Instrumentation is the study and practice of writing
music for a
musical instrument.
Writing for a specific instrument requires the ability to take into account the special properties of that instrument such as the following:
- the pitch, timbre and dynamic range of the instrument and available tones in these ranges
- application of chords or other multiple tones
- certain kinds of passages can be especially easy or difficult to play
- playing techniques such as constraints of breathing, fingering, etc.
- special effects, such as harmonics, clicks, pizzicato, glissandi and so on
- notation conventions for the instrument.
See orchestration for a description of the difference between instrumentation, orchestration and arrangement.