Workbook for The Study of Orchestration: Samuel Adler
W.W. Norton & Company
2nd edition (December 1989)

reviewed by Christopher Coleman
for amazon.com

Each time I've taught orchestration I've used Samuel Adler's The Study of Orchestration book and CD. Although I have reservations about the text (which I've enumerated in my review here at amazon.com), I think it is the best available text and the accompanying CDs really make the set invaluable. I've never been comfortable with the workbook, however, and in fact have never used it for class. It is not entirely without value--for example, the passage on string bowings is very helpful (Worksheet 2), and for a teacher this provides material ready at hand for exercises in transposition, clefs, harmonics, and the like, which are generally satisfactory. Much of the workbook, however, takes an historical approach to the teaching of orchestration which I am uncomfortable with for most students. Adler uses "Listen and Score" exercises repeatedly, in which the student is instructed to listen to a passage (included on the CD set that accompanies the text) given in piano or short score and instructed to orchestrate it exactly as they heard it. While these can be helpful in the early stages, I can't understand why one would want to encourage a student to write for 2 horns in C and 2 horns in Eb as Berlioz did. Modern instruments have transcended many of the difficulties that earlier composers faced, and to learn to score for those instruments in the style of a particular composer may be of some historical interest, but little practical worth. There is the decided advantage for the teacher of answers being either right (the way composer X did it) or wrong (anything else)--but the nature of orchestration belies that duality. Often in orchestration many choices are equally right; but if a passage must be notated choices must be made. To make a particular choice does not invalidate the viability of an alternate choice.

Other exercises are downright quirky. Worksheet 14 calls for the student to transcribe a Bach organ prelude for four percussionists, all playing non-pitched percussion. While this might be a lot of fun, I doubt it is the best way to learn the use of non-pitched percussion for orchestrational purposes.

Missing almost entirely is any material on the wind band. Where winds are considered, they are considered only as the wind section of an orchestra. True, the set is not titled The Study of Orchestration and Band Arranging, but since most students (in the US, at least) will be much more likely to face bands rather than full orchestras in their professional life, such a section would be of great worth.

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