This book provides a simple and easily-comprehensible introduction to the basic elements of tonal harmony. The confusing multiplicity of rules in conventional harmony textbooks are replaced here by a manageable number of basic principles, whose reasons are concisely explained. Everything is based on what actually happens in music rather than on academic abstractions.At every stage examples and exercises are included. The author, a successful and much-recorded composer, taught for 40 years in higher education, initially at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music but for the most part at the University of Hull. This book provides an invaluable basic teaching resource for schools, music colleges and universities alike.