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Two or more instruments playing the same melody simultaneously, either at unison or at the octave.
Doubling strengthens a line and changes its color. Unison doubling blends two timbres into a third (flute with violin, clarinet with viola, horn with cello); octave doubling adds brilliance and weight while keeping one line. The thing to watch is strength in the register you choose: a low flute doubled by a trumpet simply disappears, while two instruments that are both strong there reinforce each other. Double the melody and bass before you thicken the middle.
Tchaikovsky, Romeo and Juliet Fantasy-Overture: the love theme is first heard in the English horn doubled in unison by muted violas — a reed and a muted string fused into one darker color.
Doubling is one of 1760 terms in the Gradus musical dictionary: the words, abbreviations and instrument names that appear in printed scores, plus the vocabulary composers use to talk about them.
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