Instrumentation
Recommended Books
In the print Music Collection, books on instrumentation can be found in ML 455 and MT 70 and include historical and contemporary technique manuals presented from practical, aesthetic, and scientific perspectives. Be sure when searching to explore related concepts like orchestration, arrangement, and transcription. For resources on instrumentation in a jazz context, see the page Composition and Arranging at the Jazz Guide. The recommended books below are sorted by their call numbers. Hover over the info icon to see a description of the book.
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Liszt as Transcriber
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Using a host of interdisciplinary methods and primary source materials, this book provides a comprehensive survey of Liszt's lifelong involvement with the transcription, in which he assumed the roles of composer, collaborator, propagandist, commemorator, philosopher, and artist while simultaneously disseminating - often critically - the music of Beethoven, Berlioz, Schubert, Wagner, and other eighteenth- and nineteenth-century composers. By recognizing transcription as an extraordinarily flexible tool for Liszt and his contemporaries, Liszt as Transcriber provides numerous musical, cultural, and historical contexts for this fundamentally important practice of the period.
Call Number: ML410.L7 K84 2010Publication Date: 2010 -
West Side Story, Gypsy, and the Art of Broadway Orchestration
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In this ground-breaking study, Paul Laird examines the process and effect of orchestration in West Side Story and Gypsy, two musicals that were among the most significant Broadway shows of the 1950s, and remain important in the modern repertory. Drawing on extensive archival research with original manuscripts, Laird provides a detailed account of the process of orchestration for these musicals, and their context in the history of Broadway orchestration. He argues that the orchestration plays a vital role in the characterization and plot development in each major musical number, opening a new avenue for analysis that deepens our understanding of the musical as an art form. The orchestration of the score in Broadway musicals deeply shapes their final soundscapes, but only recently has it begun to receive real attention. Linked by a shared orchestrator, in other ways West Side Story and Gypsy offer a study in contrasts. Breaking down how the two composers, Leonard Bernstein and Jules Styne, collaborated with orchestrators Sid Ramin, Irwin Kostal, and Robert Ginzler, Laird's study enables us to better understand both of these two iconic shows, and the importance of orchestration within musical theatre in general.
Call Number: ML455 .L35 2022Publication Date: 2022 -
Orchestration: An Anthology of Writings
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By collecting writings from the ninenteenth century to today, Mathews illuminates how orchestration has grown and developed, as well as presenting a wide variety of theories that have been embraced by the leading practitioners in the field. The collection then traces the history of orchestration, beginning with Beethoven's Orchestra (with writings by Berlioz, Wagner, Gounod, Mahler, and others), the 19th century (Mahler, Gevaert, Strauss) the fin de siecle (on the edge of musical modernism; writings by Berlioz, Jadassohn, Delius, and Rimsky-Korsakov), early modern (Busoni, Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Grainger, and others), and high modern (Carter, Feldman, Reich, Brant).
Call Number: ML455 .O73 2006Publication Date: 2006 -
Voice Leading: The Science Behind the Musical Art
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Voice leading has long been taught with reference to Baroque chorale-style part-writing, yet there exist many more musical styles and practices. The traditional emphasis on Baroque part-writing understandably leaves many musicians wondering why they are taught such an archaic and narrow practice in an age of stylistic diversity. Huron explains how and why Baroque voice leading continues to warrant its central pedagogical status. Expanding beyond choral-style writing, Huron shows how established perceptual principles can be used to compose, analyze, and critically understand any kind of acoustical texture from tune-and-accompaniment songs and symphonic orchestration to jazz combo arranging and abstract electroacoustic music. Finally, he offers a psychological explanation for why certain kinds of musical textures are more likely to be experienced by listeners as pleasing.
Call Number: ML3836 .H87 2016Publication Date: 2016 -
The Study of Orchestration
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Through two highly successful editions, The Study of Orchestration has set the standard for orchestration texts, providing the most comprehensive treatment of both orchestration and instrumentation. The Third Edition retains the elements that have made the book a classic while embracing new technology and responding to the needs of today's students and teachers.
Call Number: MT70 .A3 2002Publication Date: 2002 -
Instrumentation and Orchestration
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An accessible and complete introduction to writing and scoring music for each instrument of the orchestra. Clear explanations, vivid descriptions of various instruments, expert advice, and numerous musical examples to maximize the student's understanding of concepts being presented. A valuable resource and reference for students in their future professional endeavors, this text maximizes its usefulness beyond the classroom.
Call Number: MT70 .B56 1997Publication Date: 1997 -
Berlioz's Orchestration Treatise: A Translation and Commentary
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Berlioz's Orchestration Treatise is a classic textbook which has been used as a guide to orchestration and as a source book for the understanding both of Berlioz's music and of orchestral practice in the nineteenth century. This was the first English translation of Berlioz's complete text since 1856, and it is accompanied throughout by Hugh Macdonald's extensive and authoritative commentary on the instruments of Berlioz's time and on his own orchestral practice, as revealed in his scores. It also includes extracts from Berlioz's writings on instruments in his Memoirs and in his many articles for the Parisian press.
Call Number: MT70 .B4813 2002Publication Date: 2002 -
Textures and Timbres: An Orchestrator's Handbook
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Henry Brant’s new guide to orchestration is, in fact, the result of his lifelong work as a conductor, composer, and teacher; its first page written in the 1940s, and its final page written in 2005. In observation of other orchestration texts throughout his life, Brant realized that many were incomplete, in that they gave instructions based on hoped-for evocations of mystic visions rather than the actual, practical qualities of instruments. Textures and Timbres focuses on the study of acoustic instrumental tone-qualities, offering comprehensive systematic procedures for balancing and mixing them, both in harmonic and linear contexts. The lessons and inspiration shared in this text span Brant’s entire career, from his work in commercial radio to his orchestration classes at the Juilliard School and orchestrations of numerous Hollywood film scores.
Call Number: MT70 .B72 2009Publication Date: 2009 -
The Technique of Orchestration
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The emphasis is on the practical fundamentals of orchestration. The Sixth Edition has been expanded and revised to reflect new developments in instruments and orchestral practice, and a new listening compact disc has been added that contains selected examples of orchestration. A short chapter on scoring for high school orchestras, and information on non-orchestral instrumental groups, including the band and the wind ensemble. As a reference on the practical fundamentals of orchestration.
Call Number: MT70 .K37 2002Publication Date: 2002 -
The Art of Digital Orchestration
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The Art of Digital Orchestration explores how to replicate traditional orchestration techniques using computer technology, with a focus on respecting the music and understanding when using real performers is still the best choice. Using real-world examples including industry-leading software and actual sounds and scores from films, VR/AR, and games, this book takes readers through the entire orchestration process, from composition to instruments, performance tools, MIDI, mixing, and arranging. It sheds light on the technology and musical instrument foundation required to create realistic orchestrations, drawing on decades of experience working with virtual instruments and MIDI. Bringing together the old and new, The Art of Digital Orchestration is an excellent resource for anyone using software to write or compose music.
Call Number: MT70 .M35 2021Publication Date: 2021 -
Orchestral Combinations: The Science and Art of Instrumental Tone-Color
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This resource seeks to demonstrate what specific instrumental combinations have intrigued composers of the past and present and to suggest other groupings that may prove to be of equal validity and tonal interest. The book is designed to be a thesaurus of orchestral combinations, a lexicon of the science and art of fusing timbre and sonority in symphonic scoring. Few standard manuals devote such attention to this fascinating question as it directly relates to the imaginative deployment of the orchestral instruments.
Call Number: MT70 .R368 2004Publication Date: 2004 -
Principles of Orchestration, with Musical Examples Drawn from His Own Works (eBook)
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"To orchestrate is to create, and this cannot be taught," wrote Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov, the great Russian composer whose genius for brilliant, highly colored orchestration is unsurpassed. But invention, in all art, is closely allied to technique, and technique can be taught. This book, therefore, which differs from most other texts on the subject because of its tremendous wealth of musical examples and its systematic arrangement of material according to each constituent of the orchestra, will undoubtedly be of value to any music student. It is a music classic, perhaps the only book on classical orchestration written by a major composer.
Call Number: Project Gutenberg OnlinePublication Date: 2010
Interlibrary Loan
Users are encouraged to search for items beyond University Libraries' catalog via RILM Abstracts of Music Literature and WorldCat. Materials not available in print or online may be requested through Interlibrary Loan. Please allow up to seven days for electronic delivery and up to fourteen days for delivery of physical items.