This is not your average music theory textbook!

In thirteen easily digestible chapters, author and composer David von Kampen highlights the most useful and practical music theory topics that educators, conductors, composers, and performers actually encounter in their everyday musical careers.

Using music examples from a variety of styles and time periods—everything from Bach and Mozart to Stevie Wonder and Taylor Swift—this book brings a fresh perspective to the traditional music theory curriculum and expands into related topics relevant to today’s musicians, including lead sheets and chord symbols, basic jazz harmony, chord progressions, reharmonization, and advice for composers and arrangers, among others.

Some of the topics in the book are addressed at length in traditional theory classes, while others are often not included in theory classes (but should be).

With its conversational tone and clear explanations, this book is the perfect supplement to an undergraduate music theory course and is a must-have reference for middle and high school music teachers, church music directors, composers and arrangers, conductors, and even gig musicians.

Whether you loved or hated your college music theory experience, this book is for you!

David von Kampen is a lecturer of music theory and literature at the University of Nebraska. He is active as a conductor, pianist, and clinician, and has composed works in a variety of styles and genres, including jazz, choral music, hymnody and liturgy, solo voice, chamber music, and musical theater. He holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Kansas.