Learning about modern music

I really like "modern" sounding music, stuff like Messiaen, Takemitsu, Bartok and w/e. I know a fair amount about traditional harmony and theory but when it comes to music like that I have no idea whats going on. Where can I learn more about modern harmonic language. God bless

Another book I'd strongly recommend is Vincent Persichetti's '20th Century Harmony'. It details all of the important harmonic practises of the first half of the 20th century, covers modal writing, polytonality, serialsm, quartal/secundal harmony, polychords, and heaps of other stuff it'll take me ages to get through :D.

Paul Hindemith also wrote a textbook called The Craft of Musical Composition, though as I understand it, it's very strongly oriented toward his ideas about music, which were very specific and unwavering, so it might not be exactly what you're looking for.

*Run-on sentences ftw*

Another book I'd strongly recommend is Vincent Persichetti's '20th Century Harmony'. It details all of the important harmonic practises of the first half of the 20th century, covers modal writing, polytonality, serialsm, quartal/secundal harmony, polychords, and heaps of other stuff it'll take me ages to get through :D.

I'm currently going through this book with my composition professor and I love it. It explains techniques from the bare essentials to the really advanced very eloquently and from the perspective of an artist...I really like the little exercises at the end of each chapter too! Great book.

Henry Cowell also wrote a great book "New Musical Resources" which is now a little bit outdated, but it's really accessible and easy to read. It doesn't analyze too much music per se, but it poses a lot of theoretical questions that were major issues in the early and middle 20th century.

I know for a fact that this book is available for free online at ubuweb.com: http://ubuweb.com/historical/cowell/Cowell-Henry_New-%20Musical-Resources.pdf

Really, for modern music, your best thing is to listen. If you hear something, even if it's not really there (like a motif or something), it'll enhance your understanding. The next best thing, especially with living composers, is to read interviews; it's best to hear stuff from the horse's mouth in a way that's meant to be easily understood (spoken word).

I'm currently going through this book with my composition professor and I love it. It explains techniques from the bare essentials to the really advanced very eloquently and from the perspective of an artist...I really like the little exercises at the end of each chapter too! Great book.

Hell yeah, though the exercises are obscenely difficult :D

Hell yeah, though the exercises are obscenely difficult :D

Uh-oh...I'm not that far into it yet...we'll see what happens later this semester.:whistling:

Dolmetsch Online - Music Theory Online - Music of the 20th Century

Guess how I bumped into that link..

By googling "20th century music theory"

:whistling:

There is also Persichetti's book, which has already been mentioned, and also books by composers themselves, as someone pointed out about Messiaen before (but you can find books by Xenakis, Stockhausen and many many others about their music).

I think your best bet would be to read Paul Griffiths' "Modern Music and After: Directions since 1945", or Nyman's "Experimental Music: Cage and Beyond", which give two nice summaries of the avant-garde and the experimental developments of music respectively. Of course, these books are not the only ones, but they're pretty damn good :)

Thanks a lot everyone!

i have a book by david cope, i think it's called 'techniques of the contemporary composer' that is quite nice, gives a short survey of different types of contemporary composition..