Basic Training in Music Skills: Manual for Music Theory
Edition: 1
Copyright: 2020
Pages: 316
Edition: 1
Copyright: 2020
Pages: 316
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$121.55 USD
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$57.89 USD
A one-volume, all-inclusive, start-to-finish manual for undergraduate and AP music theory. Eliminates the need for separate textbook or workbook. Ideal for music programs with a wide spectrum of beginning students and for instructors seeking comprehensive teaching materials. An excellent choice for students on a budget.
The Manual is “Boot Camp” for aspiring musicians. In concise and direct language, it offers bullet point “What you need to know” information and step-by-step “How to” instructions in harmony-based music theory and over 160 worksheets, ample material to drill, instruct, practice and review all aspects of tonal music theory. The Instructor’s Manual contains quizzes and tests, eliminating the need for creating any materials to successfully teach at the undergraduate or AP level.
The Manual can be used in all types of music, regardless of genre or style and is appropriate for online courses and self-study. The “Boot Camp” begins with basic musical notation and guides the student through the most advanced chromatic harmonic structures and strategies of tonal music. All in one affordable book.
Author Lance Hulme has worked as performer, composer, arranger and educator in practically every genre of music. Trained as a classical musician at some of the most prestigious institutions in the U.S. and Europe, he has never forgotten his roots in pop, jazz and music theater. Dr. Hulme teaches at North Carolina Central University, an historical Black university, and is co-director of the cross-genre À la carte concert series.
Lance Hulme's Basic Training in Music Skills Manual for Music Theory is a one-volume textbook and workbook providing a rigorous and comprehensive pedagogical textbook in music theory. Hulme's Preface eloquently describes the very practical philosophy of his text:
"[The] method breaks down music fundamentals and theoretical concepts into individual units, each focused on one new topic. Each topic is treated as a skill to be acquired through practice with practical examples. Each new skill adds to the student's existing knowledge base, thus creating a solid and thorough music theory skill set to use in daily music making."
Professor Hulme's textbook covers all levels of music theory, from absolute fundamentals (Unit 1, pitch notated in treble and bass clefs) through "advanced"-semester analysis of extended dominant (V)-function harmonies in the 19th-century Romantic idioms. Appendices usefully address topics like modes and orchestral scoring. Integral to this text are the 78 separate Self-Study Worksheets that accompany all chapters in each unit. Students can test themselves at every level. The design of the Worksheets is uncluttered, lucid, and inviting.
A distinctive advantage of this author's approach is the economy of the verbal explanations. Where most textbooks have pages of prose, Hulme condenses each topic to single-page listings ("What you need to know"). His textbook is designed to quickly welcome students with many different musical backgrounds. The decision to present concepts in a summary will be valuable to instructors, too, since the listings might function as lessons plans.
Hulme has also written an elegant accompanying Analysis Workbook (131 pages) teaching students to analyze musical form in a range of art-music styles from Back through Debussy. All scores are included in newly-engraved music exceprts, so students need not purchase special materials.
Professor Hulme's two full-length textbooks continue in the very best traditions of modern Anglophone music theory pedagogy. To write and publish them is the work of an extraordinarily dedicated teacher. The task is also testimony to the intelligence of a superb musician with a love of communicating his art to others.
Philip Rupprecht, Ph.D.
Professor of Music
Duke University