RE: "Orchestration" and "Choreography"

Yes, I was thinking of posting on that subject.  That was why I was so
surprised to hear that "orchestration" in IT involves a "conductor".  In
musical circles orchestration refers more to a composition activity than
anything about performance.  Once orchestrated, in fact a musical work can
be performed without a conductor, and in fact for small ensembles that's the
norm.

-----Original Message-----
From: bhaugen [mailto:[email protected]] 
Sent: Friday, August 16, 2002 6:41 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: RE: "Orchestration" and "Choreography"



Orchestration
\Or`ches*tra"tion\, n. (Mus.) The arrangement of music for an orchestra;
orchestral treatment of a composition; -- called also instrumentation.
Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, (c) 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.

Doesn't say anything about conducting.

In Duke Ellington's band, Duke often composed the melodies,
and Billy Strayhorn often did the orchestration:  assigned parts to
instruments, wrote the sheets for each player, etc. Duke led (but rarely
conducted) the band.

Christopher Ferris wrote (but disagreed with):
> In general, I think that most people have been using the terms 
> somewhat interchangably, e.g. without really thinking about or 
> inferring any hidden meaning.

I think that is the state of affairs.

W3C can of course make words mean whatever you want,
but will the world go along?

-Bob Haugen