Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

This is a good series if you are trying to learn music theory. The material is well organized, and clearly explained. Anyone can learn the essentials of music theory from these books. Unfortunately, the material is available in so many formats, you can get lost trying to figure out which version to buy. 1st up, you can buy 3 separate books. Since each book is only about 40 pages long, this really doesn't make that much sense. Also, you are going to want the ear training CDs. There are only 2 CDs for the 3 books. and you have to buy them as a complete set. So, you want to buy all the material at once. That brings us to this collection, which contains the text from all three books, but lacks the CDs. As I mentioned, the CDs are available separately, but if you could buy the book plus the CDs as a single package, you could save a little bit over purchasing both items separately. But, where is this all-in-one package? You might expect this to be called "Alfred's Essential of Music Theory Complete (Books 1 - 3 plus Ear Training CDs)." Alas, it is not. It's called "Alfred's Essentials of Music Theory: A Complete Self-Study Course for All Musicians (Book & 2 CDs)", and you can find it on Amazon here: http://www.amazon.com/Alfreds-Essentials-Music-Theory-Self-Study/dp/0739036351/ref=sip_rech_dp_10 This version also appears to have the Answer Key (which you would have to purchase separately, for even more money, if you wanted to check the answers to the quizzes). I say "appears" because I foolishly purchased this version of the product, along with the separate CDs. But glancing at the Table of Contents of the other edition has convinced me that it includes the Answer Key as well. To summarize: this material is well worth buying, but there are too many ways to purchase it. Do yourself a favor, and buy the Complete Self-Study Course, not this edition.