Joseph Schillinger's two thick books entitled 'The Schillinger System Of Musical Composition' are important reading, if they're still in print, providing the reader can disregard the naïve, 'brave new world' positivism that was characteristic of the period. There's much to be gained from Schillinger's very different approach as he explores the essence of musical resources that affect musical expression, irrespective of style or genre. In my opinion, Schillinger was more sinned against than sinned -he had an impressive list of students, including George Gershwin. He lost support because of his attempts, in his other works, to quantify so-called creativity by rendering it to be mathematically determinable. Of course, in principle, we might (might) be able to do this if we were able to quantify not only melody, rhythm and harmony but also the subtle nuances of expression. In fact, one of the most interesting aspects of these volumes is the section dealing with the serial development of rhythm.
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