I want to learn theory, composition, and how to play piano and sight read
 

Book recommendations?

I'd particularly like to understand polytonality- Bartok, Stravinsky. How they wrote what they wrote, why it works.

I'd like to understand as much about music as I can. What's the difference between polytonality and polyphony? What's a fugue? That type of stuff.

good questions.

LOL I love yr new fuppets pic

Alfred's theory books are easy to understand and very informative. Melodia is a great book to learn sight singing.

Fugue: when you escape from home.
In music: when you escape from the standard of music (maybe).

Don't take this the wrong way, but the below is a really good one. By the time I read it, I'd cobbled together a lot of theory from odds and sods of other things, so it wasn't much use to me, but as a starter-for-ten, it would've saved me a lot of time.

Also, you don't want to start messing around with fugues - that's dark magic that stuff.

and i definitely wouldnt start with polytonality until you understand the basics of tonality/harmony/counterpoint...
but ill try to explain a few things...
i recently learned and analyzed like polymodal bartok stuff, from the mikrokosmos. it isnt that complex to understand. it is to play and compose but theorywise its basically two voices playing in different modes so you have a diferent tonality in each voice.
but then again his larger works and stravinsky's are much more complex than that...
polyphony is just more than one voice going on. homophony is one voice, like gregorian chant. homophony is all the voices moving together. its a kind of polyphony,because the voices are singing different notes but they are moving together rhythmically.
so this is a polyphonic texture
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_vEuRykohM
this is monophonic
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRLIz897DzY
and homophonic
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08Hb0e9cIS0

a fugue is kind of difficult. but basically there is a theme that is played then it is played in another voice usually in the dominant, i think, while the first voice plays something else. once it goes through all the voices that are in that fugue then the exposition is over and it develops the theme by inverting it and playing different episodic motivs.
that might have somewhat made sense, or be as the brits would say complete and utter shite.

if i were in israel i could explain it better because i would have my notes with me.


if you are interested in harmony than aldwell and scahcter's book "harmony and voice leading" is generally considered the bible of harmony to some.
and i think adwell also wrote a book on counterpoint.
i havent read the music theory for dummies, but it probably explains things better than i do.

Herr Fan, a question - has anyone really written any decent fugues ever, except for JS Bach?

InB4 D Scarlatti.

"I got blisters on my fingers!"

I learned theory, how to play piano and sight read in a music school in 6 years. I'm not sure that's the kind of answers you're looking for though :D

Sight read is really easy though.

um im not familiar with too many fugues other than his. i know bartok has some fugues that are supposed to be good.
and there are great fugual (sp?) passages in peices. the real question is does anyone need decent fugues except for those of JS Bach?
as long as no one writes anything as terrible as this ever again i will be happy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6hQnBc5sQU&feature=fvw

I always find it funny for something so crucial to music history, fugues are basically synonymous with JS Bach and no-one seriously bothers with them otherwise. I mean, I'm probably wrong, I'm sure there's some lovely fugues out there (I have enjoyed the odd Scarlatti fugue) but there's a really disproportionate importance to actual use ratio with fugues.

Didn't Rainbow do a fugue once?

I don't exactly want to write fugues so much as comprehend them

Fugue, you.