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Modulation: Book

$7.95 USD
$7.95 USD
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Modulation: Book

Modulation: Book

By Max Reger

Item: 06-45732X
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Description
Modulation---the change from one key to another---is a subject of critical importance to performers and composers in their study of harmony. Reger wrote this concise guide to modulation while teaching composition at Leipzig Conservatory, and the work continues to provide valuable insights and instruction for musicians at all levels. This new edition features newly engraved musical examples.

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Additional Details
Series: Dover Edition
Publisher: Dover Publications
ISBN10: 0-486-45732-X
ISBN13: 978-0-486-45732-1
UPC: 9780486457321
SKU: 06-45732X

More about this title

About the Author: Max Reger

Max Reger (1873, 1916) was a German composer, organist, and teacher whose prolific output spanned nearly every musical form except opera. His deep grounding in Bach and the Romantic tradition shaped a compositional voice marked by dense counterpoint, harmonic invention, and structural rigor. At Leipzig Conservatory, where he taught composition from 1907 onward, Reger distilled decades of creative practice into pedagogical works designed to strengthen young musicians' command of harmony and form.

Reger's teaching materials remain vital precisely because they emerge from a working composer's perspective. Rather than abstract theory, he wrote from the vantage point of someone who had wrestled with modulation across hundreds of compositions. His students and readers benefited from that lived experience, and contemporary musicians still do.

Why we love this

Reger's guidance cuts through the fog that often surrounds harmonic modulation. Written by a composer who used modulation as a structural and expressive tool, this book approaches the subject with clarity and musical purpose rather than mere rule-making. The newly engraved examples make the concepts visually accessible without sacrificing the sophistication of his thinking.

Who it's for

This text serves composition students, theory instructors seeking authoritative source material, and any serious musician wanting to understand how composers navigate key change with intention. Directors building out their staff library will find it invaluable for referencing when coaching students through harmonic analysis.

How to use it

Use this as a core text in upper-level theory or composition courses, or assign relevant sections when students encounter modulation in the scores they're studying. It pairs naturally with score study of Reger's own works, which demonstrate his principles in action.

Skills your students will build

  • identifying pivot chords and common-tone modulations
  • understanding chromatic and enharmonic routes between keys
  • analyzing modulation in Romantic-era scores
  • composing smooth transitions between tonal centers
  • recognizing modulation as structural and rhetorical device

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