Music theory books for a beginner

[Summer M]

For someone who knows absolutely nothing about music theory, which books would you recommend for learning the basics?

I am not looking to play an instrument or become a conductor or composer; I am merely hoping to understand written music, know what D Minor is, know all the classical instruments, and be able to develop a moderately proficient musical ear.

This will probably require more than one book, so feel free to provide a list.

Thanks.

[billl]

Wow, I'm curious to see any recommendations here. Since you mention theory and "what D minor is" it is hard for me to imagine a prescription that wouldn't include learning to play an instrument. I think that by learning to play a musical keyboard (hooked up to your computer for less than $100, or via a piano that might be lying around) to the proficiency of a "beginning-novice" you might have such an advantage over not doing so that an infinity of books might be skipped over.

I don't mean to sound mocking up there (but it's fun to sort of type that way) but maybe you should look into getting a used electronic piano keyboard (a MIDI-compatible thing to drive something on your PC/laptop) and hooking it up to your computer. I think that doing so would make any recommendations that this thread brings to light perhaps 10-100 times more useful.

That being said, I feel a strong urge to simply repeat it. Again, the point wouldn't be to become good enough to do anything beyond amateur noodling or playing easy stuff with a friend, or tackling something basic on one's own. You could end up awful at it, from a practical perspective, but still serviceable perhaps for certain occasions, and regardless immersed in the wonder of the actual thing as a "performer", witnessing and co-relating the significance of this or that change in the selection of notes. Things that reading alone would never be good for, and that would be actually far more convenient and effective than reading and listening-along-to-a-CD, when you get right down to it.

THAT being said, I think that whatever text you might wind up with, as you would be learning the basics of the instrument (e.g. the keyboard, or slightly-less-straightforwardly the guitar..) I think that pretty much any VERY basic intro book would be good. Someone here might offer a particular favorite, and I would recommend looking at that. The thing I had years ago I can't remember well enough, in regards to title and author, unfortunately--I just grabbed it and used it to figure things out now and then, and to expand my understanding, when the practical experience had led me to a certain point. But I think there are probably a bunch out there, just type "beginner music theory" into Amazon, if some recommendations in this thread aren't sufficient.

But, most of all, I recommend having some sort of keyboard thing set-up. I could easily, for example, imagine someone with an iPhone/iPad not needing to spend even a penny to get access to a keyboard that would enable them to actually experience the contents of a book on theory. A physical keyboard (like this (http://www.amazon.com/Akai-Pro-LPK25-Performance-Keyboard/dp/B002M8GBDI/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1350204784&sr=8-1&keywords=midi+keyboard) or something at the local used shop) with a PC (or perhaps a used classical guitar for $100) would maybe be even better. I just urge you to get some musical interface with which to back up whatever you might end up reading.

EDIT: nostalgic feeling (thanks!) led me to find this book right here, which I used to own and use--there's probably better stuff out there, but I'm sure you could do worse...
http://www.amazon.com/Learn-Music-Softcover-Howard-Shanet/dp/0671210270/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1350205552&sr=1-5&keywords=how+to+read+music
I think I had another more "theory" book I can't remember though...

[Volya]

Wow, I'm curious to see any recommendations here. Since you mention theory and "what D minor is" it is hard for me to imagine a prescription that wouldn't include learning to play an instrument. I think that learning to play a musical keyboard (hooked up to your computer for less than $100, or via a piano that might be lying around) to the proficiency of a "beginning-novice" you might have such an advantage over not doing so that an infinity of books might be skipped over.

I don't mean to sound mocking up there (but it's fun to sort of type that way) but maybe you should look into getting a used electronic paino keyboard (a MIDI-compatible thing to drive something on your PC/laptop) and hooking it up to your computer. I think that doing so would make any recommendations that this thread brings to light perhaps 10-100 times more useful.

That being said, I feel a strong urge to simply repeat it. Again, the point wouldn't be to become good enough to do anything beyond amateur noodling or playing easy stuff with a friend, or tackling something basic on one's own. You could end up awful at it, from a practical perspective, but still serviceable perhaps for certain occasions, and regardless immersed in the wonder of the actual thing as a "performer", witnessing and co-relating the significance of this or that change in the selection of notes. Things that reading alone would never be good for, and that would be actually far more convenient and effective than reading and listening-along-to-a-CD, when you get right down to it.

THAT being said, I think that whatever text you might wind up with, as you would be learning the basics of the instrument (e.g. the keyboard, or slightly-less-straightforwardly the guitar..) I think that pretty much any VERY basic intro book would be good. Someone here might offer a particular favorite, and I would recommend looking at that. The thing I had years ago I can't remember well enough, in regards to title and author, unfortunately--I just grabbed it and used it to figure things out now and then, and to expand my understanding, when the practical experience had led me to a certain point. But I think there are probably a bunch out there, just type "beginner music theory" into Amazon, if some recommendations in this thread aren't sufficient.

But, most of all, I recommend having some sort of keyboard thing set-up. I could easily, for example, imagine someone with an iPhone/iPad not needing to spend even a penny to get access to a keyboard that would enable them to actually experience the contents of a book on theory. A physical keyboard with a PC (or perhaps a used classical guitar for $100) would maybe be even better. I just urge you to get some musical interface with which to back up whatever you might end up reading.

I gotta agree with bill here. Without any actual knowledge of how to play an instrument, it will be quite difficult to learn all the theory.

Going by your specific questions about what you want to know, it doesn't look like you'll need to buy much in the way of books since a lot of that material can be found online. When you say understand written music, I assume you mean reading sheet music, which isn't actually that difficult.

http://readsheetmusic.info/readingmusic.shtml

D Minor is just one of many chords/scales, which can also be found online.
I'm not quite sure what you mean by 'know all the classical instruments': know their name? how to recognize the sound?

Developing a musical ear cannot be done without an actual instrument to listen to.

[Summer M]

Thanks to both of you. I suppose it is somewhat unrealistic to learn music theory without playing anything. So, do you recommend something like this (http://www.amazon.com/Yamaha-YPT-230-Premium-Keyboard-Headphones/dp/B005N4N2GC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1350207937&sr=8-1&keywords=piano+keyboard)?

[Volya]

I have no real experience with keyboards or piano, but it looks like it's fine to me.

[Emil Miller]

Thanks to both of you. I suppose it is somewhat unrealistic to learn music theory without playing anything. So, do you recommend something like this (http://www.amazon.com/Yamaha-YPT-230-Premium-Keyboard-Headphones/dp/B005N4N2GC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1350207937&sr=8-1&keywords=piano+keyboard)?

I would certainly recommend something like that keyboard. I have friend who learned to play the piano in China but when she was studying English in London, she bought herself a keyboard and would bring it to my place at weekends. When she went back to China she gave me the keyboard and I used some basic instruction books to pick out tunes on it. Then I went to a piano teacher in order to be more proficient and bought a piano. Although I have always liked piano music, I would never have bought my own if it hadn't been for that keyboard.

[billl]

Yes, it looks fine to me, and not crazy expensive. Unlike the thing I linked to, you could use it without getting the computer involved. And if you're on a budget (and unsure about this new hobby), a used instruments store might have something similar for less (although used versions of cheap things can sometimes be rare simply because there's not much room for profit.) But that would be a good one, certainly.

[Calidore]

It's necessary to understand musical theory to compose music, and it certainly helps when learning to play music, but I'm not sure it's necessary to play an instrument to learn theory (although again, it certainly helps).

You're looking for a few different things here.

1. Knowing "all the classical instruments."

This one's easy--Wikipedia has a list of instruments, most with music samples in their main articles.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_musical_instruments

2. Music theory.

The Wikipedia article at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_Theory might be a start, but if it's more informative than educational, it also links two websites at the bottom that look pretty useful.

3. Develop a musical ear.

That might be a bit vague, but I'd say that developing an ear for music would be like developing an ear for the written language--as you read the latter, so you should listen to the former. A quick Google search for "public domain classical music" turned up tons of listening/downloading options, so go wild.

As far as which works to listen to, Naxos seems to have has a pretty good introductory page at

http://www.naxos.com/education/introduction.asp

The sidebar on the right has links to four "volumes" of works, plus other stuff.

4. Understanding written music.

You can easily find sheet music for the compositions linked above and read along while it's played. This would probably also help you train your ear to pick individual instruments out of a group playing at once (something my mother is completely unable to do; she can only hear the forest, not pick out the trees).

Hope this helps some.