Customer Reviews

The Study of Orchestration

5 star:		(28)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

I've used Adler's Study of Orchestration (2nd ed.) each time I've taught orchestration, and the quality of the text coupled with the CD examples make it by far the best standard orchestration text I've seen. That the reader is able to hear not only examples taken from music, but also able to compare various spacings, doublings, and orchestrations of even single chords is invaluable. As I tell my students, it's not so much who is playing a line, it is who is playing a line in a given place--and the only way to learn what an instrument sounds like in its various registers is to hear it there. Especially helpful are passages like Adler's discussion of woodwinds in the symphony orchestra (Chapter 8) in which several possible orchestrations of a single musical passage are illustrated, discussed, and presented on CD, allowing readers to recognize and judge for themselves the relative quality. It is this, that much in orchestration is not particularly wrong or right, and that there are many many ways to score a particular passage, that makes orchestration so difficult to teach; and Adler is sensitive to the issue.

But any book of this scope is likely to have some problems, and this is no exception. I'll mention only two that have struck me in particular as a trombonist, neither of which are particularly serious in and of themselves, but whose presence is at best unwelcome and perhaps even somewhat distressing in a textbook.

First, Adler's discussion of the trombone glissando (chapter 10) is inadequate and separated by several pages from his discussion of the overtone series as it relates to the trombone. Given that the way a trombone glissando works is inseparable from the overtone series, this seems strange indeed. The situation is compounded by Adler's example from Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra, of which he says "The following glissando, first for the bass trombone, then for the tenor, is perfect, since it extends from seventh to first position." Any trombone player will tell you that in fact Bartok got it wrong, and the bass trombone glissando is impossible without doing some serious cheating. On the bass trombone using an attachment in F or E one can only play a perfect 4th, not a tritone, in that particular harmonic; and bass trombonists have come up with all kinds of ingenious tricks to play this devilish passage which looks so easy to the ill-informed. It is FAR from perfect. While this little quirk of the trombone isn't really very important in the grand scheme of orchestration it makes me wonder how many other instrumental quirks have gone unnoticed.

More important, however, are some oddities of Adler's observations and discussions of the examples he chooses. In chapter 11, in the unit on the brass choir as a homophonic unit, Adler exerpts a passage from Hindemith's Noblissima Visione. He describes the passage as "a 'dark' doubling" and ascribes this to the fact that "neither the trumpets nor the horns ever go too high." Later he seems to contradict himself. "The brilliance of this passage as it is scored comes from the unison of the horns and trombones rather than of blaring trumpets." Never mind the prejudicial "blaring" (surely a trumpet can be played in the high register and sound brilliant without blaring); which is it--brilliant or dark? Try as we might, neither my students nor I can ever hear this as "dark". At best, the last measure of a five measure passage might be considered so because of the low register, but in fact the trumpets, horns, and trombones all do go fairly high in one of the preceding measures. If one fifth of a passage is sufficient to consider the entire passage "dark", why isn't one fifth of the same passage sufficient to consider it "bright"? Adler goes on to say "If Hindemith had wanted an extremely bright sound, he could have transposed it up a third or a fourth and had the trumpets and the horns at an extremely high register." Well, no....the passage is not complete in itself, but part of a larger piece--a passacaglia, no less. In order to transpose the passage, Hindemith would have had to either transpose the entire movement (which would in turn have required a transposition of the entire piece in order to keep the same key relationships) or have written some modulating passage--unimaginable in a passacaglia. It is simply wrong to consider that transposing a particular passage is an acceptable way to orchestrate "brightness" or "darkness" without regard to tonal relationships of the whole. That is not to say that the passage could not be brighter or darker, but to do so with orchestration requires dealing with the instruments and their registers, not the pitches. If Hindemith had omitted the horns in the first 4 measures, then brought in horns and omitted trumpets in the final 5 notes, perhaps even putting the first trombone up an octave on those notes the passage would have been significantly brighter. There is even more that is problematic about this discussion--in fact it seems the most poorly argued in the book, but I believe I've made my point.

However, as a classroom tool, The Study of Orchestration is as yet unequalled, and examples like the Hindemith allow the careful teacher the opportunity to develop the students' critical and analytical skills. The workbook has its own problems, which I won't discuss here, but the book and CD are well worth repeated study and thought.

A couple of people asked me to tell them what I thought of the book (and cd's) once I got them so I thought I would share a couple of things I discovered. Hopefully this will help someone out, somewhere along the way.

I have no classical training in music at all so I can't give an indepth analysis of the information presented. I can offer my impression on how the information is presented though, from my "non-trained" point of view.

The book is generally straight forward and easy to understand. I find it to be intelligently written and thoughtfully layed out. This book does assume some prior knowledge of music though. I have never actually learned to read music so for some exmaples I had to dig out an old school book on music theory.

The accompanying CD's are professionally produced and have great examples of different playing techniques and the like.

A couple of things that irked me though; No matter what CD you want to look at (there are 6) You first need to load up CD no6 and sit through the intro. From there you are presented with a main menu. If you want to look at strings it will pop up a message saying; "Please insert cd no-1" There is no way around this. This becomes annoying as the cd's are clearly marked with their content. You know that percussion is on disc 4 but you still have to go through the procedure described above, each and every time.

The intro features what looks like a student orchestra playing a short piece. This is interesting enough to watch the first few times but becomes downright annoying after that. There is no option to skip the intro which is a big mistake in my book. I studied multimedia at college and some of the things mentioned above were specifically what we were told NOT to do when producing a CD ROM.

Another interesting point to note; Throughout the book it shows examples of music and different playing techniques. In the book, next to an example it will have wording like; CD1/Track 4

For a while I assumed these were music tracks in the CD Rom production itself. On closer inspection though, there was no track listing of songs at all. I loaded a cd into my computer and browsed it's contents. There was one folder called "videos" and nothing else. I was starting to think that they had made a mistake and not included the audio tracks at all. I then went to folder options under windows and selected "show hidden files and folders" - still nothing.

Finally, as a last resort, I opened up Windows media player and clicked on the cd. Suddenly 97 untitled tracks of audio appeared. I clicked on the first one and a voice said; "Chapter 3, Example 1" (or words to that effect. I'm at work at the moment) Suddenly the book took on a new dimension. Every example I had been reading through had an audio example backing it up. I am now starting back at the beginning of the book to hear exmaples of what I have been reading this whole time.

The other main gripe is that it is almost impossible to tell at Amazon or anywhere else whether or not you get the book when you purchase the cd's. You don't. I bought the cd "package" and after a week received nothing but the cd's themselves. I had to place a second order for the hardcover book.

Hopefully my trials and tribulations will save someone else some time and heartache. I should say, I am really impressed with the book and cd's for the sheer amount of information contained in them. THe ability to hear audio examples of what I am reading really blows me away too. I just think some refinement needs to be done on the integration of the cd's and the book, and the presentation of the information.

Regards, Scott.

"The Study of Orchestration" is a well-composed instructional course for the composer or music student. Samuel Adler's detailed considerations of such concerns as string harmonics, woodwind keying difficulties and the inclusion of good representitive musical examples make this a book worth having. My only realy problem with the work is that, in writing it, Mr. Adler apparently felt a need to include instruments about which he knew very little. The section of the book on plucked strings (which rarely appear in orchestras, to be fair) includes a poor overview of the classical guitar, a very bad example of "typical" music written therefor (extremely difficuly fingerings and using an improper clef) and an incorrect range (a standard classical guitar can play a fifth higher than the author says). The section on the banjo is at times quite inaccurate with regard to the instrument's use, standard tuning, range and nomenclature (Adler uses the term "tenor banjo" to describe a five-string banjo, but they are entirely different creatures, the former being a four-string instrument tuned c-g-d'-a' like a viola).

Plucked strings aside, I would highly recommend this text. Just please ignore the sections listed above, or you may make a guitarist quite unhappy come concert day.

An essential reference tool for the Composer and Orchestrator - I've read it cover to cover, and dipped into it for information almost every week. This orchestration text works exceptionally well with the accompanying set of 5 CD's and Workbook. This is the more expensive package, but it will literally last a lifetime. With the CDs, you gain an aural idea of the sound or orchestral phenomenon that the musical examples and wording is trying to explain. For the young composer, this is a wonderful thing, as it builds up a collection of sounds in the imagination with which to compose, like a palette with which to paint. The Study Of Orchestration has up-to-date orchestral technique, including comprehensive natural harmonics charts for strings, a contemporary notation guide; giving possible notation for microtones, distortion, white noise, and 'highest point on a string'-noteheads, etc.

Most of the instrumentation examples and orchestral extracts have a corresponding CD track, an immediate education for your musical ear. The 5 CDs make this book unique. I especially value this book for its Natural Harmonics charts which give the required string, node and resultant pitch for Violin, Viola, Violoncello and Double Bass. I consult these charts all the time.

Buy this book, (and the CD's if you can afford them).

This book is very well done. It can be used as a reference, or as an orchestration course (with the CDs and the workbook). Musical examples are wide in scope and musical styles. I really recommend buying the CD set: most of the musical examples have been specially recorded for this book (good quality + instrument choirs & registers isolated from the rest of the orchestra).

Know what you're ordering. Even though almost every customer review cites the importance of the CD's, the CD's do not come with the book. The Amazon page does not make this clear. You have to search for and order the "Book with CD" option. To make things even more confusing, the page dedicated to the CD's (for $78) does not show a picture of the book. Surely the CD's alone don't cost this much. Don't be like me - be smart and make sure your order states "book with CD's".

I own the 3rd edition of this book and thought I'd chime in on some of the inaccuracies of the book coming from the perspective of a woodwind specialist as well as a composer.

Inaccuracies in the discussion of the Oboe family:
"The baritone oboe, sometimes called the bass oboe, has the same range and transposition as the heckelphone and a very similar sound;" Umm, well, if you're partially deaf or otherwise impaired, it might be a true statement that they sound similar. Also, the hecklephone has a range to low A, while the baritone oboe only has a range to low B... which makes the statement "All parts may be performed equally well on the bass oboe" patently inaccurate.

Inaccuracies in the discussion of the Clarinet family:
The book indicates in its diagram that E is the lowest note of the bass clarinet, with optional extended range to E-flat or D, but the text refers to extensions to E-Flat or C. However, all modern bass clarinets are constructed to have a range to E-flat, with extended instruments playing to C. Likewise, the section on the Alto Clarinet in E-flat indicates that E is the lowest note of the alto clarinet, but all modern alto clarinets are constructed to have a range to E-flat. Finally, to round out the misinformation of the clarinet family, the book indicates that the Contrabass Clarinet in Bb has a standard range to low D, but all modern BBb contrabass clarinets are constructed to have a range to E-flat, with extended instruments playing to C.

Inaccuracies in the discussion of the Saxophone family:
The book does not mention the low A extension for baritone saxophones, used on virtually all professional and even intermediate models. The book also discusses, misguidedly, the F sopranino saxophone, an instrument not available today, and frankly doubtful that it was *ever* really available or used.

The has a decent foundation of knowledge but comes off as very dated. In particular, I personally dislike the author's tendency to restrain instruments to cliched uses, for example, his admonishment: "If one elects to use an alto flute, one should certainly exploit its lower register, for the regular flute and piccolo are capable of covering the upper part of the register as adequately." Or in the case of the contrabassoon: "Even though many composers have asked contrbassoon players to play in the instrument's higher (and even in its highest) register, this takes the instrument out of it's most characteristic range and makes it just another bassoon, a little weaker and paler than its relatives". This strikes me as very old fashioned and rather simplistic. His suggestion would be like indicating that the cello covers the low range of the viola quite well and the violin covers the upper range of the viola, so you shouldn't use violas. Or perhaps: the violin covers the upper register of the cello quite adequately, so the cello should only be used on its lower three strings.

Thankfully composers have ignored that pathetic line of reasoning... we'd have much less beautiful music if that were the case.

I'd look forward to another, less dated, more accurate text. Probably from another author.

I bought the main text, the workbook and the cd's and then took a college level orchestration course as an independent study. I got good marks in the course and needed minimal help from my professor. The cd's are worth it because standard repertoire is used, allowing you to easily remember concepts by recalling familiar works.

After reading a section, doing the related workbook exercises and listening to examples, I felt well prepared for each meeting with my prof. The only thing that bugged me was the author's somewhat slavish (IMHO) devotion to Gunther Schuller.

I studied classical piano and composition myself for most of my life and have professional degrees in both. When I write my music, I need to look up stuff now and then, or brush up my knowledge. This book is perfect for this! I wish I had bought it years ago.

I have used Adler for many years, though several editions. It is a great orchestration book for the beginner and the experienced orchestrator alike. Very easy to read and well organized, I feel it is one of if not the best orchestration text on the market to date.