orchestration questions

[davidmesiha]

hey guys,

I'm looking for some help and I hope that I'm posting in the right place.

I'm trying to recreate this popular orchestral film effect where you get a kind of sweeping effect with the orchestra, usually it is led with winds, cymbal and various other percussion instruments.

any ideas or pointers on this front would be greatly appreciated.

thanks in advance

Dave

[catshsh]

Hi,
You could perhaps find what you need here: http://www.northernsounds.com/forum/forumdisplay.php/77-Principles-of-Orchestration-On-line

[davidmesiha]

hi there,

thanks for the reply, I do own that book actually, but didn't really find the answer I'm looking for. perhaps I'll look again more closely.

thanks
Dave

[elerouxx]

Could you post a link or example of what you want to achieve?

[tubatimberinger]

I would recommend finding an example from standard repertoire, getting a copy of that score and studying it. Most likely you will find more than one thing you like in that score. Also, it's a great idea to copy those pages and keep them in a binder somewhere. You can collect them like an orchestration recipe book. Other than that, it's really hard to guess what you are wanting to hear just from a verbal description.

[davidmesiha]

thanks for all your responses, I will try to find the example and post a link.

thanks

David

[Surfwhammy]

hey guys,

I'm looking for some help and I hope that I'm posting in the right place.

I'm trying to recreate this popular orchestral film effect where you get a kind of sweeping effect with the orchestra, usually it is led with winds, cymbal and various other percussion instruments.

any ideas or pointers on this front would be greatly appreciated.

thanks in advance

Dave

I have a friend who does graphic design and photography, and for decades he kept telling me artistic stuff about using visual textures--which is one of his skills--but I never connected the musical dots until about 5 years ago, at which time I realized (a) that sounds can be viewed as being "textures" and (b) that in some respects playing "textures" is easier than playing well-defined notes and phrases, so I started having a bit of FUN with textures, which at first I did on electric bass, since I have been playing electric bass for the longest time, hence it is easier than doing textures on lead guitar or keyboards . . .

[NOTE: The "texture" epiphany was a key part of my ongoing effort to do several things, including (a) to be able to compose and play lead guitar solos in real-time on the fly and (b) being able to play what I hear in my mind without needing to think about it consciously or to do any type of arbitrary mapping, translating, or transforming, which from the perspective of lead guitar soloing is a fancy way of describing "fluency", which is very different from "proficiency", where the general idea is that being "fluent" in lead guitar soloing is like being able to catch a wave and surf it. In contrast, being "proficient" simply maps to being able to learn an already recorded lead guitar solo note-for-note and then to be able to play it with reasonable accuracy. And in many respects, the most significant hindrances to becoming melodically "fluent" are (a) having entirely too much detailed knowledge of traditional music theory and (b) devoting entirely too much attention to immediately conscious thinking, especially with respect to making arbitrary judgements about whether notes sound "good", "bad", or "indifferent". Explained another way, if you are afraid or perhaps terrified of the possibility of playing a "bad" note, then every note you play is quite likely to be "bad", while in great and often paradoxical contrast if you simply play whatever appears in your mind without making any judgments regarding "good", "bad", or "indifferent", it is quite likely to sound "good" once you listen to it for a while after it has been recorded at a time when you can focus on listening rather than composing and playing, and the reason is that it is virtually impossible for most people to do anything randomly, absent a significant or profound physical or mental abnormality, a fact which in quantum mechanics (physics) is explained by the thought exercise colloquially called the "Schrödinger's cat" paradox. Without wandering too far into the esoteric aspects of randomness, the practical perspective as it pertains to composing and playing music is that at some level one has sufficient knowledge to be able to make very rapid elegant decisions with the unconscious mind, and the key to tapping this primarily unconscious knowledge it to discover how to play music without engaging in immediately conscious thought, where instead of thinking consciously about playing you simply play without thinking, where the curiously fascinating fact relative to randomness is that by definition playing never is random, even when it might appear to be random, because yet another fact is that everything your fingers do when playing an instrument is based entirely on very precise instructions from the brain regardless of whether you are aware of the instructions in any immediately conscious way, which with a bit of rephrasing maps to "I think, therefore I play" or conversely "I play, therefore I think", and for reference when someone suggest that they played something "off the top of their head", they usually are being very precise, since this is where the Frontal Eye Fields (FEF) region of the brain is located . . . ]

Schrödinger's cat (wikipedia)

Randomness (wikipedia)

This fast brain pathway also provides auditory input at even shorter times starting at 24 ms and being affected by auditory characteristics at 30–60 ms.

[SOURCE: Frontal Eye Fields (wikipedia) ]

So, the first bit of advice for composing is to discover how to think in terms of textures--which in some respects requires not thinking, at all--where it is useful to understand that textures include all the "in-between" notes and typically are vastly abstract and occasionally surreal, as well as generally being imprecise when contrasted to traditional notes and phrases, hence are more like blurred brush strokes than very precise and crisp dots . . .

[NOTE: Explained yet another way, how difficult is it to make noises that mimic the sound of of whatever a "sweeping effect" might be? Not so difficult, really! And I suggest that if you can make humming, tapping, whistling, and other noises that sound like a "sweeping effect", then if you think about it for a while and work on hearing it in your mind, then you should be able to map it to some combination of instruments . . . ]

"The Sorcerer's Apprentice ("Fantasia", Walt Disney) -- YouTube music video


Paul Dukas ~ French Composer

French composer Paul Dukas and his 19th century composition, "L'Apprenti sorcier" (wikipedia)

Another useful technique comes from Joseph Schillinger's System of Musical Composition (SoMC), and in some respects it is the higher level geometric strategy that includes textures as one of many flavors, and the basic concept is that you create an algorithm, equation, formula, or geometric map for whatever you want to represent aurally, where color is one of the key elements, which specifically involves developing a mapping of instruments, voices, and sounds to colors and light . . .

Some people associate sound with color, which one might suppose is where the Blues genre got its name, although originally the association probably was more a matter of associating color with emotional mood, but so what . . .

So what!

The more ways you discover to map things, the more you can do, but the reality is that a lot of people simply do not automatically associate color with music, which certainly was the case here in the sound isolation for quite a while . . .

If you are one of the folks who does not automatically associate color with sound, then it helps to understand that color has temperature, which in the universe of physics is a matter of the Kelvin temperature of light, but the way this maps to graphic design and photography is that colors have very precise temperatures which generally are classified at a high level as being cold, cool, neutral, warm, and hot, where for example blue is cold but red is hot, and this is based on the Kelvin temperature of blue and red light . . .



[SOURCE: Color Temperature (wikipedia) ]

Curiously, "cool" light actually is hotter than "warm" light, which can be a bit confusing, but Kelvin is an absolute scale, and among other things it is used to measure thermal activity, where the absence of thermal activity maps to 0 degrees Kelvin, which makes the range go from no thermal activity (0) to total chaos (infinity), and this also is a bit strange conceptually, but so what . . .

Kelvin (wikipedia)

So what!

Overall, I think the colloquial use of the various high level terms {cold, cool, neutral, warm, hot} comes from mapping the color of ice water in the ocean and the color of the sun on a hot day, or whatever . . .

Whatever!

And since I do not have an intuitive mapping of sounds to color, I find it helpful and practical to use a mapping based on the physics of light and anything else that appears to make a bit of logical sense in one way or another, and one of the ways to do this type of mapping involves harmonics and overtones, which can be a bit confusing . . .

Harmonics and Overtones (wikipedia)

My perspective is a bit different, and I prefer to consider everything in terms of harmonics, overtones, timbre, and inharmonics, where something like a Tibetan singing bowl or a pure sine wave is "cool", while a bowed violin and saxophone are "warm" or "hot", depending on how inharmonic they happen to be . . .

Timbre (wikipedia)

Inharmonicity (wikipedia)

And there is no guarantee that I use any of these terms correctly or that I understand any of this in a factual way based on verified physics, but it does not matter, which is the fascinating aspect of creating artistic maps, since there is no official rule that requires artistic maps to be logical . . .

From my perspective, the important thing is to develop a set of maps that make sense to your modes of thinking, which in the grand scheme of everything is a way to create sound palettes that you can use when composing, and in this analogy, metaphor, or simile one might suggest (a) that notes and phrases are like brushes and (b) that composing a song is like painting a picture, which is one of the ways Joseph Schillinger explains some of the finer aspects of musical composition in his System of Musical Composition (SoMC), where it is useful to observe that Schillinger also wrote about using mathematics, geometry, psychology, and physics in other types of art . . .

And if you take the concept of creating mappings to a higher level, then you discover "The Glass Bead Game", which is the subject of the Hermann Hesse novel colloquially titled "Magister Ludi" for English readers, and is an excellent--albeit vastly abstruse--way to get a sense of what one can do with mappings . . .

The Glass Bead Game (wikipedia)

It helps considerably if you are naturally skilled in devising analogies, metaphors, and similes, but these skills certainly can be developed, so the general strategy I recommend is to get in touch with your "inner artist", where perhaps the simplest way to do this is to enjoy and study art, which can be something so simple as going to art galleries; reading books on Art History, Music History, and English Literature; and so forth and so on, which includes having discussions with artists, regardless of their particular art focus, since you can gain insights from painters, graphic designers, writers, and photographers that apply in one way or another to music, since in some respects these all are just flavors of art, where from my perspective the most important thing to understand is that once you grant yourself an "artistic license", there you are, which basically involves determining what you do without making a lot of arbitrary judgments, since in the grand scheme of everything it is difficult to determine in an absolute way much of anything . . .

Overall, I tend to think that Amadeus Mozart was a much better composer than Yoko Ono, but I suppose it depends on one's perspective, and the practical bit of wisdom is that while you might not be able to do better than Amadeus Mozart, I think you do not need to set the bar too high to beat Yoko Ono, although she certainly has vast insights into inharmonicity, really . . .

Really!

Regarding you specific question, I had a bit of FUN last winter with composing an orchestral piece for the Surf Whammys "Holiday" album, which has been in development for several years, and it mostly was a matter of doing a few experiments in NOTION 3 and noticing early that some of the initial phrases sounded a bit like swirling snow, which is the way things generally work here in the sound isolation studio in the sense of starting with something and then listening to it for a while to discover the direction or path that is the best fit for whatever the first few measures of notes suggest, which is entirely different from starting with a concept and then composing music for the concept, although I probably was pondering something related to the "Holiday" album at the time, and I definitely was focused on finding photographs of icicles, snow, and other Christmas related stuff, hence it was not an entirely random occurrence . . .



[NOTE: This is mixed for headphone listening; it needs some retardando and precipitando; the articulations are a bit primitive; and some of the instruments sound a bit too much like a 1960s Farfisa combo organ, but so what. I was younger and had no sense at the time . . . ]

"Swirly" (The Surf Whammys) -- MP3 (7.1MB, 256-kbps [VBR], approximately 3 minutes and 45 seconds)

"Swirly" -- PDF (233KB, 9 pages)

[NOTE: Most of the instruments are from NOTION 3, but the violin sections are from Miroslav Philharmonik, since they do glissandi, so if you do not have Miroslav Philharmonik the violin sections will report "not found" or whatever when the score loads, but the notes will be there, and you can reconfigure the violins to use the NOTION 3 bundled violin sections. Doing glissandi requires mixing and matching virtual instrument libraries, since some of the NOTION 3 bundled instruments do glissandi nicely but others do not do it, at all, which is the same with Miroslav Philharmonik, at least based on what I have been able to determine via experimenting so far . . . ]

"Swirly.notion" -- NOTION 3 project file (5.7MB)

If you watch what happens when it is snowing and there is a bit of wind, where a blizzard is ideal for this purpose, then it is easy to see patterns, waves, and swirls, and you can map the various motions to the ways the musical phrases ascend and descend, as well as to the ways the various instruments sound, which makes it like painting a picture with textures, which is fabulous . . .

Fabulous!

[Surfwhammy]

As a bit of follow-up on orchestration, I watched "The Spirit" last night, since it appeared in iTunes Store and looked interesting . . .

"The Spirit" is a Frank Miller film in what one might call the Surreal Moderne Film Noir style, and there is a stellar song at the end when the credits were rolling that captured my attention, so I did a bit of research and discovered that the song is an updated version of the Marlene Dietrich 1930s classic, "Falling In Love Again (Can't Help It)", where the English language version has lyrics by Sammy Lerner, and making this all the more interesting, the updated version is sung by Christina Aguilera but is not on any of her albums . . .



The arrangement and orchestration of the Christina Aguilera version is done in a style reminiscent of the first Garbage album--the one that features their hit song "Stupid Girl" and the classic "As Heaven Is Wide"--and all these songs are dark but nevertheless interesting, which is what makes "As Heaven Is Wide" fit with "Falling In Love Again (Cant' Help It)" . . .

"As Heaven Is Wide" (Garbage) -- YouTube music video

This is the 78RPM record version of Marlene Dietrich's "Falling In Love Again (Can't Help It)" . . .

[NOTE: And while it should be obvious, the fact of the matter is that doing this in 1930 required one to have an orchestra and a professional recording studio, but at the dawn of the early-21st century you can do it on a Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) in a sound isolation studio no larger than a walk-in closet with NOTION 3, virtual instruments, a few VST plug-ins for special effects, mixing, and mastering, and someone to do the singing, which is virtually mind-boggling in the grand scheme of everything . . . ]

"Falling In Love Again (Can't Help It)" (Marlene Dietrich) -- YouTube 78RPM music video

And this is the updated version sung by Christina Aguilera . . .

"Falling In Love Again (Can't Help It)" (Christina Aguilera) -- YouTube music video

The updated version of "Falling In Love Again (Can't Help It)" is an excellent example of orchestration for DISCO and Pop songs, and it presents the song in several flavors, which makes it a type of orchestration roadmap and is the reason I decided to use it as an example, noting that from my perspective "orchestrating" includes arranging and instrumenting, as well . . .

The updated version also provides clues to different strategies for transforming a three minute song into an eight minute song, as well as how to use ideas from other songs, which is helpful for those folks who compose for film and have to deal with other people specifying particular moods and required durations of songs, which is fabulous . . .

Take the Marlene Dietrich song "Falling In Love Again (Can't Help It)"; do a Garbage thing with it; add some naughty girl vocal stuff, since Christina is going to sing it; and make it run for eight minutes. Then have your people call my people . . .

Fabulous!

P. S. This is another aspect of the composer's sound palette, and it is focused more on the high-level perspective where emotions and moods prevail, which is the domain of genres and styles, as well as scales and modes . . .

For reference, this is a chart that I did as part of a discussion on modes and scales for Flamenco songs in the GuitarZone.com FORUM, where after it started making a bit of sense i realized that it is all a matter of scales, since there are many more scales than traditional musical modes. I knew some of the scales but had not realized in any immediately conscious way that there were so many which had very specific qualities, although from the perspective of mathematics, there are a lot of possible scales, except that most of them are more weird than useful, where the key bit of information is that when there are 12 possible notes, with no repetition allowed but order is important, then the number of combinations of 7 intervals is 3,991,680 or approximately 4 million diatonic scales (a.k.a., scales with 7 intervals), where the presumption is that the last note in a scale is just first note but an octave higher, hence does not count as a one of the 7 intervals, since this makes the computation considerably easier, where the extreme at the low end is the first 7 semitones and the octave of the first note, while the extreme at the high end is the last 7 semitones with ending note being the octave of the lowest of the 7 last semitones, which with C4 (a.k.a., "Middle C") as the reference note curiously maps to the extreme low-end scale being the 7 semitones from C4 to F#4 (inclusive) with C5 being the last note in the scale, while at the extreme high-end the scale is the 7 semitones from F#4 to C5, if you bend the rules a tiny bit and include C5, with the octave note being F#5, which is curious, because it makes F#4 the midpoint or whatever, although at the moment I have no immediately conscious idea why this is important, other than it is intriguing geometrically, since when there are 13 semitones it follows that the 7th semitone will be the midpoint, which for electric guitar at standard tuning is very interesting from the perspective of repeating three note per string patterns that are constrained to a four semitone boundary (which in "box" terminology maps to the "box" being four frets wide), which probably makes little if any sense to anyone other than me, but so what . . .

[NOTE: The top numbers are the frets, and the bottom numbers are the intervals . . . ]


Boxed Quads ~ Ionian Major Scale ~ Key of E

[NOTE: Minor modes and scales are shown in red, where "minor" is defined to have at least a diminished or flatted third . . . ]



[SOURCE: Modes Applied to Flamenco (GuitarZone.com FORUM) ]

The video done by Prof. Ruben Díaz, which is linked in the first message in the GuitarZone.com FORUM topic and is provided as follow for reference, is stellar for making a bit of sense of the traditional seven musical modes, especially for folks who play guitar . . .

Modes Applied to Flamenco (Prof. Ruben Díaz) -- YouTube video tutorial

Lots of FUN!

P. P. S. All this Music Theory, Mathematics, and Geometry stuff is both useful and fascinating, but if you have an eidetic memory for songs, then the "play by ear" strategy is a lot easier most of the time, and for reference the hallmark of the "play by ear" strategy is listening, where at least for DISCO and Pop songs the way it works is that after listening to songs for a few decades, you should be able easily to identify phrases, tones, and so forth that the composer "borrowed' from earlier songs, either consciously or unconsciously, which often is quite amusing when it maps to a subtle pun, which is something that Amadeus Mozart had a bit of FUN doing with his composition, "Twelve Variations on 'Ah vous dirai-je, Maman'", which is another stellar roadmap for techniques one can use when composing, for sure. . .

"Twelve Variations on 'Ah vous dirai-je, Maman'" (Amadeus Mozart) -- MIDI

For sure!

[davidmesiha]

hey there

thank you so much for putting in the time and effort to write such detailed responses to me. you have mentioned some fascinating stuff. I'm currently reading A Geometry of Music, while analyzing Stravinsky's firebird orchestral score and have found both activities to be hugely entertaining and massively informative.

thanks and I'm pleased to have met you

sincerely

Dave

[Surfwhammy]

hey there

thank you so much for putting in the time and effort to write such detailed responses to me. you have mentioned some fascinating stuff. I'm currently reading A Geometry of Music, while analyzing Stravinsky's firebird orchestral score and have found both activities to be hugely entertaining and massively informative.

thanks and I'm pleased to have met you

sincerely

Dave

Glad to help!