Books on composing, orchestrating etc

I used the Adler book for my college orchestration class, and I found it quite useful, especially with the exercises. I'm looking forward to graduating and actually having money with which to acquire Fux' text, the Rimsky-Korsakov text, and others! But right now my main medium is piano, not orchestra, so it's not a huge problem.

Concerning the question if you should know the tradional rules of counterpoint, harmony etc.:

My teacher at school once said, "You have to know the rules before you can break them". How true it is!

I haven't read much into the music literature, but recently I bought "The Technique of Orchestration" by Kent Kennan. There might be better books out there that I don't know about, and there are certainly a lot of similar books, but this one seems to suit my needs.

...recently I bought "The Technique of Orchestration" by Kent Kennan....

I've used the Kennan as well - actually quite a good resource.

...

I've ordered 'The Study of Fugue' from Amzon, should be dispatched today I think :)

I need a recommendation for a good instrumentation/orchestration book. I've checked out reviews and stuff of the ones mentioned in this thread, but everyone seems to have diferent opinions about what's worthwhile. I'm a little familiar with both the Piston book and the Blater book, they both seemed pretty good, except Blatter didnt have that much on orchestration, and Piston was just a little too traditional for my tastes.

So what would be my best bet for something thats really up to date (as far as the instruments covered), deals well with both instrumentation and orchestration and maybe even has audio examples of whats covered??

Thanks

I need a recommendation for a good instrumentation/orchestration book. I've checked out reviews and stuff of the ones mentioned in this thread, but everyone seems to have diferent opinions about what's worthwhile. I'm a little familiar with both the Piston book and the Blater book, they both seemed pretty good, except Blatter didnt have that much on orchestration, and Piston was just a little too traditional for my tastes.

So what would be my best bet for something thats really up to date (as far as the instruments covered), deals well with both instrumentation and orchestration and maybe even has audio examples of whats covered??

Thanks

Why don't you START with "too traditional", learn how that works and THEN you will actually move on to "less traditional" on your own, without needing to get it from a book. You are trying to jump over a step in the learning process here.

Do you think Ravel orchestrated Portraits d'un exposition after reading a book?

N'uhuh.

He studied. Hard. And he wrote fugue exercises, and harmony exercises, and wrote a crapload of "traditional" stuff before getting to the point where he could DO what he did.

something thats really up to date (as far as the instruments covered)

I'm not intending on skipping traditional orchestration, but as for the instrumentation side of things, what I meant was I'd prefer something that includes more (eg 'newer' percussion, non orchestral instruments) rather than less (just the traditional orchestra).

So, is there such a book?

I highly recomend the Essential Dictionalry of Orchestration by Dave Black and Tom Gerou. It is a pocket book and a great resourse for ranges, tambre, , techneques etc. Its only $8 and you can get it at your local music store.

I just bought "Composing Music" by William Russo. Looks very good. Are there other books that are similar?

I just bought "Composing Music" by William Russo. Looks very good. Are there other books that are similar?

Bill Russo's great - wrote some of the Kenton band's greatest charts...

Haven't heard of this book though...is it jazz based or general 'music' stuff?

I have "The complete Idiots Guide to Music Composition" its really good.

i bought it at Boarders.

For instrumentation, the best is Alfred Blatter's "Instrumentation/Orchestration". (not so much on the orchestration, however)

Orchestration:

Adler (don't recommend much of his instrumentation "facts", there are many errors and misconceptions)

Forsyth (solid)

Kennan (solid, useful)

Persichetti (interesting, a little dry)

I can't stand the Piston book, and therefore don't recommend it.

Keep in mind that instruments have changed a lot in the past 50 years, so some of the information given for upper/lower ranges on instruments can be out-of-date or simply incorrect.

Can you give an example about the "facts" in Adler that are errered and miconcepted?

Persichetti's 20th century harmony (I assume you are talking about that), is more or less like a directory of different techniques, but very useful to get the hang of those, and many ideas...

On the lower range, I would assume, again, that in most cases things have not changed. The higher, of course, as techniques advance, but the lower? Flute goes down to C, or the B with the B foot, end of story, there's no lower. Brass have the funementals, and strings have set strings. Again, the higher, yes can be disputed, in most instruments, as things have advanced, but not the lower.

My opinion of course... :happy:

Can anyone recommend a book on harmony that goes beyond common practice? Piston does, but not in great depth, and I feel there's much more that I can learn about post common practice harmony. Maybe I should just get a book on jazz...

Try Schoenberg's Book, perhaps....though that might be a little too heavy :happy:

*runs and hides*

I must try him again actually, last time I heard some of his music the most modern stuff I liked was Beethoven ;) Maybe my ears will be more disposed towards him now :happy:

The following are books that I feel you must own.

Treatise on Instrumentation - Berlioz & Strauss

Harmony - Walter Piston

Study of Orchestration - Samuel Adler

Tonal Harmony - Stefan Kostka / Dorothy Payne

Elementary Harmony - Robert Ottman

Advanced Harmony - Robert Ottman

Musical Form and Analysis - Glenn Spring

Poetics of Music - Igor Stravinsky

Ornamentation in baroque and post-baroque music - Frederick Neumann

Steps to Parnassus; the study of counterpoint - Joseph Fux

A New Look at Sixteenth-Century Counterpoint - Margarita Merriman (By my composition teacher :D)

Teatise on Harmony - Rameau

That's all I can think of right now. I'm sure I will have more later.

Marvellous thread, people. I needed to get some books and didn't know where to start. Your collective thoughts have been most helpful.

Does anyone know where I can get the 6 Samuel Adler Orchestration workbook cds?

Hello. This is my first post so I thought I would post a useful post as a way to introduce myself. I hope I do not ruffle any feathers in posting this, because it may seem like a spam message. I found tons on music composition books on google. Harvard started scanning their library into electronic formats (PDF) and google took over (I think). Now many universities do this. Cool thing about it is that you can download the books whose copyright is up. You can also find sheet music and other stuff. Hope this helps some people, It has helped me. :)

here's a link.

http://books.google.com

Damn, if only the actual Stockhausen had been so helpful...

LOL:P

Hey, Stockhausen wrote some awesome texts about music. Definitely worth reading.

Hey, Stockhausen wrote some awesome texts about music. Definitely worth reading.

He was forced at gun point! I know, I was there.