The Acoustical Foundation of Music, John Backus

The Technique of Orchestration, Kent Kennan

Sounds and Scores, Henri Mancini
Emotion and Meaning in Music, Leonard Meyer
Twentieth Century Harmony, Vincent Persichetti
The Contemporary Arranger, Don Sebesky
The Contemporary Harmony, Ludmilla Ulehla
Inside the Score, Rayburn Wright
* Choral Arranging by Hawley Ades. Ni-request ko sa tita ko in the States as a b
irthday gift. I consider this my primary reference in choral arranging (as in, s
obrang basic)
The next books, although not strictly for choral arranging, teaches me about how
(and how not) to arrange for choirs with and without accompaniment (e.g. if you
r arrangement includes a full orchestra)
* Orchestration by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. Binili ko nearly 8 years ago. Mostly
on orchestration, but there are two chapters on voices and choirs.
* The Art of Orchestration by Hector Berlioz and Richard Wagner. Binili ko rin l
ast year lang (and---to whet your appetite---I found out that this is still avai
lable in the same bookstore where I bought it!!!). Has a section on choral arran
ging. Meron din ata ako nito as a PDF file (this is in the public domain, btw)
* Orchestration by Charles Widor. Got this over the Internet (this is also in th
e public domain).
And, although these books are not about choral arranging per se, I still look up
to these books because of their content---the harmony books teach me about diff
erent chord colorings, while the other book teaches basic standard counterpoint:
* Gradus ad Parnassum by J. J. Fux. The mother of all basic counterpoint books (
this was the same book used by Bach, Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven). Request ko di
n ito as a Christmas gift naman
* Harmony by Stefan Kotska and Dorothy Payne. Tsamba lang na nakita ko sa second
-hand bookshop
* Harmony by Walter Piston. Same as above, tsamba lang.
CHORAL ARRANGING by Hawley Ades - with this book, you can't go wrong. This is ou
r basic textbook here in the school. Music theory here is until the eight grade.
A lot longer and detailed compared to most music schools in the Philippines tha
t seem to hurry up their music curriculum.
Recently, a book entitled SIMPLY ARRANGING by John Williams was published in coo
rdination with our school system. This one is superb. It explained harmonic theo
ries and relationships and how simple thoughts were expounded to become mega-arr
angements. Plus the fact that the examples used here were the original orchestra
l arrangements of John Williams. Not to forget, it also discussed vocal arrangin
g.