17 Music Books and Courses I Keep Recommending

[@thesecretsoforchestration]

Dear Ryan, thank you for your kindness! I extend my warmest wishes from Baku, Azerbaijan.

[@slavagn]

Thank you for recommending Scoreclub. I'm currently almost halfway through 'Craft of Composition 1' and it seems to be the resource I've been looking for this whole time. I really like how it approaches everything from practical standpoint. I tried studying harmony and form on my own and played some basic piano, but composition never clicked for me, until I started this course a bit more than a week ago. Now I write 2-3 short pieces every evening. It feels so effortless! Yes, at the moment they are extremely basic diatonic pieces of 8-32 measures, but I am actually blown away by how much one can do with simplistic harmony and barely any chromaticism. I'm so excited to build upon these ideas in further courses. Hopefully I will get to 'Orchestrating the line' eventually

[@1hotday1]

I look forward to reading these books. I read some, but more music learning is always a way to get better.

[@quelconque354]

For our french reader friends over here, if you want to learn harmony Jean Doué's - Etude technique et stylistique de l'harmonie - is a must have. It's a study of harmonization techniques starting from the XVI to the XXth century. Each chapter includes a lesson with examples followed by exercices and a booklet with the intended answer. It is written in a very understandable way, and the exercice are really and efficient way to see if the lesson is understood.

[@yannschwab8816]

There's also Koechlin's traité de l'orchestration, wich is probably the most detailed treatise ever written on the subject

[@lawrencetaylor4101]

I only became a music theory nerd at 65 yoa when I bought a piano. I watch your videos since I spend way too much time on the Tubes instead of with Bach and Hanon. Even with my limited keyboard technique, I’ve gained great respect for musicians. Hope you’re playing pain free, greetings from Western Switzerland.

[@ShaharHarshuv]

I've only read "Analyzing Classical Form" from here, and it was because you mentioned it. It's kind of long but the concepts thoughts in it are priceless. For me I had to "adapt" the ideas to more modern music, but it still works. For example - the definition of "cadence" can be more loose in modern harmony.

[@AndreasvanHaren]

Thanks! I finished Orchestrating the Line and loved it, I learned a lot of it and use it in my own music now. What I miss in your line up of books are Peter Alexander's Professional Orchestration books. Great books for references and information.

[@catsimus2317]

Thank you for this video! As a hobbyist I’ve neglected working on composition in favor of performance, and seeing all the material I was planning to go through (and way more) is making me want to re-evaluate my position and get back to writing. My favorite instructional material so far has been Pillars of Composition. I appreciate how much effort went into structuring it like this. I feel it does not leave any important gaps before moving on to another lesson, and doing the assignments and exercises was fun and hugely beneficial.

[@ThomasLock-n2r]

Schoenberg's Fundamentals of Musical Composition also covers Sentences. Wish I would have known of it when I was in grad school 40 years ago.

[@joeldcanfield_spinhead]

One glorious thing about the Hanon is that mostly, it sounds musical. Fifty years ago when my sister was learning piano, this was very pleasant to listen to.

[@panneddead-centre6844]

Henry Brant's Textures and Timbres is a very good book on orchestration that doesn't read like other textbooks. Starting the book in 1940, he finished it in 2005. For example: pp.36-37. A table of every instrument, including supernumeraries, and whether you should expect the player to play with vibrato or without, and how to indicate what you really want. It even differentiates between solo players and unison groups, and, when relevant, between jazz players and classically-trained ones, and between country of origin. (A horn player from France would play with a fast vibrato, while one from the US would play without vibrato, except in solos.) Where else would you ever get that info?

[@JohnMonto-tm9wc]

Great list. Still a fan of Piston. Overlooked IMO.

[@yannschwab8816]

I was about to say it. That's the only point I disagree with in this list : the best way to learn about instrumental in detail for a beginner is certainly not the Adler in my opinion. Adler comes with audio recordings, that's a great value... But only Piston really show the mechanics of instruments and will help you think like a player. It's the best book to begin with !

[@toddharrop9094]

Dear Ryan, I've watched many of your videos from the beginning and they're fine, they stand up, they're informative and friendly, so you don't have to diss them. Congratulations on producing so many consistent, pragmatic and motivating videos. One book which I have found inspiring for thinking of music and sound in general, abstract ways is Composing Electronic Music: A New Aesthetic (Curtis Roads). Sure, it's for high-art/academic electronic music and would be a total outlier re. your list, but Roads writes so well and talks about how to think about sound and organize one's ideas. I believe it can be a catalyst for 'thinking outside the box' and learning not only the scope of what's possible, e.g. in rhythm, form, narrative etc., but how to select and present one's materials.

[@ShaharHarshuv]

I want to complain that classical music have so much more academic work and materials that it's just not fair for the modern musician, who has to work much harder to learn modern practices.

[@elliotr9095]

Is it? In the end, you're learning to play music, usually with a teacher, practice, and practice materials and playing with what you like. Classical music just may take more materials because of having more instruments and more tradition, where modern music tends to be more as you like it. A modern band doesn't need to bother with effective flute or bassoon doublings. Not to say there aren't plenty of rabbit holes to fall into with modern music. I think most here can relate to the endless possibilities arising from fx chains and writing with and manipulating electronic instruments. And the more experimental you go, of course the less you'll have to rely on!

[@bismarckluna]

And worse: most material focuses on pre-20th century classical music. A lot of books will fail to explain a lot of techniques used by great composers like Debussy, Ravel, Shostakovich, Schoenberg, Bartok, Holst etc. Despite the fact they're super popular and influentional and a lot of their works are 100+ years old. It's sad so many books neglect important classics, let alone contemporary and popular music.

[@RunCoffeeBeer]

Howdy Ryan! Great video, helped me a lot. I have really been diving more into timpani in my peices and this video has definitely guided me to some good resources. Lydian mode for life.

[@franklacey5054]

Excellent suggestions. (I have Adler’s orchestration book sitting in front of me now!) I would add Elaine Gould’s _Behind Bars_ to the list, for anyone interested in making your notation look polished and professional.

[@antoniosanchezmoyano6393]

I have followed some of these on line courses, such as Alain ScoreClub's or Secrets of Orchestration. They are great, but another very interesting addition, and for me the best, is Interval Theory Academy. The approach is different from many of the current courses, but you get deeper foundations and composing original music. It is a long course and requires a lot of work, but it is very worthwhile.

[@mondostrat]

I got 'Musical Composition: Craft and Art' off the recommendation from that old video (also kept seeing it on your shelf in other videos). Great book, thanks!

[@carpenterhillstudios8327]

Thank you for this list and for the reasons you have them on the list. I was going to send a note about a listening experience I had yesterday and how the period/sentence concept made the music very clear. Bruckner Symphony 0. Never heard it until yesterday and I found in one of the movements a very clear and precise structure of periods and sentences. Every two measures x 4 then the whole 8 as a single thought, Repeated with different orchestration and slight modification. The cool thing was how clear it was.

[@RyanLeach]

Yes they work beautifully and no one ever thinks "oh no he just used a sentence how trite"

[@jeffwatkins352]

What a marvelous resource! All books unknown to me, never mind their authors, but all sound like they're the real deal. Me, I'm an old guy. Walter Piston was my compositional guru, a writer who must seem ancient to you. But when I was growing up there was no internet.

[@J-MLindeMusic]

Nice list Ryan, I'll be sure to keep these in mind! I'm using William Lovelock's books (First year harmony atm) to teach myself...well, harmony. I like the fact that they have excercises included.

[@tomgiles1484]

Great informative video, Ryan! I’m surprised you didn’t include the superb film & TV scoring book, “On The Track” by Fred Karlin & Rayburn Wright. It’s packed with info.

[@TurdMcNugget]

Fantastic video. It will take me a while to accumulate all of these, but I’m looking forward to going through them. Also, thanks for the piano skills recommendations. It’s always been a stumbling block for me.

[@musik9089]

After asking in your Discord community about their favorit books, this video comes to a perfect timing. got the motivation now to improve my piano game 💪

[@alexchristodoulou]

Having read almost all of them, the one book I keep returning to is Alan Belkin’s, as it’s capturing all the composition principles in such a clear and practical way.

[@ericjohnson1811]

I already have a huge stack of books I really want to study but don’t have time to. Thanks for adding to the stack! 😊

[@Akira-ph5dv]

I really liked the audio effects here

[@4BarCafe]

Fantastic video. Very useful. Thanks!

[@shatamel_music]

Time to fill out the courses wishlist!

[@shubus]

Of all the books "Analyzing Classical Form" has done the most for me. I have two copies, one with my ridiculous notations and a clean one I consistently reference.

[@rodterrell304]

Thanks again Ryan for great advice I'm doing the Score Club courses learning the basics and will go on to the ones you recommended also have the 20th Century Harmony Book (its a bit heady) but full of great stuff.

[@anthonywritesfantasy]

I took Alain's course, solely because you recommended it a few years back. Man... best musical investment of my life.

[@BellydancerMaliha]

Thank you for this great list!

[@danieldaza2141]

gonna recommend this video to my orchestration class

[@jimwalker5941]

An invaluable list. Thank you.

[@ErnestoComposer]

Definitely checking out the Lord of the Rings book, I had completely forgotten that it existed and I want it

[@Krzychu3005]

Master the score seems great, but... it's way above my hobby-budget without some kind of loyalty discounts. Because if I pull the trigger on one course, I probably won't stop there haha :D Thanks for the list, for now I will settle with good books. I can't wait to see discussion in this comment section about more ideas of good lecture

[@GavinPotter]

I think they do have a loyalty discount if you have purchased on of their courses. but they do have a sale on right now of between 30% - 40% off.

[@Krzychu3005]

​@@GavinPotter Thx, you may be right, I just don't see it clearly stated on the website about loyalty discounts. I see discounts for virtual instruments, but unfortunately I'm past phase of collecting them and I have some fundamental knowledge. As for the price, I need more information to be sure I will benefit from material for half of my monthly salary. :D Their site will get better in time probably, until then I will hesitate

[@zazenbo]

Thank you!

[@GavinPotter]

Great video Ryan.

[@janneckchristiansen2778]

Do you know a book called Composing Music by William Russo? I never see anybody recommending it, but for me, this was so helpful, when I started my composing journey!!

[@panneddead-centre6844]

I studied with Russo. Comp 1 (which used that book) was a first semester course, so it was really intended for the absolute beginner. He even said those who had no experience with composition would do better with his book than those who had some. But yes, for the absolute beginner who's never really composed a melody, it's very good.

[@ThomasLock-n2r]

Hollywood Harmonies is a great addition to your list

[@raphaelreina7559]

Hey what about the book "On The Track, A Guide To Contemporary Film Scoring"? i think it's very good book for film scoring

[@daviydviljoen9318]

I'm going through Allan Balken's applied counterpoint. I don't know if I'm understanding everything, however, it makes counterpoint much easier to understand. And I like Balken's approach of explaining why of what he is teaching. Also: practising on the piano is not going to happen, my right hand was cut recently, and there is some nerve damage to me index finger.

[@ticktockfool]

Percy Goetschius. Free books. Form. Counterpoint. Theory. Everything.

[@DissonantSynth]

Nice! Thank you!

[@mosstet]

Ì have Persichetti's and Belkin's books, even the thesaurus of scales by Slonimsky, but i'm often at a loss with what to do with them. Or, I suppose, feel too impatient to do the exercises. They're still exciting to look at. Did you do the exercises from Belkin's book, Ryan? Thanks for the video. Have wanted to buy Well Tempered Kalvier for a while.

[@Wannabewotan]

Great video great recommendations! Also as I'm taking the Courses at MAster the score can't recoomend them enough to accompany the books! Question: What about the "Complete Musician" by Steven Laitz? Have you heard of it, if so, what do you think of it? As i got it and am wondering if i should still get "Analyzing classical Form"..

[@MartinGaskellMusic]

Max Reger's "Modulation" is not a book I would personally recommend. In fact I'm rather surprised that Dover books printed it (Perhaps the attraction was that it is by a known composer - or at least a composer you might have heard of if you are an organist.) Despite the book's title, it is NOT a text book on modulation. It is just a limited set of examples. It has a heavy emphasis on the use of the Neapolitan 6th.

[@MATCHLESS789]

Just an hour I ago I checked whether I missed an of your visos or something.. And now I see this. You're stalking me? I'm onto, "Ryan Leach".

[@jade8538]

Thx for the valuable list, Ryan. I'd add to your list: "Tonal Harmony" by Stefan Kosta and Dorothy Payne (it can be bought used for a reasonable price). The great thing about this college text is that there's a Y-tube playlist by Dr. Christopher Brellochs called "Dr. B Music Theory" that teaches out of the book: kzbin.info/aero/PLw9t0oA3fHkxx1PgYpiXrMUPXaOiwh6KU Reading the 'Tonal Harmony' text and following along with the Y-tube lecture series (97 videos) has been invaluable to shoring up my basic theory/harmony/voice leading skills. Worth a look.

[@marathonrunner2590]

I 100% agree with your statements regarding the necessity of Hanon (and Czerney, too). Unfortunately, for the casual listener and the casual pianist, playing Hanon and Czerney is about as much fun as LISTENING to someone play Hanon and Czerney.

[@panneddead-centre6844]

I should hesitate to recommend this one because I'm still reading it, but it's already had a profound effect on me as a composer. 'A Theory of Musical Narrative' by Byron Almén. Another book written primarily for the analyst rather than the composer, but any good composer must be a good analyst.

[@vikramsubramaniam6699]

Curious to hear your thoughts on A Harmonic Experience by WA Mathieu

[@luobei-qj1xg]

great!!!

[@superblondeDotOrg]

"Fifth Species? What's that? I haven't heard of it." - Steve Vai, guitarist

[@nelsonmaciel7611]

Hi Ryan, do you every print music sheet on dorico, if you do, can you talk about the whole process and also what printer are you using

[@RyanLeach]

I don't think I've ever had to print a Dorico part tbh. Last time I worked with a live ensemble I was still on Sibelius

[@chriswolf4715]

Thanks for the recommendations. I'm going to the beach tomorrow and am going to buy one of them on Kindle to reach while I work on my tan!

[@Doty6String]

"the jazz theory book" by mark levine will get you some mileage in my experience.

[@jawneethecurious]

Thanks Ryan, I will definitely check out some of those books!

[@igordrm]

Thank you, Ryan! I do have a question! Serious musicians, or any other craftsman, must study throughout whole life. But how could you nail down your book recomendations from which someone can feel confident to actually compose? Because getting familiar with all the content you brought here will take years! I'm studying Harmony through Schoenberg (do you have any remarks on this book?), and I do have Caplin's book, from which I intend to make myself confident on form (I got to know it on the older video of yours that you mentioned). And I will study couterpoint as well, from a book from Ijzerman's Harmony, Couterpoint and Partimento. I do have Adler, Belkin and McKay books (I also do have Creative Harmony from McKay, which I find very interesting). This is already a huge deal, and although I do not seek for shortcuts, I want to be sure that I'm optimizing my time! Thank you! I feel appreciated if you can help me on this one!

[@RyanLeach]

the answer you don't want to hear is that I'm in my 40s and still have a long way to go lol. Just keep moving forward and you'll be fine

[@igordrm]

​@@RyanLeachI''ll take that! Thanks!

[@gerardgag]

​​@@igordrm if i may chime in, I'm a composition student about to graduate from a 7 year program in composition (top of my class if that sort of thing matters) nowadays i feel pretty confident in my compositional ability, and when i started i didnt even know what a motif was, I'm classically trained but i have also composed videogame music as well as other genres (you can check my channel for a few examples of my music if you want), i would say that the most valuable skills that made me confident in my compositional abilities are 1.- the ability to analize music withouth having to look at a written score, by this i mean the ability to understand the steucture of what im hearing as well as understand the instrumentation and specially the texture of each section, coupled with the ability to hear the motifs and variations them As a side note, the ability to hear the harmony or determine the exact notes is nice but not nearly as imoortant as what i mentioned before, your theory knowledge and just your experience listening to a lot of music will help you internalize harmony with the passing of time. 2.- the ability to verbally express your own compositional ideas as clarly and non-methaphorically as possible, meaning that, if you have an extra-musical idea, developing the ability to verbally express the concrete musical elements by which you will capture that idea and express thru sound, for example, if you're going to express the idea of a calm field of green pasture illuminated calmly by the warmth of the morning sun, and you'll write it for orchestra, what will the role of the steings be? What will the woodwinds do? What will be the dinamic, the harmonic language, the tempo, the density of the section, the articulation, etc, having the ability to verbally express this before putting your music to paper is invaluable as it gives you a clear path and frees you from the dreaded fear of the blanc page, just a tip, dont worry about the individual notes you'll write, that will be what you use the oaper for, but conceptual clarity will speed up your writing to an honestly absurd degree 3.- the ability to realize that you will never finish learning and thats a good thing, it means composing will never become boring to you since there will always be something new and exiting to try out. 4.- and finally and most important of all, the ability to not limit yourself to the idea that you're not ready to compose yet, there is nothing in the world that will make you better at composing more reliably than just composing, because nothing will wxpose your weaknesses faster than sitting down and composing, and once you know your weaknesses you will know what to work on, what to focus on, and also what you are good at, what you feel confident at, amd also what you dont really need to know at the moment, for example it would be nice to learn how to write for a percussion ensemble, but it probably wont help you that much if you're writing a classical waltz or a sarabande for piano and violin. Hope that helps :)

[@igordrm]

@@gerardgag Gerardo, thank you very much for taking the time to give me such valuable advice! Your tip number 2 is about what I have been intuiting the most lately. It has been more natural for me to express in technical terms what artistic effect I want to create. I haven't dived head first into composing yet (I just have some creative spasms that need to be released), because I am still building a solid knowledge of harmony. Somehow, my intuition has led me to feel confident about this. Maybe it is just something subjective, like my fascination with impactful modulations (those that make us fall into a tonic without us knowing that it would be so satisfying to fall into that tonic at that moment!). And also, having a broad knowledge of harmony (at least from the period of common practice, up to late Romanticism), I will have a more than rich vocabulary to work with popular music. My interest does not lie in popular music, although I listen to it; is that, while I refine my counterpoint and orchestration, at least I can create songs and put chords in them. So, I've been studying Schoenberg's Harmoniehlere (Theory of Harmony). I'd like to know what your personal book recommendations are! Thanks!

[@gerardgag]

@@igordrm you're welcome! I'm glad it was useful to you, as for your question about harmony books, aside from the ones already recommend by Ryan (which I wholeheartedly recommend as well) you definitely can't go wrong with Walter Piston's harmony, if you understand spanish Joaquín Zamacois' harmony is also really good, Diether de la Motte also has books on both Counterpoint and Harmony, but I don't know if there's an English version, there are versions in German and Spanish though, you can't go wrong with Tchaikovsky's treatise on Harmony, and he will make you work quite a bit on the fundamentals so you'll have a really solid foundation if you tackle it, finally there's the exceptionally valuable Tonal harmony with an introduction to twentieth century music by Stefan Kostka and also the little known jewel Harmony and style by Noel Long (although it is written in 3 volumes and while there is a complete edition it is relatively hard to find). Once again, hope that helps.

[@joeldcanfield_spinhead]

Not the first time you've called the Caplin your favorite book. I would so love to own a copy and learn from it, but it's not available at libraries, and the cheapest version to buy is $90 (which is about $85 more than most retired folks can afford.) I detest cheap substitutes; I don't wanna hear a Stones cover band, I want the Stones. Are there options you're aware of to get access to the same info other ways? Your videos on the period and sentence form were my introduction to orchestration proper, and I can't go back. I just realized, you're a dealer getting us all hooked on expensive habits. And you look SO innocent . . .

[@RyanLeach]

The only people I know who talk about it are myself and Mark Richards of Film Music Notes!

[@joeldcanfield_spinhead]

@@RyanLeach Then I'll continuing watching every video you make.

[@richardmaia8732]

🎉

[@Jaketsx45]

I have hw to do

[@sirmrs6952]

Take a shot every time you hear a sound from Breath Of The Wild.

[@antomcmanus1775]

Sorry when I seen your alien belkin suggestion I had to chuckle...😂 It's the first book I read on composition and was way too technical as a beginner I paid a guy £40 an hour to break it down for me! The guy spends half a book describing his self love of himself....also the other half explaining songs have a beginning a middle and a end. The beginning of song introduces a motif ...the middle builds and the end concludes... it was the biggest waste of time I've ever read in terms of composition. It was entirely music appreciation as opposed to any actual lessons how to compose

[@LiamRaitorComposer]

Thanks !