Demonstrating not only how to write for orchestra but also how to understand and enjoy a score, The Cambridge Guide to Orchestration is a theoretical and practical guide to instrumentation and orchestration for scholars, professionals and enthusiasts. With detailed information on all the instruments of the orchestra, both past and present, it combines discussion of both traditional and modern playing techniques to give the most complete overview of the subject. It contains fifty reduced scores to be re-orchestrated and a wide range of exercises, which clarify complex subjects such as multiple stops on stringed instruments, harmonics and trombone glissandi. Systematic analysis reveals the orchestration techniques used in original scores, including seven twentieth-century compositions. This Guide also includes tables and lists for quick reference, providing the ranges of commonly used instruments and the musical names and terminology used in English, German, Italian and French.

This guide to the orchestra and orchestral life is unique in its breadth of coverage. It combinesorchestral history and repertory with a practical bias offering critical thought about the past, present and future of the orchestra. Including topics such as the art of orchestration, scorereading, conducting, international orchestras, recording, as well as consideration of what it means to be an orchestral musician, an educator, or an informed listener, it will be of interest to a wideranging readership of music historians and professional or amateur performers.

This wide-ranging guide offers insights for musicians and students on how to be a composer.

This guide to the orchestra and orchestral life is unique in the breadth of its coverage. It combines orchestral history and orchestral repertory with a practical bias offering critical thought about the past, present and future of the orchestra as a sociological and as an artistic phenomenon. This approach reflects many of the current global discussions about the orchestra's continued role in a changing society. Other topics discussed include the art of orchestration, scorereading, conductors and conducting, international orchestras, recording, as well as consideration of what it means to be an orchestral musician, an educator, or an informed listener. Written by experts in the field, the book will be of academic and practical interest to a wide-ranging readership of music historians and professional or amateur musicians as well as an invaluable resource for all those contemplating a career in the performing arts.

The Cambridge History of Western Music Theory is the first comprehensive history of Western music theory to be published in the English language. A collaborative project by leading music theorists and historians, the volume traces the rich panorama of music-theoretical thought from the Ancient Greeks to the present day. Recognizing the variety and complexity of music theory as an historical subject, the volume has been organized within a flexible framework. Some chapters are defined chronologically within a restricted historical domain, whilst others are defined conceptually and span longer historical periods. Together the thirty-one chapters present a synthetic overview of the fascinating and complex subject that is historical music theory. Richly enhanced with illustrations, graphics, examples and cross-citations as well as being thoroughly indexed and supplemented by comprehensive bibliographies of the most important primary and secondary literature, this book will be an invaluable resource for students and scholars alike.

This book explores the relationship between the history of orchestration and the development of modern musical aesthetics in the Enlightenment. Using Haydn as a focal point, it examines how the consolidation of the modern orchestra radically altered how people listened to and thought about the expressive capacity of instruments.

The TENG Guide to the Chinese Orchestra is a seminal guide to equip composers, scholars and music enthusiasts worldwide with the necessary knowledge to work with Chinese musical instruments. The INSTRUMENTATION section outlines the history, physical attributes and performance techniques of Chinese musical instruments in detail. It also includes practical scoring advice for composers and reference charts for fingerings and chords. The ORCHESTRATION section contains systematic analyses of score excerpts from Chinese orchestra pieces spanning the last 60 years to demonstrate how Chinese musical instruments work together in an orchestra.

Tango music rapidly became a global phenomenon as early as the beginning of the twentieth century, with about 30% of gramophone records made between 1903 and 1910 devoted to it. Its popularity declined between the 1950s and the 1980s but has since risen to new heights. This Companion offers twenty chapters from varying perspectives around music, dance, poetry, and interdisciplinary studies, including numerous visual and audio illustrations in print and on the accompanying webpages. Its multidisciplinary approach demonstrates how different disciplines intersect through performative, historical, ethnographic, sociological, political, and anthropological perspectives. These thematic continuities illuminate diverse international perspectives and highlight how the art form flourished in Argentina, Uruguay and abroad, while tracing its international and cultural impact over the last century. This book is an innovative resource for scholars and students of tango music, particularly those seeking a diverse international perspective on the subject.

A stimulating and unusually wide-ranging collection of essays overviewing ways in which music functions in film soundtracks.

Despite its importance as a central feature of musical sounds, timbre has rarely stood in the limelight. First defined in the eighteenth century, denigrated during the nineteenth, the concept of timbre came into its own during the twentieth century and its fascination with synthesizers and electronic music-or so the story goes. But in fact, timbre cuts across all the boundaries that make up musical thought-combining scientific and artistic approaches to music, material and philosophical aspects, and historical and theoretical perspectives. Timbre challenges us to fundamentally reorganize the way we think about music. The twenty-five essays that make up this collection offer a variety of engagements with music from the perspective of timbre. The boundaries are set as broad as possible: from ancient Homeric sounds to contemporary sound installations, from birdsong to cochlear implants, from Tuvan overtone singing to the tv show The Voice, from violin mutes to Moog synthesizers. What unifies the essays across this vast diversity is the material starting point of the sounding object. This focus on the listening experience is radical departure from the musical work that has traditionally dominated musical discourse since its academic inception in late-nineteenth-century Europe. Timbre remains a slippery concept that has continuously demanded more, be it more precise vocabulary, a more systematic theory, or more rigorous analysis. Rooted in the psychology of listening, timbre consistently resists pinning complete down. This collection of essays provides an invitation for further engagement with the range of fascinating questions that timbre opens up.