What I'm reading:)

To further my knowledge of my topic, I've picked out books about music theory. To start with I have begun Basic Music Theory: How to Read, Write, and Understand Music, written by Jonathan Harmun. I hoped this book would show me the in depth details on the most basic music theory. I also hoped this book would give me a little insight on different instruments. So far this book has delivered on the first and not yet on the second. When I started, I was disappointed on just how basic this book was, but then I discovered some little things I never thought about when I first learned music basics. For example, this book taught me what modes (different types of scales) are, which is the kind of simple thing that I had never known. The book confirmed that it is necessary to start at the beginning and be thorough even if it seems to easy. In the first chapter of the book the author goes into the history of music, which surprised me. I had never really thought about early or different* styles of music notation. It was eye opening and made me what to research this more. I was also a little surprised how much I already knew. This leads me to believe that I should move on to more complicated books when I finish with this one. A couple things I absolutely loved about this is that it is so crystal clear and the layout has review sections at the end of every chapter. I would recommend this book to those who really need basic roots or who want to teach others. 

A picture of the book from the author's website 

http://www.allabouttrumpet.com/BMT/

* If you want to take a look at some of these styles

Music notation in general: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/

Musical_notation

John Cage (wrote in a different style a lot): http://en.

wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Cage

Early notation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neume or

http://www.bandnotes.info/tidbits/notation.htm