Norton Manual of Music Notation (Paperback)

by George Heussenstamm (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From the Author
This book is essential for all composers and arrangers. My book covers all essential aspects of traditional music notation. My experience as a teacher of music theory at the college level has shown that students of composition are very weak in their knowledge of the rights and wrongs of music notation. My book serves to correct this fault in a clear and concise manner. Even for those composers who produce musical scores on a computer program, they must have a clear grasp of notational principles, since the computer does not know all of the rules. A score that is correct in every way in terms of notation is extremely important if you expect to receive performance. -- George Heussenstamm

Product Details

• Paperback: 176 pages
• Publisher: W.W. Norton & Co.; 1st edition (February 17, 1987)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393955265
• ISBN-13: 978-0393955262
• Product Dimensions: 10 x 7 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #294,837 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

39 of 39 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars I didn't find it that helpful, October 13, 2000

By	Dave Hollinden (Madison, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This book is essentially a primer on the basics of how to notate music by hand, meaning how to draw noteheads, space things, etc. It does not contain information on score layout, terminology, etc. that are also essential to notating a piece of music. For instance, it will tell you how to draw a fermata, but not the common practice rules for how and where it should appear in an orchestral score and parts. Since I was looking more for these specific rules rather than for the basics, I was disappointed with the book.

20 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars great, February 29, 2000

By A Customer

I found particulary useful the advice about how actually to draw musical symbols, and I enjoyed reading the chapter on "Popular-Music Notation", which really has to do with special notational practices for film, television, and recording session use,--although I happen to have no need for this sort of thing myself.

I have one small objection to lodge, however: the author uses the word "meter" through out to mean time signature. Though the distinction is moot in this context, at this stage of notation, it is important at an earlier stage of notation--that is to say, you need to understand the difference between "meter" and "time signature" in order to decide properly what time signature to use.

The distinction is analogous to that between "key" and "key signature". A key signature of two sharps, for example, tells us to sharp all F's and C's and only implies that we are in the key of D major or B minor. A tonal piece of any length and complexity will at some point change key without changing its key signature. Just so, a time signature of 3/4 tells us there will be three quarter notes worth of time in each measure and only implies that we will hear groupings of three beats or pulses. A piece of any length and complexity written will at some point change meter without changing its time signature.

19 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars friendly and indispensable, July 12, 1999

By A Customer

Everyone who writes down music needs to own a copy of this, not just composers and arrangers, but music students, copyists, transcribers, and so on. It is by far the clearest, most useful, and most practical book on the subject. It is not encyclopedic, though, so eventually you may need to supplement it with other books.

Also recommended: PENTATONIC SCALES FOR THE JAZZ-ROCK KEYBOARDIST by Jeff Burns.