Good Books on Orchestration?
  • Susdem
    Posts: 12
    Hi all,

    I have some talented trumpet players in the parish. I also have some talented string players. I would like to write some instrumental parts incorporating both for some Masses of Thankgiving that we will be having in May (a parish son and a seminarian assigned to our parish are both being ordained in May). I've written a ton of string parts so feel very comfortable writing parts for just strings but am new to doing anything for trumpets or anything that would include both so am looking for some good books on orchestration. Any suggestions?

    Thanks in advance.

    Susan
  • CHGiffenCHGiffen
    Posts: 5,276
    Walter Piston's book "Orchestration" was always my go-to source for orchestration. It's been scanned and is available at:

    https://hugoribeiro.com.br/area-restrita/Piston-Orchestration.pdf

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  • probe
    Posts: 82
    There are free tutorials which I have seen other people recommend: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSt_ZRe_mla4tRgYC_GNElQ
    OrchestrationOnline
    Free online tutorial for the craft of orchestration.
    Thanked by 1Susdem
  • Susdem
    Posts: 12
    Thanks! I ordered a used copy of the Walter Piston book since I like hard copies of stuff but will definitely be using the pdf in the meantime and listening to the online tutorials.
    Thanked by 1CHGiffen
  • CGM
    Posts: 790
    Other books that you can order hard copies of, linked here in PDF versions:

    1. Treatise on Instrumentation, Hector Berlioz, revised & enlarged by Richard Strauss

    2. The Study of Orchestration, Samuel Adler

    3. Orchestration, Cecil Forsyth
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  • Richard MixRichard Mix
    Posts: 2,935
    It's unclear what you want to orchestrate. If you just want music with string plus trumpets accompaniment, Mozart has already done the work for you.
  • Jeffrey Quick
    Posts: 2,228
    Adler is great. Forsyth is great for strings (notsomuch winds and percussion), and as a history of orchestral instruments. Plus he's funny; he's to orchestration as Thomas Morley's Plain and Easy Introduction is to practical music theory ca. 1600.

    Mostly you're looking at instrumentation as opposed to orchestration per se; a small church ensemble doesn't have a lot of opportunities in blending and color. A couple of quick precepts though:
    1. Any time a string instrument doubles a brass instrument, it's a waste of a string instrument.
    2. Don't be literal. It's really easy to look at an organ part or voices and say, "This part fits this instrument, so we're home free" when that might not be the most effective thing to do. I had a course once where we had to orchestrate piano pieces that their composers had orchestrated. We'd be assigned a passage, given the instruments that the composer used, and a few hints, and then be on our honor to not look at the composer's version. It was mind-blowing. You probably don't want to add real harmonic material (maybe in a hymn) but look at texture and doubling in a free way. Try to tease out the composer's intentions and implement them with the new possibilities.
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  • Charles_Weaver
    Posts: 172
    I second Jeffrey's assessment of Forsyth. I stumbled on it in Dover paperback early in life when I knew nothing and I still think it's a good read just for history etc.
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  • Jeffrey Quick
    Posts: 2,228
    Mon chère maitre Bill Bolcom wrote the preface to that Dover edition.
  • Richard MixRichard Mix
    Posts: 2,935
    I was just reminded of this thread by part of an interview with Garrick Ohlsson.
  • RomanticStringsRomanticStrings
    Posts: 349
    I wanted to suggest Elaine Gould's Behind Bars: The Definitive Guide To Music Notation, but it seems to be pricey and actually a reference for notation and complex orchestral techniques.

    Nevertheless, I didn't want my 10 minutes of research as I tried to remember the name of the book and its author, which I heard some years ago in an online hangout with orchestrators and arrangers, to go to waste.
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  • Charles_Weaver
    Posts: 172
    Gould's book is excellent for those interested in engraving: an honorable task and extremely important. Good engraving can save loads of precious rehearsal time. The converse is also true, as I often find to my shame when I rely on crummy cpdl editions rather than making my own or finding reliable sources.

    I first came across Gould during the development of Dorico, since the developers constantly cited it as the basis for their decisions and innovations.
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  • CHGiffenCHGiffen
    Posts: 5,276
    Gould has been an invaluable asset for engraving scores.
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 3,332

    The converse is also true, as I often find to my shame when I rely on crummy cpdl editions rather than making my own or finding reliable sources.


    Do I introduce more errors? Maybe; I hope not. Is the best layout? Probably not, though I try to let the software do its thing before I adjust it. But I at least have a reason for doing what we do; between textual issues, spacing, stuff like the way that so many older editions of the first wave of software engraving leave bar lines running over lyrics, making my own edition is compelling. Now if I can read learn to read part books…
  • Jeffrey Quick
    Posts: 2,228
    if I can read learn to read part books…

    Just do it! A simple summary by Ross Duffin is here. Start with Counterreformation music: it's usually duple, and the occasional triple sections do easy and predictable things. Ligatures are usually c.o.p. (easiest kind), text underlay is mostly done for you. If you start with a choirbook, it's harder to get out of alignment, since the parts must align at the page turns. Start with editing, since it isn't in real time, and when you become comfortable with the symbols, try to find similarly minded friends for reading.

    The triple prolations can be wicked, esp. in bad manuscript. You are not going to have fun with the Trent codices.

    On the topic of cpdl editions: they're often the perfect storm of not knowing the musicological niceties, and not being good with the notation program (or the notation program not being good yet). And often, the better the pdf, the worse an .mxl export can be, because the various kludges to make the program do what it was not designed to do, do not carry over into .mxl, because they're program-specific. I just did verses for the Rockstro Allegri (we'd been doing non-Rockstro, but a high C has Just emerged from my group), and in the .mxl, every word in the chanted bits was separated by a comma, as if the creator couldn't or didn't know how to create a hard space.
    Thanked by 1MatthewRoth
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