Product Description

John Cacavas has written an extensive book on the techniques of composing, orchestrating and arranging. Includes chapters on each section of the band and orchestra, voicing techniques as well as special chapters on concert band writing, choral writing, electronic applications and writing for film and television.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1065223 in Books
• Published on: 1993-11
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 196 pages

Customer Reviews

Careful: Requires an Extensive Knowledge of Theory
This book is an enjoyable read and its chock full of valuable hints and rules that a competent arranger or composer needs to know. Cacavas covers topics that a typical theory text would not venture into.

The author also drops in humorous anecdotes every few pages which, although largely irrelevant to the subject, do give one's mind a break to digest the information just presented. Some less kind readers might call this practice 'name dropping'as the stories invariably involve the author and some famous person.

Finally, Cacavas writes under the clear assumption that the reader has a very solid theoretic knowledge. Without this knowledge, I am sure a reader would get hopelessly confused. The author has pitched the book for the right audience but inexperienced theorists should be aware.

Overall, this is a rare 'textbook' which has me actually wanting more and wanting to learn more. However a potential reader is warned that the anecdotes might get a little annoying (though one can simply ignore them) and those with limited theoretical knowledge should look elsewhere. In the end though, this is money well spent.

Punctual book!
It is a wonderful book, then includes many examples of music, but much place give to scores of music for movie. Thanks for autor!