The Complete Idiot's Guide to Arranging and Orchestration (Complete Idiot's Guide to)

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Customer Reviews:

Terrific guide for "pop" musicians [Posted on 2007-06-07]
Mike Miller has provided a user-friendly guide for the many "pop" musicians {I.e. non-degreed} that will prove to be an invaluable tool in teaching basic arranging and orchestration techniques. Particularly useful is the addition of his own original composition that threads through the entire book (and CD) as an example of many musical styles and respective arrangements/orchestrations. Not necessarily for the seasoned professional but highly recommended for everyone else.

I expected more [Posted on 2007-08-11]
Although this book teaches some of the basics of arranging/orchestrating, and the author does a good job explaining things so that they are easy to understand, the audio examples included are pretty horrible. Not that I expect educators to be extremely talented (well, there sometimes is some truth to the saying "Those who can't, teach.")--they just have to be able to pass on knowledge, but I think teachers in general are that much more compelling when they display actual talent and a real sense of creative authority. The audio examples for this book are at best hack-jobs that you'd expect from a hack composer/arranger. For example, if you're going to compose examples that demonstrate countermelodies or melodic variations, you better come up with examples that are actually compelling and really add something significant to the original. But when done badly, the student will wonder why they should bother with those approaches at all if they just muck up the original and make things worse. The fully arranged examples are just as bad--with horrible MIDI orchestration that manages to sell cheap sample libraries even shorter than they already are (it's absolutely possible to achieve far better MIDI orchestration using the tools/sample libraries that the author used--just browse online forums like Northern Sound Source or V.I. Control and you'll hear tons of examples from far better composers/arrangers--pro or amateur). The various examples of different musical styles are all bad enough to make you cringe--some are even laughable. But then again, what else is new, right? It's the same thing with books that teach you how to draw, paint, photograph, write...etc--plenty of them are written by people who have the knowledge but lack the talent. This is why I suggest people always try to buy instructional materials created by authors who are known and respected in their chosen creative field. That way, you know the examples they use are always compelling and full of creative authority.

Overall, if you are an absolute beginner to arranging, then this book should be helpful. It does not go into any detail about various uses of different articulations of instruments--just very basic descriptions. If you can look past the horrible audio examples the author composed/arranged, you should be able to get some stuff out of the book. It's very likely that after learning what you need from the book, you'll be able to compose/arrange better music than those audio examples.

Wasted money [Posted on 2007-09-13]
Awful, and even wrong, harmonizations and voicings like insistent parallels 5ths (SATB choir arrangement), avoidable notes like doubled tonic over Maj7 chord, non-creative and awful non-chordal tones, non quantized drums (1st bar - D section), extreme/unecessary E5 on oboe... things you find at a glance in this pathetic "Carpenter's pop mood" of Love Waits.
By the way, mr. Miller must see that vibrato expression does not hide out of tune notes so, next time, at least, auto-tune singers. An amateur job.
Such a bad taste shows you exactly what not to do! That`s the why I gave 1 star on my review.
Besides this, the Voicings section of "Arranging for a Big Band" just doesn`t explain a thing! Techniques of drops (2, 3, 2+4 double lead) are weakly mentioned and mistakenly considered "Saxophone Voicings".
The arrangements for Marching Band and Jazz Band sound novice-trainee, with no soli sections, weak voicings, and bad taste countermelodies.
Inadmissible, as well, is track 68, "Dissimilar Instruments", where mr. Miller tries to show different combinations of instruments using basic General Midi (at least, it sounds like that)!
I feel myself a complete idiot after that.

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