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/lit/ - Literature

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17809147 No.17809147 [Reply] [Original]

How many books do I need to read on average to have an undergrad understanding of a small topic?

I don't mean an entire field like math, art, music, but a small subset of that field, like Harmony in music.

So far I've read a concise introduction of tonal harmony and I plan on reading XX century harmony, but I'm not sure how many more books do I need to read on harmony.

>> No.17809159

>>17809147
>How many books do I need to read on average to have an undergrad understanding of a small topic?
12

>> No.17810115

>>17809147
If its for something like harmony, you'll need to do more than read. Same goes for most topics; the purpose of undergrad is to get some hands on experience, make some connections, and learn how things work in your field of choice. Ignoring the connections, listen to various kinds of harmonies until you "get" how each one is (sorry, I don't really know much about music, OP), and you'll probably want to read ~4 books on harmony and 1-2 on theory more broadly, provided you're speaking the average undergraduate experience. The reason you'd have to read 4 books on harmony is because
1. You won't get the repeated specific exposure you'd get in a class
2. You won't need everything in each book, but one book alone, or even two, won't generally suffice, especially given that there's multiple types of harmony
The number of books also changes depending on your topic of choice. The more hands on experience that you won't be able to get, the more books you'll have to read.

>> No.17810457

>>17809147
Most undergrads don't even read dude, they read excerpts

>> No.17810498

>>17809147
>undergrad understanding
0 books. You'll reach undergraduate understanding levels even faster by only skimming power points and emailing depressed graduate students about poor grades.

>> No.17810698

>>17809159
Came here to post this exact number. Twelve books.

>> No.17810713

>>17809159
I disagree. I'd say 6. 12 is a bit of an overkill. Good luck digging through shit to find even 10.

>> No.17810723

if you need more than 3 books of rules and exercises, you're not gonna make it

>> No.17810734

Computer Science grad here. In this field, just studying a single good textbook on a specific subject (like the books of A. Tanenbaum) will give you a better grasp of it than the average CS undergrad. You will obviously lack practice, though.