The shorthand for the instrumentation of a

symphony orchestra An orchestra (; ) is a large instrumental ensemble typical of classical music, which combines instruments from different families. There are typically four main sections of instruments: * bowed string instruments, such as the violin, viola, c ...

(and other similar ensembles) is used to outline which and how many instruments, especially

wind instrument A wind instrument is a musical instrument that contains some type of resonator (usually a tube) in which a column of air is set into vibration by the player blowing into (or over) a mouthpiece set at or near the end of the resonator. The pitc ...

s, are called for in a given piece of music. The shorthand is ordered in the same fashion as the parts of the individual instruments in the

score Score or scorer may refer to: *Test score, the result of an exam or test Business * Score Digital, now part of Bauer Radio * Score Entertainment, a former American trading card design and manufacturing company * Score Media, a former Canadian ...

(when read from top to bottom).

General approach

The orchestra is divided into four groups and specified as follows: *

Woodwind instrument Woodwind instruments are a family of musical instruments within the greater category of wind instruments. Common examples include flute, clarinet, oboe, bassoon, and saxophone. There are two main types of woodwind instruments: flutes and r ...

s: flutes,

oboe The oboe ( ) is a type of double reed woodwind instrument. Oboes are usually made of wood, but may also be made of synthetic materials, such as plastic, resin, or hybrid composites. The most common oboe plays in the treble or soprano range. ...

clarinet The clarinet is a musical instrument in the woodwind family. The instrument has a nearly cylindrical bore and a flared bell, and uses a single reed to produce sound. Clarinets comprise a family of instruments of differing sizes and pitch ...

saxophone The saxophone (often referred to colloquially as the sax) is a type of Single-reed instrument, single-reed woodwind instrument with a conical body, usually made of brass. As with all single-reed instruments, sound is produced when a reed (mouthpi ...

s (if one or more are needed),

bassoon The bassoon is a woodwind instrument in the double reed family, which plays in the tenor and bass ranges. It is composed of six pieces, and is usually made of wood. It is known for its distinctive tone color, wide range, versatility, and virtuos ...

s *

Brass instrument A brass instrument is a musical instrument that produces sound by sympathetic vibration of air in a tubular resonator in sympathy with the vibration of the player's lips. Brass instruments are also called labrosones or labrophones, from Latin a ...

s: horns,

trumpet The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitched one octave below the standard ...

trombone The trombone (german: Posaune, Italian, French: ''trombone'') is a musical instrument in the brass family. As with all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player's vibrating lips cause the air column inside the instrument to vibrate ...

s, tubas *

Percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Exc ...

timpani Timpani (; ) or kettledrums (also informally called timps) are musical instruments in the percussion family. A type of drum categorised as a hemispherical drum, they consist of a membrane called a head stretched over a large bowl traditionall ...

snare drum The snare (or side drum) is a percussion instrument that produces a sharp staccato sound when the head is struck with a drum stick, due to the use of a series of stiff wires held under tension against the lower skin. Snare drums are often used ...

bass drum The bass drum is a large drum that produces a note of low definite or indefinite pitch. The instrument is typically cylindrical, with the drum's diameter much greater than the drum's depth, with a struck head at both ends of the cylinder. Th ...

, chimes, etc. *

Keyboard instrument A keyboard instrument is a musical instrument played using a keyboard, a row of levers which are pressed by the fingers. The most common of these are the piano, organ, and various electronic keyboards, including synthesizers and digital pian ...

celesta The celesta or celeste , also called a bell-piano, is a struck idiophone operated by a keyboard. It looks similar to an upright piano (four- or five- octave), albeit with smaller keys and a much smaller cabinet, or a large wooden music box ...

organ Organ may refer to: Biology * Organ (biology), a part of an organism Musical instruments * Organ (music), a family of keyboard musical instruments characterized by sustained tone ** Electronic organ, an electronic keyboard instrument ** Hammond ...

piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...

String instrument String instruments, stringed instruments, or chordophones are musical instruments that produce sound from vibrating strings when a performer plays or sounds the strings in some manner. Musicians play some string instruments by plucking the s ...

harp The harp is a stringed musical instrument that has a number of individual strings running at an angle to its soundboard; the strings are plucked with the fingers. Harps can be made and played in various ways, standing or sitting, and in orc ...

violin The violin, sometimes known as a '' fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone ( string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument ( soprano) in the family in regu ...

viola ; german: Bratsche , alt=Viola shown from the front and the side , image=Bratsche.jpg , caption= , background=string , hornbostel_sachs=321.322-71 , hornbostel_sachs_desc=Composite chordophone sounded by a bow , range= , related= *Violin family ...

cello The cello ( ; plural ''celli'' or ''cellos'') or violoncello ( ; ) is a bowed (sometimes plucked and occasionally hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually tuned in perfect fifths: from low to high, C2, G2, ...

basses Bass or Basses may refer to: Fish * Bass (fish), various saltwater and freshwater species Music * Bass (sound), describing low-frequency sound or one of several instruments in the bass range: ** Bass (instrument), including: ** Acoustic bass ...

, frequently abbreviated to 'str', 'strs' or similar. If any soloists or a choir are called for, their parts are usually printed between the percussion/keyboards and the strings in the score. The basic order of the instruments, as seen above, is common to all of the shorthand systems. However, there is no standardized version of this shorthand; different publishers and librarians use different systems, especially for doubling/alternate/additional instruments. David Daniels, in earlier versions of his influential work that collects in print a catalog of the instrumentations of some 4,000+ pieces, made use of a shorthand for doubling/alternate/additional instruments which was less clear, but in the newer online version Daniels' approach has been refined to something more explicit, akin to the Chester Novello and Boosey & Hawkes notations below. Examples for different notations (the instrumentation of John Adams' Harmonielehre is used here as an example):

Examples

An example of another approach, particularly useful where there may be extensive versatility required from doubling players, is given here for '' The Phantom of the Opera'' for a 45-part orchestra, taken from the Chester/Novello Hire Library: *WW1(fl,pic).WW2(fl).WW3(cl).WW4(ob,ca).WW5(cl,bcl).WW6(bn)/3hn.3tpt.3tbn.tuba/2perc/hp.2kbd/str(85443 players)Guidelines to hiring ''Phantom of the Opera'' 2012
stageamusical.com. Accessed 4 March 2017

Sources

*Klaus Haller, Elfriede Witte (eds.)
''Regeln für die alphabetische Katalogisierung von Ausgaben musikalischer Werke'' (RAK-Musik).
Leipzig 2004 (pdf; 561 kB).

Notes

{{Reflist Musical instruments Musical notation