Silver

Thanks for the review KJ. Anyone read Adler's book? I think I heard his book mentioned here.

I am trying to decide on whether to buy Adler's "The Study of Orchestration" or Kennen's "The Technique of Orchestration". Can anyone here reccommend one of these? I am considering Adler's book since it looks more thorough. But Kennen's book looks promising too.

I have heard that the diatonic scales have their own characteristics. A minor is described as 'The sadder minor scale', and D major as 'The joyful major scale'. The distiction between major and minor scales is very clear to me, but I cannot really hear a differance between the scales with the same major or minor tonality. Does the tone a diatonic scale is centered around contribute to the feeling of the scale? My guess is that the 'feeling' of these scales comes from instruments that are suited to play that scale. IE, it is the timber of the instrument that makes a scale sound happier/sadder than another. Or maybe I am not a good enough musican to hear a real differance between C major and D major. What do you think?

Harmony and Voice Leading is a very thorough book. It has plenty of examples and exercises.