Reddit mentions of The Study of Orchestration (Fourth Edition)

There are a lot of courses. Any specific topics you're interested in?

Edit: I'll just list a few anyway that I've used in classes (this may not reflect all professors' choices for the same subjects).

Tonal Harmony: Kostka-Payne - Tonal Harmony

Counterpoint 1: A Berklee book by the late professor Rick Applin. Some also use this Fux translation/adaptation

Counterpoint 2: Bach Inventions & Sinfonias (any edition, really)

"Advanced" Counterpoint: The Well-Tempered Clavier (again, any edition)

Early Twentieth-Century Harmony: Persichetti - Twentieth-Century Harmony

Post-Tonal Theory/Analysis: Straus - Intro to Post-Tonal Theory

Instrumentation/Orchestration: Adler - The Study of Orchestration &
Casella/Mortari - The Technique of Contemporary Orchestration

Western Music History - Burkholder/Paiisca - A History of Western Music (8th or 9th edition)

Conducting 1 - Notion Conducting

Conducting 2 Notion + Stravinsky's Petrushka

Berklee's own (jazz-based) core harmony and ear-training curricula use Berklee textbooks written by professors which, as someone else mentioned, come unbound and shrink-wrapped at the bookstore. You can find older (PDF) versions of the Berklee harmony textbooks here. Of course this list only represents explicit book choices - there are a lot of excerpt-readings, and there's a lot of instruction that isn't found in these books even in the associated courses.

My orchestration class in college used this book: The Study of Orchestration (Fourth Edition) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0393920658/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_K8qNBb192BT2P

Hey, I’m kind of a book junkie when it comes to common practice stuff, so I’m gonna throw a bunch of em at ya. The common practice era of composition can be broken down into 3 major fields of study: Form/Composition, Harmony and Orchestration. Form/composition is about how music develops over time harmonically and melodically. Harmony is about how vertical sonorities interact with one another, this is one of the most fleshed out aspects of music theory. Orchestration, usually the capstone discipline, dives into how groups of instruments interact with one another on a harmonic level and a melodic one. Harmony+composition can be studied simultaneously considering there is so much overlap, orchestration usually comes after you have a middling understanding of the other two subjects.

There are a bunch of free online materials on these subjects, but here is my personal favorite:
http://openmusictheory.com/contents.html

There are also a few free books on harmony, orchestration and composition, but most of them were published a very long time ago. As a consequence, you may run into outdated or poorly explained concepts.

Harmony:

Guide to the Practical Study of Harmony

Orchestration:

Principles of Orchestration

Composition:

Fundamentals of music Composition

Exercises in Melody Writing

Most of the stuff with comprehensive+up to date information on these subjects is going to be something you pay for. Here are my favorite textbooks. One thing I value in a textbook is an accompanying workbook and/or some sort of exercise based learning, so I’ll be listing the workbooks (if applicable) as well.

Melody in Songwriting

Craft of Musical Composition Parts One and Two

Models For Beginners in Composition

Harmonic Practice in Tonal Music

Workbook for Harm Practice

The Study of Orchestration

Workbook for The Study of Orchestration

This isn’t an exhaustive list but it’s pretty solid.


Recording orchestras is out of reach for most, so you’ll probably need some good VSTs to use and some knowledge of how to make them sound ‘real’. Building an orchestra template is key to making music quickly and efficiently. It’s a massive headache to have to wait for Kontakt to load and instrument every time you want to add a flute or violin to your score. Here are the basics of what you’ll need:


Woodwinds:

Flutes

Clarinets

Saxophones

Oboes

Bassoons



Brass:

French horns

Trumpets

Trombones

Tubas

“Low brass”


Strings:

1st Violins

2nd Violins

Violas

Cellos

Bass

First chairs of each


Others:

PIANOS

Harps

Choirs

Guitars

Vibraphones

Glockenspiels

Etc


Orchestral percussion

Concert Toms

Taikos

Snares

Concert bass drums


Here are some places to get all of that:

Audio Bro (the ARC system is awesome)

Spitfire

8Dio

Orchestral Tools (my favorite)

CineSamples

EastWest Sounds

Heres a resource to make all of that stuff sound ‘real’. It’s a lot more difficult then you may think.

The Guide to MIDI Orchestration 4e

The Study Of Orchestration