Customer Reviews

Instrumentation and Orchestration

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

1) Just because one has written previous works on a subject does not invalidate further works and further revelations on the subject.

2) Every book ever published contains inaccuracies. I'd rather chance a few unimportant inaccuracies for the depth of information that the book does provide.

3) One of the great strengths of the work is its completeness and willingness to tackle instruments that have been largely ignored for many years. The percussion section of the book is worth the cost of the book alone. I'd prefer a text that at least attempts to present relevant information over a book that won't even acknowledge that the "non-orchestral" instruments exist. And really, if you are looking for more advanced information on string instruments, there is a lot already out there. The "glories" of string instruments have been sung before and will be sung again ad nauseum.

4) The fingering charts provide are a starting place to depart from. The woodwind charts, in particular are extremely helpful and very thorough.

The work may be lacking a little in techniques of Orchestration (though there are interesting exercises and basic information on the subject), but as an Instrumentation text, it is invaluable. It is a great look beyond the tired, overplayed orchestral warhorses and is a resource for the new and innovative composers/arrangers looking to escape the cookie-cutter writing emphasized by many texts. It's one of few works that can help you understand what you >can< do, and not what you >should< do (in the author's opinion)... two utterly different but oft-mistaken concepts. If you were to follow three-quarters of the orchestration texts out there, you'd never hear anything but the typical "violins on the melody, woodwinds in thirds, brass playing chords, percussion sitting on their duffs reading magazines" that the older texts ram down your throat.

An excellent and thorough work. But if you want highly specialized information, ask a performer... they are always the best of resources.

I have been a professional arranger/orchestrator for nearly fifty years. My copy of the first edition of this book, which I obtained in 1982, is well worn from constant use because it is the best source of accurate information about the widest variety of instruments.

Alfred Blatter understood what an orchestrator wants and needs to know about the capabilities and limitations of the instrumental forces. For students, this book provides reliable data on which they can build a useful and dependable knowledge base. For experienced writers, it is a superb source of reminders as well as information about some instruments for which one may not have previously encountered.

The book's fingering charts have often helped me make decisions about how a tricky passage could be made more comfortable for the players. Information about accessible ranges for student performers vs. those of professionals has also been of immense value to me.

In short, this book is an excellent reference work.

Instrumentation and Orchestration should be titled just "Instrumentation."

The book goes in depth on practically every instrument available, explaining each instrument's specal features. It demonstrates how to notate a "smack tone" for a double-reed, or a "mouthpiece pop" for brass. It does in depth on brass mute effects and multiphonics, it shows picture after picture of instrument families (in the case of the clarinets, it dipicts the A-flat soprano clarient to the B-flat contrabass clarinet, and everything in between, including the basset horn in F).

Instrumentation and Orchestration highlights almost every percussion instrument seen in modern ensembles,and includes an apendix with fingering charts for every instrument discused earlier in the book. It even has a section on the voice and choral arrangements.

But it contains only 5 short chapters on orchistration, somthing stressed in the title of the book. If somone is looking for a book on orchistration, this would not be the book to buy. It may be extreemely helpful in demonstrating every instrument's unique charactaristics and how to notate them, but I would caution anyone buying this book purely for orchestration.

This is absolutely the cat's meow in orchestration books: more thorough, more subtle, more current than anything else on the market. I keep it on my desktop at all times and give it as a present to other composers as often as possible. Think of it as the Bible of orchestration manuals.

A composition teacher recommended that I get this book and I'm rarely without it. It is a basic tome for all composers, regardless of caliber, as well as anyone remotely interested in the parameters of musical instruments.Along with being clear and concise, it also refrains from presuming proper aesthetic context with regard to musical aspects.

my freshman year of college at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, my composition teacher required me to buy this text. i've definitely not regretted it. i'm on my second copy of it, and any time i need to learn about something the book has served me just fine, and it works beautifully as a reference matieral as well. it covers from the most basic aspects of composition to the complexities of writing new music and writing for extended techniques. i can't live without this book - i use it every time i write. <and i do a LOT of composing.>

If you look at "Instrumentation and Orchestration"'s bibliography, you'll find a very long list of orchestration manuals. Another isn't really necessary, especially one as clumsily written as this other. (Cecil Forsyth's "Orchestration" and Walter Piston's "Orchestration" are among the most engagingly written of the books in this list. I recommend them both.)

It does try to distinguish itself by including instruments most orchestration books don't (because these instruments are not usually considered orchestral instruments). You'll find, for example, extended essays about the accordion and the toy piano. This fatuous attempt at all-inclusiveness comes at a price, however: relatively little is said about such mainstays as the cello.

Some inaccuracy or other appears on nearly every page. The charts at the back, particularly the string fingering charts, are fairly worthless. I can't imagine that anyone with some musical sophistication and a reasonably developed ear for language would prefer this orchestration manual.

The author should have actually said this is a book on instrumentation. There are few samples of orchestration and nothing as helpful as a CD of samples. For orchestration you should look elsewhere. For instrumentation it is fairly useful but it does contain errors, one of which is the listed transposition for the Alto Saxophone, which is wrong. One would hope that if someone puts out a book on instrumentation that the basic facts would be correct. Perhaps talking to an instrumentalist would be more useful but the section on the strings is quite decent.

As others have already stated, This is an excellent text on instrumentation - information about any instrument you're liable to encounter. Octave ranges, tunings, fingering charts, myriad examples of techniques particular to varied instruments used in scores - generally anything you would want to know about instrumentation without actually learning how to play all the instruments discussed. By comparison, the orchestration chapters are a little thin. Of course, it could be argued that orchestration/arranging is a more or less intuitive skill that can be honed by studying the full scores of others - however, a more in-depth resource for orchestration/arranging is probably out there. But again, an excellent reference manual for instrumentation. it is a little on the expensive side for what you get, as it is a textbook.

This book is very informative. The only draw back is that there are no listening examples with cds. The information contained is still extremely useful or as good as the Samuel Adler book.