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Essential Dictionary of Orchestration (The Essential Dictionary Series) | 
 enlarge | Authors: Dave Black, Tom Gerou
Publisher: Alfred Publishing Company
Category: Book
List Price: $6.95
Buy New: $3.57
You Save: $3.38 (49%)
New (19) Used (4) Collectible (1) from $3.31
Avg. Customer Rating:  12 reviews
Sales Rank: 123590
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 352
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 5.5 x 4.2 x 0.7
ISBN: 0739000217
Dewey Decimal Number: 781.374
UPC: 038081167367
EAN: 9780739000212
ASIN: 0739000217
Publication Date: October 1998
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Brand New, Perfect Condition, Please allow 4-14 business days for delivery. 100% Money Back Guarantee, Over 1,000,000 customers served.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 7 more reviews...
 Best Quick Reference out there December 30, 2008
I am Chair of the Music Composition Department at SMU, and have all my students purchase this and the other books in the series when they begin studies. For a quick reference, it has great info, good recommendations, and until they study advanced techniques in upper division courses, this easy to read book is great - and the price is right.
Robert Frank, DMA
 Indispensavel - indispensable May 20, 2008
Falo aos meus colegas arranjadores, musicos e regentes: muito bom esse pequeno dicionario de bolso. Bom, bonito e barato... e indispensavel para os alunos. Coloco como material de minhas aulas de arranjo e orquestracao a partir de agora.
I speak to my colleagues arrangers, musicians and regents: very good this this little pocket dictionary. Good, beautiful and cheap ... and indispensable for students. It is material for my classes of arrangement and orchestration from now.
Everyone should have this book!! January 22, 2008
I'd give it ten stars! Anyone interested in writing, arranging, composing, orchestrating, or just a curious musician should own a copy of this book.
It covers over 150 instruments giving the general/practical range as written and transposed, plus it gives the tonal/dynamic qualities of each register and where they might be used (e.g.each string on stringed instruments, chalumeau/throat/clarino on clarinet). It covers general information about each instrument (construction, special attachments, general considerations).
It covers technical considerations with specific characteristics for each instrument to help you avoid writing something a player would consider stupid (e.g. low B-Bb slide positions on trombone, low C-Db trill on flute). It also has scoring hints for each and within their families.
It covers all sorts of articulations/mutes/effects etc, what they sound like, where to use them and how to write them (e.g. velvotone mute/'doit' articulation for trumpet, flutter tonguing on flute, string technics). Also, there is information on harmonics for stringed instruments and pedal tones for trombones, french horns et al.
It has an amazing section on percussion instruments. Composers have always looked like idiots to a percussionist because they hadn't the slightest idea how to write for them. You will know how if you use the info in this book (and be admired by the 'battery').
In short, if this book sold for $200, it would be worth it. At $100 it would be a bargain. BUT at 6 bucks, why haven't you bought it already??
p.s. while a bit confusing a first to find an instrument, however, with about five minutes of use you will understand the reasons for the arrangement of material in the book by families (you would not want a coronet at the front and trumpet at the back of a book). The table of contents explains it. Plus there is an alphabetical listing of instruments with page #'s at the back of the book.
So small, but so huge! November 29, 2007
The power of knowing the idiomatic properties of the entire Western orchestra, and then some... all located in a convenient spot in your pants!
This is a powerful tool in any composers arsenal.
Thorough but disorganized December 31, 2006
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
This book has a LOT of information, especially for the price, and its convenient size makes it easy to keep near the computer and the keyboard while one is working on an arrangement.
However, it is so poorly organized that I almost gave it only three stars; it's somewhat alphabetical order (but only somewhat), it's not in commonest-in-the-orchestra order, it's only vaguely grouped into a few related clumps. For example, the bowed strings come first - logical enough. But within their section, they are in this order: Contrabass, Viola, Viola d'Amore, Violin, Violincello (Cello). OK, that's alphabetical within section, but makes no sense in terms of what people would actually want to use. Next after Bowed Strings are Clarinets, Double Reeds, Flutes... yes, that's alphabetical order - IF you think of regular orchestral strings as specifically Bowed Strings, and IF you think of Oboes and Bassoons as Double Reeds and look them up that way.
Recorders are included under Flutes. As if that's part of "essential" orchestration. And the double reeds include Heckelphones. Hello, anyone who is going to write for a heckelphone these days is going to be using a far more specialized reference than this book.
After flutes come Fretted Strings - starting with the Banjo. Another item I wouldn't have said was "essential" in a book on orchestration. Then after Fretted Strings are Harps, Horns, Keyboards - starting with the Accordion. Then: Non-Pitched Metals. Now, honestly, is that the phrase you'd think of first in order to look up percussion equipment? After all the various Percussion categories, we get to Saxophones, Trombones, Trumpets, Tubas. Why do each of the brass get their own section, instead of being grouped as Slide Brass and Valved Brass? And why, if double reeds are going to include Heckelphones, doesn't the tuba section include Helicons and Serpents, let alone the frequently-used Sousaphone?
Best way to use this book: invest in stick-on colored tabs, to make it easy to find the most common instruments and to be able to flip right to the index, which is the first thing you're going to need.
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