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In Praise of Caplin !

ed buller

Senior Member
It's a big meaty book But I really recommend it for those studying music. Bizarley the idea of melodic structure being analyzed to any great degree was very late in coming. This book really is beautifully written, easy to digest and has examples on a webpage you can access (without buying the book !)
Amazon product ASIN B00HFPV37M
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website:

https://www.music.mcgill.ca/~caplin/analyzing-classical-form.html

I'd recommend THIS version over the previous.



Ryan Leech has many videos that address the core principles:





There is a great interview with Caplin here:


Simply put the knowledge acquired form this book will really help you write melodies. You'll also get a firm grasp on how they can be manipulated.

worth every penny.

best

ed
 
It's an excellent book. If you have an academic inclination, the audience for the first book is scholars of music theory. This book is the pedagogical version of the first, with updates in some of the nomenclature, and the all-important website. Its major drawbacks are the very large size and the very limited repertory (just Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven). (The first book is tighter but has the same issue with narrow repertory, and the two books share about 2/3 of the examples.)

I personally find Caplin a better base for understanding classical era sonata form than Hepokoski and Darcy and would definitely recommend anyone interested in classical form tackle Caplin before H/D.
 
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