The Complete Musician

An Integrated Approach to Theory, Analysis, and Listening

Fourth Edition

Steven G. Laitz

Focuses on music in context, describing composers' works and disussing how theory concepts developed through music
Presents an outstanding quality, quantity, and diversity of exercises geared toward real music and real music situations
Includes almost 4,500 musical examples from the common-practice repertoire and nearly 20 hours of streaming music, performed by the students and faculty of the Eastman School of Music

New to this Edition:

Coverage of twentieth-century and contemporary music theory to meet the needs of professors who want to integrate post-tonal music into their courses
A consolidated introduction to fundamentals at the beginning of the book
Enhanced pegagogy and design, including: a new two-color design; New Chapter Openings featuring Chapter Overviews; Additional subheads; and End-of-chapter Review Questions
300 new exercises and examples accompanied by recordings provide additional emphasis to help students and teachers focus on key concepts
An expanded Companion Website at www.oup.com/us/laitz now includes streaming audio for nearly all examples and exercises plus supplementary drill exercises
The accompanying Anthology contains eighty-four complete scores, many of which are newly recorded and available on the Companion Website

The Complete Musician

An Integrated Approach to Theory, Analysis, and Listening

Fourth Edition

Steven G. Laitz

Description

Beginning with music fundamentals, The Complete Musician covers all the topics necessary for a thorough understanding of undergraduate music theory by focusing on music in context. Rather than rote learning of concepts and memorizing terms, The Complete Musician emphasizes how theory informs the work of performers. Composers respond not only to their instincts, experiences, and training in every work they write; they also follow certain ideals and models when appropriate, and modify them to fit their own personal vision. Theory is not a "theoretical" activity; it is a living one that responds to how music is composed and performed. Understanding how theory intersects with composition and performance is key to seeing its relevance to students' wider musical lives. The Complete Musician makes this connection.

Previous publication dates

April 2011, June 2007, March 2003

The Complete Musician

An Integrated Approach to Theory, Analysis, and Listening

Fourth Edition

Steven G. Laitz

Preface

Part 1: The Foundations of Tonal Music
Chapter 1A: Musical Space
Chapter 1B: Musical Time: Pulse, Rhythm, and Meter
Chapter 2: Harnessing Space and Time: Introduction to Melody and Two-Voice Counterpoint
Chapter 3: Musical Density: Triads, Seventh Chords, and Texture

Part 2: Merging Melody and Harmony
Chapter 4: When Harmony, Melody, and Rhythm Converge
Chapter 5: Tonic and Dominant as Tonal Pillars and Introduction to Voice Leading
Chapter 6: The Impact of Melody, Rhythm, and Meter on Harmony; Introduction to V7; and Harmonizing Florid Melodies
Chapter 7: Contrapuntal Expansions of Tonic and Dominant: Six-Three Chords
Chapter 8: More Contrpuntal Expansions: Inversions of V7, Introduction to Leading-Tone Seventh Chords, and Reduction and Elavoration

Part 3: A New Harmonic Function, The Phrase Model, and Additional Melodic and Harmonic Embellishments
Chapter 9: The Pre-Dominant Function and the Phrase Model
Chapter 10: Accented and Chromatic Embellishing Tones
Chapter 11: Six-Four Chords, Revisiting the Subdominant, and Summary of Contrapuntal Expansions
Chapter 12: The Pre-Dominant Refines the Phrase Model

Part 4: New Chords and New Forms
Chapter 13: The Submediant: A New Diatonic Harmony, and Further Extensions of the Phrase Model
Chapter 14: The Mediant, the Back-Relating Dominant, and a Synthesis of Diatonic Harmonic Relationships
Chapter 15: The Period
Chapter 16: Other Small Musical Structures: Sentences, Double Periods, and Modified Periods
Chapter 17: Harmonic Sequences

Part 5: Functional Chromaticism
Chapter 18: Applied Chords
Chapter 19: Tonicization and Modulation
Chapter 20: Binary Form and Variations

Part 6: Expressive Chromaticism
Chapter 21: Modal Mixture
Chapter 22: Expansion of Modal Mixture Harmonies: Chromatic Modulation and the German Lied
Chapter 23: The Neapolitan Chord (bII)
Chapter 24: The Augmented Sixth Chord

Part 7: Large Forms: Ternary, Rondo, Sonata
Chapter 25: Ternary Form
Chapter 26: Rondo
Chapter 27: Sonata Form

Part 8: Introduction to Nineteenth-Century Harmony: The Shirt from Asymmetry to Symmetry
Chapter 28: New Harmonic Tendencies
Chapter 29: Melodic and Harmonic Symmetry Combine: Chromatic Sequences

Part 9: Twentieth and Twenty-First-Century Music
Chapter 30: Vestiges of Common Practice and the Rise of a New Sound World
Chapter 31: Noncentric Music: Atonal Concepts and Analytical Methodology
Chapter 32: New Rhythmic and Metric Possibilities, Ordered PC Relations, and Twelve-Tone Techniques

Appendices
Appndix 1: Invertible Counterpoint, Compound Melody, and Implied Harmonies
Appendix 2: The Motive
Appendix 3: Additional Harmonic-Sequence Topics
Appendix 4: Abbreviations and Acronyms
Appendix 5: Selected Answers to Textbook Exercises

Glossary

Index

The Complete Musician

An Integrated Approach to Theory, Analysis, and Listening

Fourth Edition

Steven G. Laitz

Author Information

Steven G. Laitz is chair of the Music Theory and Analysis department at The Juilliard School and Professor of Music Theory at the Eastman School of Music. He serves as Director of the Gail Boyd de Stwolinski Center for Music Theory Pedagogy at the University of Oklahoma and Executive Editor of Music Theory Pedagogy Online.

The Complete Musician

An Integrated Approach to Theory, Analysis, and Listening

Fourth Edition

Steven G. Laitz

Reviews and Awards

"The best book on the market. It has a superior balance of basic and complex concepts, terms, exercises, and examples." - Peter Susser, Columbia University

"I love teaching out of The Complete Musician." - Don Traut, University of Arizona

"The Complete Musician provides a more holistic approach to theory than other texts. This text will absolutely help students' performing abilities and how they approach and understand music." - Alex Nohai-Seaman, Suffolk County Community College

"This text is comprehensive, extremely thorough, and sophisticated." - Jeffrey Loeffert, Oklahoma State University