ABSTRACT

Music Fundamentals: A Balanced Approach, Third Edition combines a textbook and integrated workbook with an interactive website for those who want to learn the basics of reading music. Intended for students with little or no prior knowledge of music theory, it offers a patient approach to understanding and mastering the building blocks of musical practice and structure. Musical examples range from Elvis Presley songs to Filipino ballads to Beethoven symphonies, offering a balanced mixture of global, classical, and popular music.

The new edition includes:

  • Additional vocabulary features and review exercises
  • Additional musical selections and 1-, 2-, or 3-hand rhythmic exercises
  • The addition of guitar tablature

  • A revised text design that more clearly designates the different types of exercises and makes the Workbook pages easier to write on

  • An improved companion website with added mobile functionality

The author’s balanced approach to beginning music theory engages student interest while demonstrating how music theory concepts apply not only to the Western classical canon but also to popular and world music. With the beginner student in mind, Music Fundamentals: A Balanced Approach, Third Edition is a comprehensive text for understanding the foundations of music theory.

chapter 1|45 pages

Basics of Pitch

chapter 2|26 pages

Basics of Rhythm

chapter 4|25 pages

Accidentals

chapter 5|34 pages

Rhythm: Simple meter expanded

chapter 6|27 pages

Major Scale

chapter 7|28 pages

Major Scale Key Signatures

chapter 8|33 pages

Rhythm: Compound Meter

chapter 9|36 pages

Minor Scale

chapter 10|37 pages

Intervals

chapter 11|26 pages

Triads

chapter 12|22 pages

Rhythm: Compound Meter Expanded

chapter 13|16 pages

Triads: Roman Numerals

chapter 14|28 pages

Inversions of Triads

chapter 15|18 pages

Seventh Chords

chapter 16|30 pages

Form in Music