Question for the orchestral composers

[mazz]

Big Blue, or should we call you "Big Blue, Can of Worms Opener"?! To write for orchestral instruments well means to understand how the instruments are played, what they can and cannot do, and what they really sound like. A sample of an instrument is not that instrument. An orchestrator with samples is really an illusionist. When you learn what your samples can and cannot do and how that relates to the real thing, then you know what will make your samples sound "real" and what to avoid, even if the real thing could do it. You have to orchestrate to your samples. Your samples shouldn't dictate your composition (IMO) but your composition dictates your orchestration and what samples you use follow from there.As I see it, it's a threefold issue:1. Have a solid composition before you start orchestrating. 2. Visualize the orchestration in your inner ear.3. Execute the orchestration with your samples, modifying as you go when your samples hit the wall of their limitations.How to start a composition? For me it usually comes from reading the listings or having an assignment. Listening to the a las a little bit can get some juices flowing or drawing on my memory of certain pieces or even a feeling I'd like to evoke. Sitting down and improvising can sometimes yield good raw materials too. Getting a small idea and then taking a walk while it incubates is a composition technique I highly recommend. When I get stuck, getting up and doing something unrelated can help a new idea or a solution come forth easier than just banging on it. Sleep on it, that works sometimes too. Your idea of scoring videos is a good one.Listen to great orchestral music. Here's a short list of pieces that feature instruments in solo and ensemble with different blendings:Bartok: Concerto for OrchestraProkofiev: Peter and the WolfTchaikovsky: The Nutcracker and his SymphoniesRavel: BoleroStravinsky: Rite of Spring, PetruschkaThese are relatively accessible, there's hundreds of pieces out there and the list is very long but that's a good place to start, IMO.We'll keep talking about this forever, it's a huge, wide ranging subject but lots of fun to explore!!Have fun!!Mazz

[bigbluebarry]

Jan 4, 2009, 7:38pm, mazz wrote:Big Blue, or should we call you "Big Blue, Can of Worms Opener"?! To write for orchestral instruments well means to understand how the instruments are played, what they can and cannot do, and what they really sound like. A sample of an instrument is not that instrument. An orchestrator with samples is really an illusionist. When you learn what your samples can and cannot do and how that relates to the real thing, then you know what will make your samples sound "real" and what to avoid, even if the real thing could do it. You have to orchestrate to your samples. Your samples shouldn't dictate your composition (IMO) but your composition dictates your orchestration and what samples you use follow from there.As I see it, it's a threefold issue:1. Have a solid composition before you start orchestrating. 2. Visualize the orchestration in your inner ear.3. Execute the orchestration with your samples, modifying as you go when your samples hit the wall of their limitations.How to start a composition? For me it usually comes from reading the listings or having an assignment. Listening to the a las a little bit can get some juices flowing or drawing on my memory of certain pieces or even a feeling I'd like to evoke. Sitting down and improvising can sometimes yield good raw materials too. Getting a small idea and then taking a walk while it incubates is a composition technique I highly recommend. When I get stuck, getting up and doing something unrelated can help a new idea or a solution come forth easier than just banging on it. Sleep on it, that works sometimes too. Your idea of scoring videos is a good one.Listen to great orchestral music. Here's a short list of pieces that feature instruments in solo and ensemble with different blendings:Bartok: Concerto for OrchestraProkofiev: Peter and the WolfTchaikovsky: The Nutcracker and his SymphoniesRavel: BoleroStravinsky: Rite of Spring, PetruschkaThese are relatively accessible, there's hundreds of pieces out there and the list is very long but that's a good place to start, IMO.We'll keep talking about this forever, it's a huge, wide ranging subject but lots of fun to explore!!Have fun!!MazzThanks Mazz! That's some great advice. I've got some of those pieces you mentioned on my iPod already I think I've come up with another question but I think I'll put it in a different thread. Man, I sure do love this forum. - Big Blue "Can Opener"

[crystallions]

This is indeed a big subject... (and a fun one too) I see that you have already received lots of great advice so I will try to keep it somewhat short for now...First I want to say that I really like your piano piece. It is very pretty - a very good start!When I am going to write a new piece I start with improvising at the piano. I come up with a chord progression or a melody (theme). When I have something that I like I write it down and move to the computer. Then I usually build the piece from bottom up. I start with recording the bass. In an orchestral piece that would probably be the bass/ cello and/or tuba/ trombone. I usually keep it simple and use the bottom note of the chord for the bass part. Then I add the melody. It can stay in one instrument or jump from one to another. Then I fill in the middle - the empty spots. I add percussion and some harmony parts that work within the chords and compliments the bass and the melody. I really like arpeggio strings when the melody is in the horns/ trumpets and the piece is supposed to be majestic. I like long notes in strings and woodwinds for dramatic slow stuff. A wonderful (but thick) book to read to get a better grasp on orchestration is "Principles of Orchestration" by Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov. I have never read the book in one setting - but once in a while I take it out and read about whatever instrument group I am composing for at the moment. It has chapters about all the instrument groups of the orchestra that explains what the instrument can do as well as a chapter on harmony. It also talks about which instruments to double depending on which kind of sound you are after (mellow and soft, sharp and aggressive etc) and how the instruments sounds in different parts of their registers.As previously has been said - start small. Now when you have done a piece for piano and strings - maybe you use the same theme but put the melody in oboe and make the accompaniment in strings and woodwinds. Explore which sounds you like from EW and start there. For a while I used the flute sound from my K2500X for every single piece I wrote. Every piece had the melody in flute with string accompaniment. Once I became comfortable writing for that kind of ensemble I started exploring other kind of combinations of instruments and sounds.Many of the old dead composers (Handel, Bach etc) learned much of what they did by copying scores while they were children. It taught them the rules of orchestration as well as what would sound good and what wouldn't. One of my favorite ways to learn and grow is to do kind of what they did. I pick a piece that I really like the sound of and try to write something very similar (if it ends up too similar you can never use it - but at least you have learned something). I pull it up in itunes and listen several times trying to distinguish which instruments are used and listen to rhythms and style of accompaniment. Then I write my own piece using the same style of acc. rhythms and instruments. Last but not least (which has already been mentioned before) is to write in a way that it really could be performed by a real orchestra. That way it will sound more realistic. I have a tendency to write too many parts and the piece becomes too busy. Besides that I like a heavy bass so I tend to write 4-5 bass parts and make a close chord played in the bass instruments. Some time back I realized that since that is not how it would be written for real orcehstra I probably shouldn't do that for midi either. If you write for strings for example there will usually only be 4- 5 parts going at once. 1 vlns, 2 vlns, vla, cello and bass. Often the bass and cello are doubled in octaves. It is unrealistic to put 4 notes for the cello alone. They should have one or possibly two notes. It is better to keep things simple and clean than to end up with something that sounds muddy (something I am continously working on as I have a tendency to keep adding parts).My favorite way of learning about an instrument/ instrument group is to find someone who is really good at that instrument and talk to them for an hour or two. Have them explain what they can/ can't do and what is special for that instrument. Right now I am working on transcribing my midi version of the Pendragon trailer for real orchestra. While I know a lot about strings I don't know much about brass, woodwinds and percussion. One of the people I contacted was a percussionist. We met and spent some time going over my percussion parts and talked about how to improve them. We discussed different sounds of the orchestral percussion instruments and different rhythms and techniques that could create the feel I was after. OK - that ended up being really long so I will end now...Hopefully this is helpful. I am looking forward to hearing more orchestral music from you! ~ Lydia

[stevebarden]

Jan 5, 2009, 1:41pm, crystallions wrote:A wonderful (but thick) book to read to get a better grasp on orchestration is "Principles of Orchestration" by Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov. If you are interested, Gary Garritan sponsors an online interactive orchestration course based on the Rimsky-Korsakov book. It can be found here: http://www.northernsounds.com/forum/for ... 7SteveEdit: oh yeah...it's free!

[crystallions]

Jan 5, 2009, 1:47pm, stevebarden wrote:Jan 5, 2009, 1:41pm, crystallions wrote:A wonderful (but thick) book to read to get a better grasp on orchestration is "Principles of Orchestration" by Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov. If you are interested, Gary Garritan sponsors an online interactive orchestration course based on the Rimsky-Korsakov book. It can be found here: http://www.northernsounds.com/forum/for ... 7SteveEdit: oh yeah...it's free!I didn't know about that course. I am going to check that out too!

[bigbluebarry]

Lydia... thank you for taking the time to write so much. Sounds like some great advice in there and I know that I'm gonna be chewing over a lot of this stuff for awhile. It's nice to know that I'm gonna have a lot of support along the way Steve... thanks for posting that link! Man, what a resource that can be!- Big Blue

[ernstinen]

Hey Big Blue!Although I majored in composition in college, I dropped out to play rock & roll. Kept rockin' until the mid 90's, where I decided to take some film scoring classes at UCLA. Good choice! The most helpful course for ME was orchestration. I'd written quite a few pieces, but really orchestrating them well got me up and running.Since I decided I didn't have the personality (dealing with the politics) for film scoring, I decided to compose concert music. My first extended piece was "Symphony No. 1" which I wrote in 1995, and I've never looked back!So far, I've written over 20 pieces for orchestra learning the ins and outs of Midi, starting with the Proteus 2, and adding sample libraries using GigaStudio. But when I bought a PC dedicated to EWQLSO Gold, things really started sounding realistic. Here's one of my latest pieces using mostly Gold, entitled "The Power Of The Sun":http://www.box.net/shared/15on53qri1I've had two pieces recorded in Europe, the first by the Bulgarian Philharmonic, and the second by the Czech Philharmonic. Here's the Czech version of "Elegy":http://www.box.net/shared/irn1fxxiopI learned to write scores basically by listening to a lot of music, looking at orchestral scores, and scouring orchestration books. My first scores were probably too complicated, so with "Elegy" I made it as "playable" as possible, and I think the Czech Phil nailed it!It took me over 10 years to really get it down, with detail to dynamics, articulations, bowing, phrasing etc. It's quite complicated, but importing quantized Midi files into your scoring program helps a lot.That's my story, an' I'm stickin' to it!Ern

[crystallions]

Ern - I just listened to your pieces. They are both beautiful! Thank you for sharing. (I am VERY impressed with the realistic sound of "The Power Of The Sun". I also use EW so it is fun to know what is possible to do using those sounds. Now I just need to practice...)

[ernstinen]

Jan 7, 2009, 11:23am, crystallions wrote:Ern - I just listened to your pieces. They are both beautiful! Thank you for sharing. (I am VERY impressed with the realistic sound of "The Power Of The Sun". I also use EW so it is fun to know what is possible to do using those sounds. Now I just need to practice...) Hey, thanks Lydia! I appreciate your comments, especially the word "beautiful." A lot of modern music lacks melody, and I'm an unabashed melody-freak!Although EW Gold is the foundation and the "glue" to the piece, I still use a lot of Gigastudio libraries such as Dan Dean Woodwinds, Sam Horns etc. The trick is to add some ambient reverb to the "dry" samples to get them to blend with the built-in EW Gold ambience. I spent so much money on Giga libs that I HAVE to use some of them! Best Regards,Ern

[matto]

Another interesting thing to do to learn about orchestration is to buy Mussorgsky's "Pictures At An Exhibition" in it's original piano version, and a version of it as orchestrated by Ravel.Assuming you're a fairly fluent (notation) reader, it would be even better to also buy the scores.Studing these recordings/scores will teach you how to orchestrate something you may come up with on the guitar or piano and turn it into a full fledged orchestral piece which completely belies its origins.Since "Pictures" is essentially a "visual composition" to begin with it's also more applicable to the tv/film/production music genres than some other classical compositions might be.Another favorite from my youth (in addition to Peter And The Wolf" which mazz mentioned) which "larned me" to love the orchestra is "Young Person's Guide To The Orchestra" by Britten. It's really cool cause it shows in a very playful way what the various instruments can do. It's also based on a very simple theme by Purcell, which shows how you can take a simple musical idea and turn into a whole big musical experience.Since you're such a youthful character I'd recommend you pick up a recording of that too...make sure you get a narrated version...a DVD filmed version might even be better.