Milner Harmony Class Teaching Book.1

Composer, conductor and educator Anthony Milner taught music theory at Morley College in London (Gustav Holst and Sir Michael Tippett have been Directors of Music there, among others), followed by positions at London University, King’s College London, Goldsmith’s College and the Royal College of Music. His music Voice has been described as ‘orderly but impassioned’ which can also be said of his pedagogy.This short – 54 pages – book studies music of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, from Bach to Beethoven, as an easy starting point for understanding of theory and harmony. Milner believed that the best method of teaching harmony was one-on-one at the Keyboard, but devised this book for an academic year’s class work as the next best option. The teaching is unassailable, though it is Milner’s own Voice that seasons the text with sound advice and gives the book is personable flavour. Of eccentrically personal music notation, he says, ‘Writing [music] is a means of communication, not of character portrayal. Write clearly.’Of the narrowness of the material covered, ‘Let the knowledge of one small part of music be…a gateway to the love and understanding of the rest.’ Milner is a practical, characterful colleague in the teaching of music theory.