If you are going to compose for instruments you do not play or are not familiar with may I recommend these three books (they will sure answer almost all of your questions - if not you probably shouldn't be writting it).

Orchestration by Cecil Forsyth.
Orchestration by Walter Piston.
and
The Orchestra by Ebenezer Prout.

I don't mind challenging music, but it gets pretty sucky when the last three new music pieces I've read through has things that literally can NOT be done on the instrument.

The masters at the Paris Consefvatory told Claude Debussy he was "playing the piano wrong".

I have Piston's "Harmony" and I learn things when I break it out...but usually something I know in the terms of my unique quasi-jazz-classical-rock theory. I also have a copy of the "Consise Oxford Dictionary of Music" and that has some very nice brief discussions of a lot of pertinent composition subjects, as well as reference information about composers and major performers and events...it's somewhat dated now (I've had it for a quarter century), but still relevant. It just doesn't have an entry for rap or hip-hop

I find listening and playing music the best way to get ideas for composition, but of course my ends might be very different from the next guy

JOhnlovemusic wrote:

If you are going to compose for instruments you do not play or are not familiar with may I recommend these three books (they will sure answer almost all of your questions - if not you probably shouldn't be writting it). Orchestration by Cecil Forsyth. Orchestration by Walter Piston. and The Orchestra by Ebenezer Prout.

I already have the first two, and trying to acquire the third one.

I would like to suggest that you add to the list the book "The Technique of Orchestration" by Kent Kenan and Donald Grantham. I like two things about this book:

1. It comes with a CD which musically demonstrates the points discussed in the text (unfortunately, one of the about 90 cuts is messed up. The publisher did not respond to my report of the damage).

2. Providing the range for each instrument, the authors specify both "the extreme possible range" as well as "the practical or commonly used range." One may agree or disagree with the ranges the authors specify, but the information is, nonetheless, useful.

Have you seen any other of E. Prout`s series.I am a big fan. he has in depth volumes on harmony, counterpoint, fugue and musical form.