Can anyone recommend a book on music theory?

[Scribble R]

It's annoying that I find it difficult to articulate my thoughts on music. I want to be able to do it at least at a basic level.

Any recommendations?

[D.K.Liu]

Hi Scribble R, I don't know if I can help you since my knowledge of music theory is also quite lacking. I say this in the following context: in most areas of human endeavours, knowledge/skill levels are probably better measured in logarithmic scale, e.g. the skill of someone at level 3 is a hundred time that of level 1. While I might seem knowledgeable to someone at level 1, I'm easily dwarfed by many others.

I do have an interest in music theory however: I read stuff here and there on the internet, and I try to do aural training by learning to sing/recognize intervals, chord progressions, transcribe melodies (usually just in the head: melody -> do, re, mi).

What kinds of "thoughts on music" do you want to express? Do you want to write down music you are composing/hearing in your head? Do you want to talk about song structure? Do you want to talk about the psychological aspect of music (e.g. the effects of certain patterns, pitch combination)?

In any case, the internet is our friend. Maybe try out Google scholar. I found the following article/documents, which I haven't read yet but seems interesting. This document is from the course outline of some high school, it's got information on the textbook they are using. Here are some (1, 2) academic article on the social and pscyhological aspect of music.