Harmony, melody & composition Book

While there is definitely a lot to be learned from this book, it won't suffice just reading it. Playing or listening to the examples and analysing them (within the context of the work and by putting thought into it) is crucial to get the most out of it.

The main focus of the author are van Beethoven's piano sonatas, although he does draw from other common practice repertoire in order to illustrate approaches to writing themes and to explain forms.

I would, however, not recommend taking anything as gospel; The claim, for example, that the inversion, retrograde and retrograde inversion of a theme are considered "exact repetitions" of a motive is ridiculous, especially as the author defines exact repetitions as those preserving all features, which would imply that direction of melodic movement and orientation are of no relevance.