This manual includes in an improved and supplemented form the "Notes for the teaching of Mandatory Harmony" that I have been giving to my students for many years in the form of photocopies of manuscripts. These notes have been widely circulated outside the framework of the Athens Conservatory, and many times I have been encouraged to proceed with a more systematic edition of them. Because I considered and still consider that the publication of another Harmony book would have nothing new to offer in our time, knowing, however, that the existing manuals are intended, with few exceptions, for the teaching of "special harmony", I preferred to gather in this work what is needed for the "Mandatory" Harmony course to the extent that:

a) equips the music student-performer with the terminology and basic knowledge he will need to meet the requirements of the Music Morphology course and the harmonic analysis needs of the works he is going to perform, but also:
b) prepares the student-theorist by providing him with a first, as good as possible, acquaintance with the material he will need for the continuation of his studies in the "Special" and generally in the Higher Theoretical courses.

The fact that this is a manual of "mandatory" harmony basically means that there are no detailed historical and physical analyses of the harmonic phenomenon. Interested parties can refer to a plethora of good harmony books that are available. However, issues that (rightly or wrongly) are not much discussed within the framework of the "mandatory" course, such as extended tonality with dominant and modulations, altered chords as an alternative dominant, pedal, escape, imitation, etc., without being exhausted, are addressed to the extent that they will help the interested student to better understand what he is doing and to have an (even limited) idea of these issues when he encounters them later in his musical studies. The teacher can judge in what of all these he will expand more, and what he will bypass.

The notes on which the book is based come, in turn, from the notes I kept as a student of the Academic Mr. Menelaos Pallantios, from the harmony manuals of Th. Dubois, P. Hindemith, and M. Kalomoiris, from the teaching of the late G. A. Papaioannou, from my constructive collaboration with K. Klavvas, as well as from my twenty-five years of teaching experience. The examples are my own.

In the distribution of the material, the order of the book "Harmony Topics" by M. Kalomoiris - Ph. Oikonomidis is followed, which, in my opinion, has significant pedagogical value. At the end of each chapter, the corresponding topics that the student must solve are mentioned. For greater clarity, the page numbers of the Kalomoiris - Oikonomidis book are marked in bold italics. The solution of odd-numbered exercises is not included in the mandatory harmony, at least at the Athens Conservatory. However, basic instructions are given for dealing with them. After completing the material each year, I present General Topics that I have written either for annual exams or for use in class. Also, exam topics from the Athens Conservatory from much earlier years (1953 and earlier). [...]

(from the author's preface in the 1st edition)