Ashley, for starters, there is a pretty good interactive, free site on the internet: http://www.musictheory.net. I think that would be a good place to start. For a while I used the Bastien (for piano) theory books with my harp students. They have 5 levels: Primer, Level 1, level 2, level 3, and level 4. After that, there are 3 levels of Intermediate Theory, also by Bastien (These are all published by Neil J.Kjos Publishing, somewhere in California. I like this workbook style because you write the answers right in the book, rather than just reading a lot of text. The first correct answer is given, printed in gray instead of black, to help you get the other ones right. Then, a few years ago, a harpist published a good set of workbooks: Theory at the Harp, by Kathy Bundock Moore, in 4 levels. The answers are given on pull-out pages at the back of the book. This series is better, for 4 fingers instead of five. If you finish these four, you can go further by using the Bastien Intermediate Theory books.

I’s recommend The Idiot’s Guide to Music Theory. It might be the “Fir Dummies” version instead, I don’t remember which publisher makes thus one, maybe both. They’re very good at breaking everything down and explaining it in a straightforward manner and in an order that helps build knowledge. I had a decent background in theory but bought a copy to learn more about some types of scales and some other concepts and remind me which mode is which, plus understand some of the more complex chords better. It evetually gets into fairly complex material, but you just go as far into as you need to, since it builds on what it has already covered and doesn’t bring up anything before it has covered the concepts you need to understand it.

Ashley, regarding the Moore theory book series, I use them for lever as well as pedal harp students. There are just a few pages to ignore, with pedal information, and lever harpists who finished all four books were well equipped, I found. Those who later acquired pedal harps found that those skipped pages formed a good introduction to pedals, and were glad of the workbook-style of writing directly into the book and then checking their answers at the back. It saves their lesson time, to have this information about footwork at the harp, and also how it is indicated on printed pedal harp music, in print rather than only given verbally by the teacher.

Hi,

Cindy Blevins has a new book out called “Harp Sense”