Edward Aldwell, Carl Schachter, "Harmony and Voice Leading" (repost)

"The Exercises are first rate."

"The Exercises are also extremely good. In many chapters there are more lengthy exercises than most instructors could possibly use, but it's nice to be able to choose the ones one likes best."

"I consider HARMONY AND VOICE LEADING to be without question the preeminent harmony book on the market today. … It offers instruction on a high musical and intellectual level that does not condescend to students, but rather encourages growth in the subject that is both rapid and profound."

"(I use HARMONY AND VOICE LEADING because of) … the marvelous organization of the material; the authors' impressive mastery of the material; the musicianly quality of the presentation, which conveys the necessary information very effectively…but never mechanically; the high quality of the exercises and excerpts for analysis, which are thought-provoking for the teacher as well as the student; and the extremely well-chosen musical examples."

"The concepts are approached from a musical standpoint as I mentioned earlier. In addition, the coverage is incredibly thorough and logically presented. My personal favorite is that the homework exercises are largely compositional in nature, as opposed to 'fill in the blank' harmonic exercises. I believe that through composition and melody harmonization students best learn harmony and voice leading principles. Most importantly, through composition, students will make the transition to counterpoint studies more easily."

Edward Aldwell received his bachelor's and master's degrees from The Juilliard School where he studied piano with Adele Marcus. He studied theory and analysis privately with Carl Schachter and later with Ernst Oster. He has been a member of the Techniques of Music department at Mannes since 1969 and a member of the piano department since 1973. He has taught theory at The Curtis Institute of Music since 1971 and is currently Chairperson of the theory department. He has given recitals and master classes throughout the United States as well as in Israel, England and Germany, many of them devoted to the works of Bach. Recordings include both books of THE WELL-TEMPERED CLAVIER, GOLDBERG VARIATIONS and FRENCH SUITES OF BACH, as well as works of Hindemith and Fauré.