I have a PDF of the Principles of Orchestration (sorry, I don't remember where I got it from) that's annotated by a modern expert. It's been especially enlightening, explaining things that are unclear in the original text due to archaic language as well as noting where the "rules" have most often been revised by current composers. Still, I am impressed by how the vast majority of the original text remains applicable today. 

Beepster

sharke
Try this Beepster: https://archive.org/details/principlesoforch00rims

Wow. That's a big PDF, eh? Looks like they used full color images of the whole book. Thanks, I'll snag that unless bit comes back with more info on the other site.
 
Thanks, dood.

Yep stupidly large file and consequently low performance in Adobe Reader when you scroll through it. Maybe there's some way of splitting it into sections? 

PilotGav
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I can read music, but NOT sight read, and can "hear" chord progressions and arrangement ideas in my head quite well. I beleive what I hear is creative and interesting.
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I can read music, but sometimes I don't know what note that is ... but give me a score, and I can follow it easily enough opposite the music playing! I did this for creating the film version for Tosca's Act 2 ... and can still easily do this with most music, except most pop music does not have a score/script anyway. Well, it does, a few years later, but most of them are not creative enough to help create a film/idea that matches, like some opera and symphonic works can. Too much of the rock/jazz ideas are too strict around the solo, to be able to justify and flow and any "story" behind it. In fact, a friend of mine that played jazz in the band, said that the best part of jazz was that it didn't have a story!
 
Always found that weird, since for me, ALL music is always a visual exercise, and even the avant-garde, and experimental that has no discernible anything in it, I appreciate forever, because I can see/create inner worlds that are not dictated by my time, place and experience. Thus, even sound effects, "tell me" a story! And so does all music, although there are some jazz forms, early Garbarek, early Yokko, and even some Miles (not all of it at all!) ... that are totally beyond my imagination ability to see anything.

BUT... is it realistic to think that I might be able to learn orchestration when I'm really an ear player? Are there any resources like schools online which would allow me to use my ear rather than more traditional methods of composition/arrangement.
 
 
Having a 'great ear' is paramount in orchestrating. You have that, plus you already play some orchestral instruments which gives you another advantage.

Right now you're probably closer than you think to writing scores on paper.

Try DickGrove Music for on-line instruction. I have no experience directly with them but I've heard some good things.

I'm college-trained and in my opinion too much time was dedicated to stuff that was useless to me or not applicable to what I wanted to do.

With Dick Grove, or better yet, one on one training you'll be able to tailor classes for your own specific needs.

slartabartfast ...
I can see how it would be difficult or impossible to learn or do successful orchestration if you could not "hear" the music either internally or by solfege or performance; like if you suffer from amusia. But there is nothing essentially impossible about doing so without using standard music notation.
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Specially nowadays, when you can compose with a DAW, and or by the "sound" alone, and not have to worry about notes, which your own DAW, might be able to translate after you are done.
 
This is the part that is difficult to discuss, since, by now, you can see how many folks doing rock music, that do not know music at all, but are putting together rock songs, or rap songs, which by all concepts and ideas, are VERY EASY since they only have 4 lines, or 5, and all the VST's create the music for you easily enough, even if that drum beat is so boring as to put you to sleep, and it's in there simply as a metronome type of thing that the DAW adjusted for that person, even.
 
Composing, and I will accept that I have not been near the academic areas in the past 30 years, is not a "note" thing anymore ... because there is no need for it ... you can test out the instrument on the note you thought and its next note choice ... you did not have that pleasure 30 years ago.
 
This is the problem with some DJ folks that are now composing their own music, and most of them do not know music like a classically instructed student might know ... and yet ... there is a full composition, and while not as good as Jean Michel Jarre, it's still pretty impressive compared to what you hear from music students at any advanced college in America that I have heard (mostly CA and NY).

Not as an expert by any means but I would affirm what others have said. I have found that capturing the style of the instrument is critical to having it sound correctly. For example, a pitch bend is easy and a common practice for guitar parts but that same style of playing really doesn't translate to a french horn part.
 
Likewise, you can write a part on a DAW for a double bass part but it may take a virtuoso to be able to actually play it on a bass. I have found it helps to listen to the part in the DAW and if it doesn't sound right then there is something wrong. I usually find it is due to being out of the range of the instrument.
 
I have resigned myself to listening as closely as possible to various parts and learning from recordings. The tower of power type brass style is currently a fascination for me.
 
Good luck! It is a fascinating and fun journey.

DrLumen
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I have resigned myself to listening as closely as possible to various parts and learning from recordings. The tower of power type brass style is currently a fascination for me.
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You should have seen it live back then when it mattered even more ... it was ... no words for it!

As mentioned, the Rimsky-Korsakov book is a good book. The Sam Adler book on orchestration is also a good. It comes with some CDs that have some pretty handy exercises in them. There's also an accompanying workbook. It might be a slightly easier read simply because it was written with more current language. It was mentioned before that orchestration can even apply to smaller ensembles.
 
I've taken a couple of orchestration courses at my school and it's just like any discipline. It can take a long time to become a great orchestrator just like it can take a long time to become a great guitarist. That doesn't mean we can't partake. It depends on what you want to do (e.g. MIDI orchestration emulating what the real ensemble can do or exploring what the computer can do with those sounds). If you want to emulate the real thing, then there are some fundamental concepts that you should pay attention to, for example the range of the instruments, the idiomatic capabilities of the instruments (i.e. what's easy to play, what's not), the qualities of sound/timbre in the different registers, and probably above all, balance of the aforementioned elements and more.
 
There are some interesting parallels with synth layering in electronic music, like doubling the violin line with the flute an octave above to create a richer, composite sound or even using the piccolo's upper register to as opposed to its lower register to get it sound clearly in a loud, dense texture.
 
Obviously in the DAW environment, we have different kinds of control with the faders alone compared to the real thing, but it's definitely good to be aware of these ideas as they will help. But I definitely encourage to take the dive, especially if you're interested. Having a good ear is always going to be one of your best, if not your best, asset.
 
P.S.
 
Being able to study scores of successful compositions in the genre is always a great way to learn directly from the experts.

Amine Belkhouche
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I've taken a couple of orchestration courses at my school and it's just like any discipline. It can take a long time to become a great orchestrator just like it can take a long time to become a great guitarist.
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I think the secret here is how you "make sense" of the music itself as a whole, not separate parts. This is the harsh and sometimes very poor part of both rock and jazz music, when the instrument is out on its own, and what is underneath is ... kinda nothing ... and it distorts the completeness of the image (FOR ME!!!), which the piece of music would naturally give, that is the most glowing part of a lot of classical music and its history.
 
The 20th and 21st century, are changing that some, but I think they are expanding it, not changing it as much.
 
The good example is the pitch bend wheel and the guitar strings, being moved/stretched to create something different, that no instrument on an orchestra does, and no one would even consider doing that to a violin, for example, or any other long string instrument (only the bass, I think).
 
As another example, on the Tosca 2nd act's first part, is doing the aria, you will find a very subtle solo violin in the midst of it all, and it is doing single notes, and in my "film version" I made that tears falling down the character's face, and falling on his arms, and then the rest of the body ... a sort of drop, drop, drop, drop and drop and drop ... and even Peter Mark, thought that was excellent, helping solve all the problems and details that opera has on any stage ... the details are lost, and they are the best part of it all!
 
Very little rock/jazz music is that well defined instrumentally, for example, and that makes things tougher. However, I can see things improving. Mike Oldfield, is very good at small details, and so was CAMEL in their opus, "Snow Goose", as is Vangelis in many of his soundtracks and longer pieces that do not use a "song" as a format, which is 66% of his output! I seem to think that "Close to the Edge" makes it as does all of "Tales of Topographic Oceans". For me, these pieces are all the "symphonies" of our time, and the music that will be remembered from it.
 
I imagine, that it teaches you to "hear" everything, and this is the part of rock and jazz music that is mostly sad for me ... the rest is there as the carpet for you to step on, and it's old, dusty and ugly already ... sometimes!