Orchestration inmusic can have two meanings:
People who want to compose music for orchestras need to study orchestration. They can do this by reading books about orchestration, but also they can do this by studying orchestralscores and listening toorchestras inconcerts or onCDs. Students at music colleges will also practise orchestration by takingpiano music andarranging it for orchestra.
The wordinstrumentation means almost the same thing as “orchestration”. “Instrumentation” means: understanding each instrument and knowing about all the sounds they can make. It can be about any music with instruments, whereas “orchestration” refers to the orchestra from its beginnings in the17th century to the present.
Orchestration is all about understanding how to write well for different instruments, how to combine them so that they sound well together and balance well.
Sometimes composers leave the orchestration of their works to other people.Leonard Bernstein is famous as the composer ofWest Side Story, but although he composed all the notes he left it to other people to orchestrate. The composerMaurice Ravel took a piano piece calledPictures at an Exhibition byModest Mussorgsky (who had died forty years earlier). He arranged it for orchestra. Most people know this version rather than Mussorgsky’s piano version.
Hector Berlioz andNikolai Rimsky-Korsakov are two famouscomposers who were particularly brilliant at writing for orchestra. They both wrote books on orchestration which are still very useful today.