskell.cs.yale.edu/euterpea/haskell-school-of-music/
  
  
• The Geometry of Music by Dmitri Tymoczko -http://www.amazon.com/Geometry-Music-Counterpoint-Extended-Practice/dp/0195336674

I would recommend going to your theory teacher's website/class website and look at what book they want you to get. This is a big sign of the approach the university will take in teaching from Theory I and upwards. This way, you will know the "common language" professors will use at your school regarding theory. What I mean are specifics, ranging from calling something an "accented passing tone" vs. making no distinctions between a regular passing tone, to various systems of abbreviations, and to differences in how the cadential "V^6/4 - V^7 - I" is viewed. Some people interpret this as " I^6/4 - V^7 - I." Basically, do you call a cadential^6/4 chord a V or a I chord? One use is not universal. Little clarifications like these, which can only been gleaned from your actual theory book, will make you better prepared and less confused on day one than learning one book's method, only to be presented with a completely different approach.

I think, given your background in theory, you will be surprised how far ahead you are compared to many people. A lot show up to their freshman year with a low level of theory competence.

I went to a university that used the Laitz textbook, so its about all I can recommend.

I've also been exposed to the Straus book for post-tonal theory.

For Species counterpoint, you can't beat the Schacter and Salzer book: "Counterpoint in Composition,"

For Schenkerian analysis, there is the Salzer book: "Structural Hearing." That is a bit more specialized, but it may pique your curiosity.

Great theorists like Felix Salzer and Carl Schacter, students of Heinrich Schenker, along with the acclaimed Steven Laitz, are good to learn about and be knowledgeable about. Looking into them, their associates, and their teachers can lead you to other good books.

It's true that there's a ton of great information online, but books present the info in an organized, trustworthy fashion. Online learning should be fine for more introductory music theory and common practice period harmony, but once you're looking into more advanced stuff, check out these books:

-20th Century Harmony by Vincent Persichetti

-Contemporary Harmony by Ludmila Ulehla

There is no one size fits all bible of music theory. To be extremely well rounded you need to look at a few different books:

For just starting out in the sense that you don't know how to build chords or intervals, Carl Fischer's grimoire books are excellent.

For classical harmony this is the book I used in my classes:
http://www.amazon.com/Tonal-Harmony-Introduction-Twentieth-Century/dp/0073401358/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1465247193&sr=8-2&keywords=tonal+harmony

For jazz harmony:
http://www.amazon.com/Jazz-Theory-Book-Mark-Levine/dp/1883217040/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1465247235&sr=8-1&keywords=jazz+theory

For deeper classical/counterpoint:
http://www.amazon.com/Counterpoint-4th-Kent-Kennan/dp/013080746X/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1465247274&sr=8-3&keywords=counterpoint


Also, try to get lessons with a university teacher because none of these books are comprehensive or perfect.
I remember in one of my beginning classes we went over the omnibus, and the deepest the book went was "this is an omnibus".
It wouldn't be until college where a professor ACTUALLY explained to me what the omnibus is and how to make one.

Also, the mark levine book can probably be condensed into 20 pages of meaningful material. He uses a lot of filler/examples...

http://jazzadvice.com/

This site is downright amazing. An absolute treasure chest for anyone interested in improvisation.

http://www.amazon.com/Jazz-Theory-Book-Mark-Levine/dp/1883217040

This book is the best one I've ever read bar none. It is SUPER comprehensive and really easy to get in to.

This is the version of the Laitz in use today: http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0199742782?pc_redir=1409923101&robot_redir=1

There are also workbooks accompanying this text. I think the red one is written theory and the blue one is aural skills. I recommend using the written workbook and the main text and getting your aural skills somewhere else.

There's also a graduate theory review book. In a lot of ways, it's better, and cheaper. But it's really probably best used with a teacher to guide you, whereas The Complete Musician leads you by the hand more and thus works better for self-guided study.

Great reply. So, essentially, your goal is musical literacy.

Over in /r/jazz there I seem to recall someone posting an online starter kit that was very good.

I used:

https://www.amazon.ca/Jazz-Theory-Book-Levine/dp/1883217040

It's pretty thorough.

The nice thing about jazz theory is that it is very applicable to pop music as well.

I have no single favorite chord. But if I shared my whole list of favorites, I would be giving away all my compositional secrets!

Here's one though. I like this monster:

B♭2 A♭3 C4 E4 G4 B5 D5 F#5 B6

Those doubled B♮ notes over the B♭ bass ought to sound like a train wreck -- but they don't, thanks to the other supporting notes.

As to how to hear it or parse it, you can treat it as a polychord: in slash notation, perhaps Bm / B♭13#11? That's how you are likely to play it at a keyboard.

Alternately, read composer Enrique Ubieta's thoughts on the idea of augmented 15th chords, which Vincent Persichetti also considers in his Twentieth-Century Harmony. I think the notes in this stack mesh well enough that you are less likely to hear it as a polychord, and more likely to hear it as a dominant 13#11 with a #15.

​

Laitz is what we used for theory, but the way to approach different things is different amongst different people...

Edit: [Straus] (http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Post-Tonal-Theory-Joseph-Straus/dp/0131898906/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1376717704&sr=1-4&keywords=theory) for base 12/12 tone

Edit 2: Don't forget that looking at various texts is another great way to think about understanding how different composers approach things, so once you learn a fundamental way of slapping labels on things, actual music is the best way to learn theory. Also, check out [this.] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenkerian_analysis)

Well, it all start there. If you know it well enough, you start to extend the harmonies by including chords from the parallel minor/major, relative minor/major, secondary dominants of diatonic chords, diminished 7th chords, neopolitan chords, aug 6 chords, tritone subs, etc. At the point you seem to be at, it's probably time to buy a good book on Tonal Harmony. There are some really good ones out there, I prefer [Laitz's myself] (http://www.amazon.com/The-Complete-Musician-Integrated-Listening/dp/0199742782/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1383066513&sr=8-1&keywords=The+complete+musician)

I've been studying algorithmic composition for a while now, and AFAIK the best resources are books about modeling elements of music perception or composition.

Dmitri Tymoczko - A Geometry of Music
Fred Lerdahl

Also, watching brilliant live coders like Andrew Sorensen do their thing can be very enlightening.

I haven't read it so I can't really speak to it's contents but A Geometry of Music: Harmony and Counterpoint in the Extended Common Practice seems like it would fit the mathematics + music theory bit nicely.

There are a lot of courses. Any specific topics you're interested in?

Edit: I'll just list a few anyway that I've used in classes (this may not reflect all professors' choices for the same subjects).

Tonal Harmony: Kostka-Payne - Tonal Harmony

Counterpoint 1: A Berklee book by the late professor Rick Applin. Some also use this Fux translation/adaptation

Counterpoint 2: Bach Inventions & Sinfonias (any edition, really)

"Advanced" Counterpoint: The Well-Tempered Clavier (again, any edition)

Early Twentieth-Century Harmony: Persichetti - Twentieth-Century Harmony

Post-Tonal Theory/Analysis: Straus - Intro to Post-Tonal Theory

Instrumentation/Orchestration: Adler - The Study of Orchestration &
Casella/Mortari - The Technique of Contemporary Orchestration

Western Music History - Burkholder/Paiisca - A History of Western Music (8th or 9th edition)

Conducting 1 - Notion Conducting

Conducting 2 Notion + Stravinsky's Petrushka

Berklee's own (jazz-based) core harmony and ear-training curricula use Berklee textbooks written by professors which, as someone else mentioned, come unbound and shrink-wrapped at the bookstore. You can find older (PDF) versions of the Berklee harmony textbooks here. Of course this list only represents explicit book choices - there are a lot of excerpt-readings, and there's a lot of instruction that isn't found in these books even in the associated courses.

We need to understand what theory is and where it comes from.

For example, it might not be very useful to analyze a rap song with the same techniques we do with Classical stuff. It's certainly not useful to analyze a drum cadence in that way.

So first you need to pick out a style that you really want to analyze out. Hell, you could start with a single song. But either way, follow that backwards through time/formal analysis. You'll find that many styles follow this thing called "tonal theory". The idea is that much of music has a tonal center - that's to say, a single chord (and by some extensions, a single pitch or note) that we can use to define the entire key/song.

The beginning of tonal music came around the Baroque era, but we can start with Classical-era stuff (i.e. Mozart, Handel, Haydn). At this point there's clear structure to it - there are ideas of tonics, dominants, and predominants. This will end up being the basis of a TON of music - so-called "classical", rock, pop, jazz - much of the music we have today is reliant on this set of ideas.

So how do you start? Well, find some structure. Music has absolutely zero shortcuts. You need to carve out your own path through theory. Unfortunately this means acknowledging some permanent, temporally-obstacles (for example, learning atonality after tonality changes your understanding of atonality), but a not-so-bad way to do it is chronologically.

To do this, you can hit up musictheoryonline. Don't skip any of the exercises, boring as they may be. Or pick up a textbook. This was my undergrad textbook^1 , and I think it's pretty good. Read through each chapter. Take the time to listen to all the examples.

1. Notice what I said? It's my undergrad textbook. That means I had to learn theory. Talent will only get you so far. If you want to study existing music, you need to put time into seeing what the contemporary theory is.

If you would like to end with Chopin, you only need to study tonal theory. So twelve tone topics are not of any use since that topic is 20th century, after tonality.

If you didn't do voice leading (SATB harmony): Are you interested in voice leading? If you want to get to the more advanced topics of tonal theory, you'll need to cover that. If so I would suggest this book:

https://www.amazon.com/Musicians-Guide-Theory-Analysis-Third/dp/0393600491/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1535936804&sr=1-1&keywords=clendinning+theory

Have you done species counterpoint? Species counterpoint will be very helpful in dealing with just about all music. I would recommend Fux's book:

https://www.amazon.com/Study-Counterpoint-Johann-Joseph-Parnassum/dp/0393002772/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1535936929&sr=1-1&keywords=fux+counterpoint

If you've already done species counterpoint: For more advanced counterpoint (not useful for Chopin, but necessary for anything with fugues in it, obviously) I would suggest Mann's book:

https://www.amazon.com/Study-Fugue-Dover-Books-Music/dp/0486254399

For a complete discussion of forms I would suggest Berry's book:

https://www.amazon.com/Form-Music-2nd-Wallace-Berry/dp/0133292851

For an in depth and modern discussion of sonata theory (remember that symphonies are also often times in sonata form), I would suggest Hepokoski's book:

https://www.amazon.com/Elements-Sonata-Theory-Deformations-Late-Eighteenth-Century/dp/0199773912/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1535937360&sr=1-1&keywords=hepokoski+sonata

If you already know species counterpoint and voice leading you can study Schenkarian Analysis. For this there's two books I would suggest:

https://www.amazon.com/Analysis-Tonal-Music-Schenkerian-Approach/dp/0199732477/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1535937496&sr=1-1&keywords=schenkerian+analysis

https://www.amazon.com/Tonal-Analysis-Schenkerian-David-Damschroder/dp/0393283798/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1535937488&sr=1-2&keywords=schenkerian+analysis

​

If you're interested in composition, that's the other side of the coin and so all the above are of limited use. Let me know if you want books for composition.

The Jazz Theory Book is, in my opinion, the best book on the subject. It's good to get a grasp of what basic 2-5-1's sound like and slowly add in alterations. If you just jump into listening to Herbie Hancock and try to pick the chords out, you're gonna have a rough time of it.

If you're interested in Sonata form (and form in general), I'd also recommend Elements of Sonata Form by Hepokoski and Darcy, and William Caplin's Classical Form.

All of these works are highly technical, though, and probably won't be of much interest unless you really want to get crunchy with the theory. It's also important to know that all of these authors differ on the specifics of their theory, so even though they're describing the same musical structures, they do so in different ways and have different conceptions of how and why things work the way they do.

there's a little tiny book here http://www.amazon.com/Essential-Dictionary-Orchestration-The-Series/dp/0739000217 ... it's really little but addresses the range and sound OFEVERYINSTRUMENTEVER. good luck

I agree with /u/seabre, fretboard knowledge is more about linking the 5 or 6 basic fingering patterns around the fingerboard efficiently (root on the E or the A strings), than about theory or reading. But, cause you asked:

http://www.amazon.com/Music-Theory-Guitarists-Everything-Wanted/dp/063406651X/

http://www.amazon.com/Fretboard-Knowledge-Contemporary-Guitarist-Clement/dp/0739031570/

this is the original CAGED book, which is ok http://www.amazon.com/Fretboard-Logic-SE-Reasoning-Arpeggios/dp/0962477060/

A lot of guitar students use the Wyatt/Schroeder or Tagliarino theory books, which aren't guitar-specific

http://www.amazon.com/Harmony-Theory-Comprehensive-Musicians-Essential/dp/0793579910/

yeah, i win

do yourself a favor and read this before you start spouting off about things about which you know nothing