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 enlarge | Author: Samuel Adler
Publisher: W. W. Norton
Category: Book
List Price: $75.00
Buy New: $54.25
You Save: $20.75 (28%)
New (32) Used (18) from $54.25
Avg. Customer Rating:  31 reviews
Sales Rank: 6442
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 3
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 864
Shipping Weight (lbs): 3.4
Dimensions (in): 10.1 x 7.2 x 1.5
ISBN: 039397572X
Dewey Decimal Number: 781.374
EAN: 9780393975727
ASIN: 039397572X
Publication Date: March 2002
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Brand new book delivered from the UK in 10-14 days.
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| Customer Reviews:
 Melts in Your Hands, Not in Your Mouth August 5, 2005
16 out of 30 found this review helpful
The UN-accompanying (you have to buy it separately) CD album is obviously useless without the book, but it has not been sufficiently stressed that the corresponding sections of the book demonstrating the sound of various instruments in various contexts are, in turn, (mostly) useless without the CD album. If you omitted these sections, you'd have little left, and that little tends to belabor the obvious or to be inaccurate--as most of the earlier reviews concur, even those that, unaccountably, grant the thing five stars--and clumsily or dully written. Nevertheless, since this page is dedicated to the book alone and a separate page exists for the CD album, the little left is what I'm obliged to review here. Hence the single star.
I will not review the CD album or the corresponding sections of the book except to say: No one has any business writing for any instrument he does not know the sound of from auditioning it in person, from hearing it in real life. Nevertheless, young, inexperienced students are often required to take Orchestration courses, and Orchestration courses will often require them to write for instruments with which they are as yet unfamiliar. In this case, the Adler package (CD album and book) will prove helpful, but such students will also need a GOOD, AUTHORITATIVE orchestration text, and it would be unreasonable, considering the expense of the Adler package to make them buy both. I recommend assigning them the Piston or something comparable, and supplementing it with a single shared copy of the Adler package, or something similar, kept on reserve at the university (or college or conservatory) library.
Consider Yourself Warned July 30, 2005
11 out of 18 found this review helpful
Some additional (representative) examples:
The trumpet section of this book takes an entire paragraph to say that the trumpet plays loud throughout its range, but that professional trumpeters can play softly. This is very misleading. The thing an orchestrator needs to know about the trumpet is that it gets louder and more incisive as it gets higher. The saxophone section says that the very
lowest and highest notes on the saxophone are difficult to play softly, but otherwise it's smooth sailing. Again, very misleading. The lowest few
semitones on the saxophone (especially the low written Bb) go splat, but after that the saxophone is loud and brassy in its lower range and gets progressively thinner and reedier as it ascends. So, for example, if
you give an alto saxophone the Bb below middle C and a trumpet a D a third higher, the alto will wipe out the trumpet. If you move both instruments up a fourth, they will balance and blend well. If you move them up an octave from there, the alto will not blend at all with the trumpet, and the result will sound sick. Yes, players and conductors can compensate to some degree for the inherent tendencies of these instruments, but they shouldn't have to, and, trust me, they ain't a-gonna be sympathetic toward inept orchestrators.
It's rather an understatement to call the Adler "not without problem", as someone below does; it's pretty much all ONE big problem--and this is the THIRD edition!
Easily the Worst Orchestration Book I've Encountered July 30, 2005
13 out of 29 found this review helpful
I checked this out from the local university library. It's far too expensive for me to consider buying. The CD set stipulates that it is purchased "AS IS", and the manufacturer (W. W. Norton) claims not to be liable in any way for any defects or for any damages that may result from their use. Considering that the CD set alone costs nearly $100, that's a rather bitter pill to swallow.
Then I opened the book more or less at random. I found this on page 76: "In first position, the normal compass between the first and fourth fingers [of the cello] is a 3rd, with the second finger used only for chromatic intervals." Dead wrong. I happen to play the cello. I know that in the key of C, for example, in first position the first finger on the D string plays E, the second finger plays F, and the fourth finger plays G, which is to say that second finger is certainly not reserved for "chromatic intervals". This is not an "exception" to a rule; it's one of many very basic examples I could have given to show that Adler's conception of cello fingering is completely wack.
I found this on page 102: "[The classical guitar] is fingered with four fingers of the left hand and plucked with all five fingers of the right hand." Wrong. I also happen to play the guitar. I know that, although bossa nova guitar occasionally uses the fifth right hand finger, classical guitar does not and has no notation for the fifth finger (the first four are notated p, i, m, and a).
I found this on page 14: "...an open string cannot have a fingered vibrato, but it can be made to sound as if it were vibrating in either of two ways: by fingering (oscillating) the note one octave higher on the next string to set up sympathetic vibrations (which is obviously not possible when the note in question is played on the highest string); or by vibrating the same pitch on the next lower string. The first technique can only be produced on the lower three strings, the second only on the upper three strings." Ahem. The second "technique" is not a way of making an open string "sound as if it were vibrating"; it is merely imparting vibrato to a STOPPED pitch. The first "technique" does not and could not possibly work: a) Since there is no such thing as an "undertone", "undertones" cannot be made to sound sympathetically. b) Neither is there any such thing as sympathetic VIBRATO. Let me illustrate with a counter example: If you stop C in first position on the G string of the cello and bow that G string vigorously, you CAN make the SECOND HARMONIC of the C string sound sympathetically (and significantly more softly), but only because the two pitches are the SAME, in the SAME OCTAVE, and only if your tuning is accurate: if your G-string C fingering is off, you won't hear the C-string second harmonic. Well, what is (string) vibrato but fluctuating pitch? If you put vibrato on the G-string C and that vibrato is sufficiently wide, the sympathetic C-string second harmonic will be INTERMITTENT. If that vibrato is very narrow, it will have NO EFFECT on the C string at all. Now, I happen to know some amateur cellists who regularly attempt what Adler recommends, but, needless to say, these are not particularly bright amateur cellists, just as amateur pianists who attempt vibrato on their instrument are not particularly bright amateur pianists.
I could go on, but I don't have the space. Anyway, I think you get the picture: Nearly every page of this book is replete with errors, inaccuracies, misrepresentations, or misleading phraseology. An orchestration book that perpetuates falsehoods is worse than useless, and this one shames both its author and its publisher.
P.S.: Re: [from a prior review] "Initially I was scared off by some of the errors (of fact and of judgment) listed in the reviews below, but I was relieved to see that most of them had been either fixed or altered in the third edition." I am not familiar with the earlier editions, but the third edition itself has so very many errors that it is difficult for me to imagine that the earlier editions could have had more. Probably this edition retains most of the old errors, after all, and for every error or so that it more or less fixes it introduces another. What can you expect from a book that speaks of "bandstration" (meaning "scoring for band") and "the bandstrator"?
 A Bibel of Music July 11, 2005
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
This book has it all!
It gives the answers to all questions about the instruments, it has an abundance of score examples, shows with wealth of details how you best combine different instrument groups. As a modern music guide it introduces completely every type of instrument and their variants.
According to my opinion there is no other book superior to this. And the CD is the gold nugget.
Dag Lundin
Excellent orchestration text January 15, 2005
4 out of 7 found this review helpful
I have about every orchestration text ever published and I absolutely love this book. I do about 30% real orchestration and 70% emulative (MIDI) orchestration (see Paul Gilreath's book). I think that the Adler text is one of the finest books on the subject ever written. Much more comprehensive than other classical texts, with an excellent accompanying CD library. If you orchestration, this is the best book you'll find.
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