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Modern Harmony 

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SELECTED REVIEWS 

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Norman, I’m extremely impressed with your textbooks as they are outlined. They seem to bridge the often insurmountable chasm between pedantic academia and practical application. The cited scores that are annotated are of excellent benefit for those from novice to professional. I, myself, have wanted to write books on music, but feel inadequate for the task. It’s a huge responsibility to supply proper quality materials for those who would use it to learn, teach, or reference.

Gordon B.

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Just scanned this. Brilliant! This book is complete in itself and not just a companion to Persichetti! ...thanks a million for this. I'm going to post your link on my page.

Bruce C.


What a terrific book. I love the colorful annotations and great usage examples. Thank you Norman!

Gregory M.

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Thank you for doing this and for your dedication to excellent teaching
...really appreciate you :)

Wendy K.

A stand alone, or a companion book, for my Modern Harmony Course Videos.

The study of Modern Harmony is the keystone to composing music in today’s challenging world. With the old rules and traditions from the 19th century gone, and the advent of world music, pop music, jazz, and electronica, the palette available for the contemporary composer is very vast. At the same time we are expected to write fluidly in “floating” or “extended” tonalities for serious and commercial music markets.
 
Vincent Persichetti understood this dilemma, and in 1961 he wrote his seminal book 20th Century Harmony.  
This course uses his concepts as its center with my annotated score excerpts added to help illustrate intervals, scales, modes, chords (by thirds, seconds, and fourths), polychords, clusters and more.
 

349 pages including 100 annotated film, symphonic, chamber music, jazz, and pop score excerpts.
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All the audio of the scores are available via a Dropbox link.
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Click below to view the videos of my course on this material:
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