Schoenberg worked on this text as part of his work with students at UCLA. He worked on it until his death in 1951 and had revised it several times. It is meant for students of composition rather than general music students studying form. The terminology is often Schoenberg's own and he, of course, has many interesting and strongly held views and approaches. It is not a text on twelve-tone composition, but of traditional and classic forms.

It was written in English rather than Shoenberg's native German, but he had the help of this volume's editor, Gerald Strang. In this edition, many of Schoenberg's specially composed examples were replaced by examples from the literature and the proprietary examples moved to the volume "Structural Functions of Harmony". This is meant to serve as a very fundamental discussion of these matters for students who are thinking about becoming composers.