The Berklee Book of Jazz Harmony | Jazz Music Theory Workbook for Composition and Improvisation | Jazz Book with Sheet Music for Intermediate Players | All Instruments Study Guide Paperback – August 1, 2013

It's almost inconceivable to me that for less than $30, you can learn this much about jazz harmony, a notoriously complex and difficult discipline of music theory. I saw another very visible review say that there was no way to hear the examples without playing them on a piano, but that's not true, as Hal Leonard hosts recording of the tracks on their website which are accessed by a code found in the very first page of the book. Additionally, I had no trouble finding ways to play the examples on guitar, and felt like I was able to understand the material based on this alone.I'm only on page 84 (beginning of chapter 4), but this book is very dense, and it takes a very long time to work through the examples and properly understand the material in a way that becomes second nature. You end up with a very thorough understanding of the elements of jazz harmony, with a basis in major key harmony. I've learned about secondary ii Vs and subVs before reading a page about minor key harmony, but I like this approach, as it provides a simpler foundation for understanding these more complex topics.All in all, I haven't made it through the entire book yet (and won't for a good while), but I feel that everything I've learned in the first third of the book was worth well more than $30. So I would definitely recommend.

This book will help you understand the theory behind the jazz harmony. You will need to have a basic understanding of music theory and harmony to read this book (from notes, scales and tonality to voice leading)

This text is excellent.

I am currently a senior in high-school. My freshman music fundamentals teacher originally got me interested in theory, and hence got me interested in learning about music. I then took a music theory class my junior year, where I later developed a need-like passion to learn about Jazz and it’s remarkable use of harmony. So today, with covid going on, and my passion for learning about jazz still roaring, I bought this book. I have just started it, I’m at the end of the introduction pages, and I’ve already learnt a lot more about music, even down to the phrasing. (For example, I’ve always seen and been curious about the meaning of tensions, and with this book I have finally been able to understand tensions, with the help of the example used in the book as-well: B7(b9,#11,b13) (apologies if that sentence was wordy.)) Even though I am just starting out the book, and I can tell it is a phenomenal book, (that with the right willpower and background knowledge on theory,) WILL ENHANCE my understanding on Jazz, and further enhance my passion for music!

I will preface this review by saying I'm not a music student or a professional musician. I'm just a guy who wants to learn about playing jazz guitar. I do have a reasonable background in music theory and can read music (if you can't read music this book is definitely not right for you). I don't play piano.That said, I found this book interesting and densely filled with information. It is well organized and presented in a way I could understand. I learned a lot by going through the entire book, but in the end, it probably wasn't the right book for me.The book is called "Jazz Harmony". and that is truly what it is about. If you want to write music, this understanding of harmony will really help you. It certainly can also help someone who wants to learn to improvise, but more in the sense of understanding which scales could be used to create lines around harmonic structures. The book doesn't delve into creating lines or how melody emerges from harmony, so it didn't give me great insight into improvisation. I have to emphasize that a more experienced musician may be able to make those kinds connections and I may just not be at that point my my development.One other very important point to make is this book contains hundreds of musical examples. I don't think anyone can work through the book without hearing the examples. As I said at the beginning of this review, I'm not a pianist. Most of the examples don't appear to be particularly difficult to play on the piano. It was possible for me to pick them out on a keyboard, but it was such a slow process, that I was not able to hear what the examples really sounded like - I needed too much time to go from chord to chord in a progression and I'd forget the sound to the previous chord. The chords and scales were too complicated for me to play on the guitar, so I resorted to re-creating each example using a piece of software meant for writing guitar music. This took a huge amount of time, but in the end it enabled me to hear the examples. The bottom line is unless you can play piano, you will need to figure out a way to hear the examples or play them on your instrument because just reading about them isn't sufficient to understand them.In summary, this is an excellent book for someone who wants to understand jazz harmony. It is not a book that intends to teach improvisation. And unless you already know how to play piano at more than a beginner level, you will need to come up with a way to hear the examples. I'm glad I completed studying the book, but in the end I don't think it helped me with improvisation.

I wish I had read this book 30 years ago. Thank you for making this available to us. I have been studying theory all of my life as a hobby and weekend musician. Since covid have been just studying jazz. This is bring it definitely to the level I have been wanting. Very clear and in depth study. I am in the process of studying it and memorizing everything. Awesome!!!

There's a lot to take away from this book if you're an intermediate music dude.Each chapter is a different existing idea in jazz that's worth writing down outside the book to look into via youtube or wherever else. However, even without other sources(for me anyway) i was able to understand the ideas clearly. ideas which i'm very grateful for.secondary/extended dominants, tritone subs, modal interchange, constant structures, diminished chord functions. Really Cool Stuff.my one critique i guess is that it's kind of hard to get passed the heady/indulgent vernacular. the worst is in the beginning and it just feels like the authors are actually trying to avoid giving these ideas to folks outside academia. just feels like that anyway, might be reading too much into it.i'm self taught when it comes to theory stuff and if you think you wanna try to discipline yourself, this book can help. i recommend it.