Home
Archaeology
Astronomy
Biology
Books
Business
Chemistry
Coins
Computers
Conservation
Cooking
Earth Science
Farming
Economics
Finance
Games
Geography
Health Science
History by Date
Hobbies
Law
Mathematics
Medicine
Military Technology
Movies
Music
People
Pharmacology
Philosophy
Physics
Psychology
Religion
Science History
Technology
Sports
Television
Video
Visual Art
Privacy
Contact Us



Instrumentation

Instrumentation is the study and practice of writing music for a musical instrument.

Writing for a specific instrument requires the ability to take into account the special properties of that instrument such as the following:

  • the pitch, timbre and dynamic range of the instrument and available tones in these ranges
  • application of chordss or other multiple tones
  • certain kinds of passages can be especially easy or difficult to play
  • playing techniques such as constraints of breathing, fingering, etc.
  • special effects, such as harmonics, clicks, pizzicato, glissandi and so on
  • notation conventions for the instrument.

See orchestration for a description of the difference between instrumentation, orchestration and arrangement.

Copyright 2004. All rights reserved.