Books on Music Harmony

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📖 POEM: A Song for St. Cecilia's Day, 1687

From harmony, from Heav'nly harmony
This universal frame began.
When Nature underneath a heap
Of jarring atoms lay,
And could not heave her head,
The tuneful voice was heard from high,
Arise ye more than dead.
Then cold, and hot, and moist, and dry,
In order to their stations leap,
And music's pow'r obey.
From harmony, from Heav'nly harmony
This universal frame began:
From harmony to harmony
Through all the compass of the notes it ran,
The diapason closing full in man.

What passion cannot music raise and quell!
When Jubal struck the corded shell,
His list'ning brethren stood around
And wond'ring, on their faces fell
To worship that celestial sound:
Less than a god they thought there could not dwell
Within the hollow of that shell
That spoke so sweetly and so well.
What passion cannot music raise and quell!

The trumpet's loud clangor
Excites us to arms
With shrill notes of anger
And mortal alarms.
The double double double beat
Of the thund'ring drum
Cries, hark the foes come;
Charge, charge, 'tis too late to retreat.

The soft complaining flute
In dying notes discovers
The woes of hopeless lovers,
Whose dirge is whisper'd by the warbling lute.

Sharp violins proclaim
Their jealous pangs, and desperation,
Fury, frantic indignation,
Depth of pains and height of passion,
For the fair, disdainful dame.

But oh! what art can teach
What human voice can reach
The sacred organ's praise?
Notes inspiring holy love,
Notes that wing their Heav'nly ways
To mend the choirs above.

Orpheus could lead the savage race;
And trees unrooted left their place;
Sequacious of the lyre:
But bright Cecilia rais'd the wonder high'r;
When to her organ, vocal breath was giv'n,
An angel heard, and straight appear'd
Mistaking earth for Heav'n.

GRAND CHORUS
As from the pow'r of sacred lays
The spheres began to move,
And sung the great Creator's praise
To all the bless'd above;
So when the last and dreadful hour
This crumbling pageant shall devour,
The trumpet shall be heard on high,
The dead shall live, the living die,
And music shall untune the sky.

John Dryden

Books On Music Harmony

Read and learn about music harmony.

📖 "We have learned to express the more delicate nuances of feeling by penetrating more deeply into the mysteries of harmony."
Robert Schumann

📖 "Learn the fundamental principles of harmony as soon as you can. Do not be afraid of the words theory, thoroughbass, counterpoint, etc. they will become your friends if you become theirs."
Robert Schumann

📖 "Harmony alone can stir the emotions. It is the one source from which melody directly emanates, and draws its power."
Jean-Philippe Rameau Observations sur notre instinct pour la musique (1734)

📖 "In Western harmonic language … contrary to other musical languages, a sound is practically never understood as a pure sound, but as an extract of a group of sounds called a chord, expressed or implied, from which it draws its meaning…. It is the relation of this chord with those around it that constitutes the essential element of musical syntax."
Jacques Chailley Historical Treatise of Harmonic Analysis

📖 "The ability to see and understand the harmonic implications in music is important for performers in at least two ways: (1) readers who quickly grasp the harmonies implied in a passage can use that information to facilitate their performance, and (2) readers who take harmonic implications into account can produce more musically meaningful performances. In fact, musically convincing and satisfying performances of tonal music depend heavily on performers' abilities to think and act harmonically. Performances without a sense of harmonic motion are lifeless and uninteresting, devoid of one of the most essential elements of tonality itself. Performances that incorporate the logic and emotions of harmonic change and progression are cohesive and compelling."
Gary S. Karpinski Aural Skills Acquisition. The Development of Listening, Reading, and Performing Skills in College-Level Musicians

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Books on Music Harmony

Books On Music Harmony

Harmony in French

Harmony in German

Lectures on Music Harmony