# To those who read the "study of orchestration"



## merlinhimself (Dec 2, 2016)

I'm going to start at ucla soon, but want to get a head start on studying. I've had this book for awhile and brushed through it, but for those who have gone through it fully, are there any chapters or ways you'd recommend going through it without a teacher? 

The reason I ask.is I also have a book on modalogy, I read the entire thing but felt like I didn't understand a bit of it. A friend who went to Berklee saw i had it and said it's impossible to understand without the help of a teacher.


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## JohnG (Dec 2, 2016)

Hi there,

If you are talking about Adler's book, the answer is a qualified "yes." It's very straightforward and workmanlike. I qualify the answer by saying that you probably will get a lot more out of it if you can read music with some fluency, both bass and treble clef. I assume if you're going to UCLA, you can!

Congratulations and good luck!

Kind regards,

John


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## wst3 (Dec 2, 2016)

Interesting question!

Not sure there is an easy answer... but let's try.

I've read "Study of Orchestration", I assume you mean Adler. I had guidance from a teacher, and yeah, it helped, but for me the real key was listening as I read. I think I would have gained some insight without a teacher. It isn't really "out there", it's a pretty basic (well it gets advanced) framework for orchestrating a melody.

There are books that are out there - and a book on modalogy might qualify. Once again I'm not sure everyone must have a teacher to guide them, but it certainly doesn't hurt.

One of the biggest advantages of a classroom setting, formal or otherwise, is that it helps you focus. There are theory books on my shelves that I haven't finished because I didn't find them all that interesting, and no one made me<G>. I've revisited some of them over the years, and sometimes I've discovered I probably should have been a little more disciplined.

My field of study was physics (long story skipped), but I didn't even figure that out till the end of the first year of 'pre-med' studies. In order to try to catch up I tried to read the general physics textbook over the summer. Some folks might have pulled that off, but I needed a teacher to (a) keep me on track, and (b) explain concepts that weren't entirely obvious in the text. I've got a book on quantum physics and another on electricity and magnetism on my shelf. There are, I'm sure, people who could teach themselves with these books, again I wasn't one of them.

I'd guess the number of folks that can learn by themselves from any of those books is very small.

I'd further guess that the number of folks that could teach themselves elementary harmony or basic orchestration is orders of magnitude larger. Among other things the required experiments are more accessible, and I think a little more fun. (Not a lot more fun mind you, some of those physics experiments were a blast!)

So my advice is go ahead, dig in, give it a shot. If you get something out of it you are ahead of the game. BUT, since you have the opportunity by all means work with the teachers too!


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## merlinhimself (Dec 2, 2016)

Thanks for the reply @JohnG ! Definitely looking forward to starting. 

@wst3 oh man such an interesting subject! However I can only understand articles is layman's terms lol, popsci etc.

But yeah I know what you mean, it's more of a "motivate myself to study" kind of thing. I'll start from chapter one and see where I get before school starts, but actually taking notes instead of running through it. But it is always nice having the teacher to answer questions etc.


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## merlinhimself (Dec 2, 2016)

@wst3 @JohnG would you guys also recommend getting back into transcribing?


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## JohnG (Dec 2, 2016)

merlinhimself said:


> would you guys also recommend getting back into transcribing?



I do think transcribing is good. You don't have to boil the ocean though. Even eight bars here and there can reveal a lot.

Of course, Wagner reportedly transcribed all nine of Beethoven's symphonies.


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## Joe_D (Dec 2, 2016)

The Adler book can be very helpful, and I have long recommended it to my composition students. If you don't have them, definitely find and get the CD's that comes with it (or at least used to come with it), and listen to the various examples very carefully over studio monitors and headphones. You can get a lot of useful information on instrumentation and also orchestration from the written text, but you really need to use your ears to grasp some of the details.

And, if you ever have a chance to go to one of Samuel Adler's masterclasses or to take a lesson with Sam, by all means, do it! If not, maybe someone has made a video by now (I don't know). He's a great teacher who has mentored literally hundreds of composers over the decades, in addition to being a very skilled composer and arranger. He's a great human being as well.


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## rgames (Dec 2, 2016)

merlinhimself said:


> I've had this book for awhile and brushed through it, but for those who have gone through it fully, are there any chapters or ways you'd recommend going through it without a teacher?


I've gone through it and the way I recommend is this: play with an orchestra.

As alluded to above, reading a book about orchestration is like reading a book about hitting a golf ball: 95% of what you learn is in actually experiencing it. You can get a lot about music theory from a book but orchestration is much more a hands-on endeavor.

rgames


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## AllanH (Dec 2, 2016)

As someone without college level formal music training, here are my thoughts: What I especially like about Adler 4 is that just about every concept, technique, articulation etc. has an example associated with it. If I can't imaging how it should sound from reading the score I can check YouTube or the associated online material. For self-study it's an excellent format; and I can only imaging how much more valuable it would be with a trained Orchestrator teaching to the book. 

Like all complex subjects, it's going to take deliberate effort to master.


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## JohnG (Dec 3, 2016)

I think if you read the original question, which is whether he can get something from the book ahead of time, the answer is "yes." You can learn a good bit from Adler on your own in preparation for your studies if you have the book and the audio.

The OP is not proposing to read a book instead of studying or working with players. He's just asking if it's going to be Greek without an instructor. I say it's not impenetrable and in fact fairly workmanlike provided that you can read music.


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## jonathanprice (Dec 3, 2016)

I studied orchestration with D. Martin Jenni at Iowa, and the first half of the class was going through Adler, the second half sitting in on the advanced conducting class, with the university orchestra. If I had to parse Adler without the benefit of an instructor and orchestra, I might take a section of a score I loved and mock it up. I say mock it up, instead of just listening, because it forces you to take the time to see the score from each player's perspective, and compare that to the whole. This can be done by listening as well, but the mockup will slow down the process and allow questions to arise about each part. Then, when you've got the question, grab the Adler and find the answer. Not that you couldn't read it cover to cover, but I always find specific-purpose-driven learning to be efficient.


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## Morodiene (Dec 5, 2016)

+1 on getting a teacher. Books are great, but they can't answer your questions. They can't look at what you've done and tell you what you did wrong, or what can be improved, or warn you of the pitfalls that can happen with certain voicings. And work with real musicians whenever you can.


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## ctsai89 (Dec 5, 2016)

I'm a alumni from UCLA undergrad composition program. I had Dr. Carlson (he's a great and i love his compositions, perhaps my favorite amongst current composers) teach us orchestration with that book you mentioned.

What i did not like about the book and what I did not like about having to use that book to learn orchestration at a higher level education university is that it starts out with things that are obvioulsy too basic and easily wielded by common sense (if you played in an orchestra before). By the time I got into UCLA I already knew pretty much what each instruments can basically do but the book really gets too detailed in that regard that it seems like a waste of time just to go over it. 

Anyways, since we have the technology nowadays, it would be the best to learn orchestration simply by picking out your favorite orchestral pieces, finding the scores and do a midi mockup of it using spitfire libraries (or vienna, but guarantee you that it won't sound as realistic). This of course, would only work if you're familiar with what each instruments can do and the way the virtual instruments work.


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## agarner32 (Dec 5, 2016)

ctsai89 said:


> it starts out with things that are obvioulsy too basic and easily wielded by common sense (if you played in an orchestra before).



That's great that you had the knowledge before you entered college, but not everybody does. We all have different skill sets. Furthermore, not everybody coming into college has played in an orchestra.


ctsai89 said:


> but the book really gets too detailed in that regard that it seems like a waste of time just to go over it.


It's really a waste of time to thoroughly understand each instrument? Did everybody in your orchestration class know all this stuff already? I doubt it.


ctsai89 said:


> Anyways, since we have the technology nowadays, it would be the best to learn orchestration simply by picking out your favorite orchestral pieces, finding the scores and do a midi mockup of it using spitfire libraries (or vienna, but guarantee you that it won't sound as realistic).


So you think that doing MIDI mockups is the best way to learn orchestration? I guess writing for real players is not quite as good. I would suggest there is no "best" way to learn orchestration. Although the tools we have today are certainly great and I wish they had been available when I was studying music in college, there is no replacement for real people playing real instruments.


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## ctsai89 (Dec 5, 2016)

agarner32 said:


> That's great that you had the knowledge before you entered college, but not everybody does. We all have different skill sets. Furthermore, not everybody coming into college has played in an orchestra.
> 
> It's really a waste of time to thoroughly understand each instrument? Did everybody in your orchestration class know all this stuff already? I doubt it.
> 
> So you think that doing MIDI mockups is the best way to learn orchestration? I guess writing for real players is not quite as good. I would suggest there is no "best" way to learn orchestration. Although the tools we have today are certainly great and I wish they had been available when I was studying music in college, there is no replacement for real people playing real instruments.




yes true everything you said. But Adler's book should've included ways to blend those individual instruments into the full orchestra while going into only that instrument in detail instead of just giving "solo" examples of it and dwelling on it and not actually using it in a "full orchestral" context. -that's only for the first half of the book though. 2nd half of the book is good and has most of the things you need but could've been better.

I might be a bit biased though since I'm no fan of Adler's music at all and am bitter that he's left out many more wonderfully orchestrated pieces from the 19th and early 20th century.

By the way i'm a real string player and I can say (judging from my ears) there are a few library makers who are already making their samples sound as close to when real players can be replaced by simply the sample library.

I highly recommend doing the following mock-ups to thoroughly learn to write for a late romantic-hollywood orchestra:

Scriabin symphony #1, 2, 3, poem of ecstasy.

Rachmaninoff sympphony #1, 2, 3, 4.

Myaskovsky Cello Concerto

kalinnikov symphony #1

Wagner's meistersinger overture

Gustav Holst's planets


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## agarner32 (Dec 5, 2016)

Ctsai89,

Well the Adler is not necessarily my favorite orchestration book and I pretty much have all of the most common ones. But it is quite good in many areas. It's just another resource. They all have strengths and weaknesses. Everybody has their favorite and will defend it.

I'm a pianist not a string player so when I studied out of the Adler, I got a lot out of the string section because for me he covered a ton of stuff I didn't know. Plus, the newer editions have mp3s for the examples which to me is invaluable.

The pieces you mentioned are all great pieces and you're right, doing a mock-up can teach you a lot. I teach music theory full-time at a college and I wish I could have my students do a few mockups because you learn a lot about harmony, voice-leading, textures, counterpoint, articulations, phrase structure etc. In my opinion, just the process of playing in individual lines makes you see and hear a score in a much more detailed way.

I also agree with Mike Verta who encourages transcribing. There's probably nothing more valuable than figuring music out yourself. I'm a jazz musician so transcription is how we learn to play.

As far as Adler leaving out wonderfully orchestrated pieces, well sure, it's impossible to include everybody's favorites. Is Adler's book the best? Probably not, but it's a great contribution to the lexicon of orchestration books out there in my opinion.

At any rate, it's a good conversation.


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## SillyMidOn (Dec 6, 2016)

merlinhimself said:


> I'm going to start at ucla soon, but want to get a head start on studying. I've had this book for awhile and brushed through it, but for those who have gone through it fully, are there any chapters or ways you'd recommend going through it without a teacher?
> 
> The reason I ask.is I also have a book on modalogy, I read the entire thing but felt like I didn't understand a bit of it. A friend who went to Berklee saw i had it and said it's impossible to understand without the help of a teacher.


Get the cds that come with it, your experience will be much enhanced by doing this. You don't have to read every single page, either, and as always, don't take everything as gospel.

There is a really useful 4 or 5 page guide to instrument ranges at the back. Photocopy and take it with you on the train/bus/whatever and try and memorise it - that would be really useful.


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## Mr Autodidact (Jul 11, 2019)

QUOTE="Joe_D, post: 4024175, member: 8214"]The Adler book can be very helpful, and I have long recommended it to my composition students. If you don't have them, definitely find and get the CD's that comes with it (or at least used to come with it), and listen to the various examples very carefully over studio monitors and headphones. You can get a lot of useful information on instrumentation and also orchestration from the written text, but you really need to use your ears to grasp some of the details.

And, if you ever have a chance to go to one of Samuel Adler's masterclasses or to take a lesson with Sam, by all means, do it! If not, maybe someone has made a video by now (I don't know). He's a great teacher who has mentored literally hundreds of composers over the decades, in addition to being a very skilled composer and arranger. He's a great human being as well.[/QUOTE]


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## Mr Autodidact (Jul 11, 2019)

Hi, 

I read that you have tought students orchestration with Samuel Adler's book and even took lessons with him . I am going through his book and workbook as a self learner (fourth edition). However, I would like to check the answers, but Norton won't give me access to the teachers guide. 

Do you by any chance as a teacher have access to that and would you be willing to share? That would be extremely helpful to me


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## Joe_D (Jul 12, 2019)

Sorry, I don’t. Believe it or not, I can’t remember ever using a teacher’s guide for any textbook I used with my classes. 

I always felt that it was my responsibility to have a larger, over-arching picture of the subject than could be presented in a book. I organized my own thoughts and pedagogical approach, then used textbooks as a resource to reinforce and supplement that rather than “teaching from the book.”


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## jonathanparham (Jul 12, 2019)

Mr Autodidact said:


> Hi,
> 
> I read that you have tought students orchestration with Samuel Adler's book and even took lessons with him . I am going through his book and workbook as a self learner (fourth edition). However, I would like to check the answers, but Norton won't give me access to the teachers guide.
> 
> Do you by any chance as a teacher have access to that and would you be willing to share? That would be extremely helpful to me


yup. Same issue. I cannot get the answer key from the publisher. Makes sense as I could sale the answers BUT frustrating to say the least lol


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