Thoghts on orchestration?

[Michael J Lawrence]

I'm at a point where I'm really struggling to evolve my orchestration/arranging to the next level.  I'm happy with a lot of my compositions in terms of structure: harmony, counterpoint,dynamics (sometimes), but I tend to produce very monolithic scores.  Too often, it's just a big muddy string chorus with different countermelodies competing with each other.

 

So, I've been studying Rachel Portman's music for some time now because she has a compelling orchestration style.  (I'm assuming she does her own...)

 

I've managed to identify a few ideas but am struggling very much in implementing any of them myself.  Not that I want to be a Rachel Portman knockoff, but as an instructional excercise, I'm trying to mimic some of her techniques.

 

One thing I've discovered is it is very difficult to do quiet strings!  I use EWQLSO and Allegro and getting them to back off is a real chore.  I'm beginning to understand that adding just one more voice of strings makes a huge difference when the velocity is in the teens.  That "full" feeling with minimal strings is proving elusive.  

 

I've also noticed that a lot of those string swells really aren't.  She has a tendency to lay into the bottom layers to create an illusion of sorts without really doing too much with the actual string line.  Lay up CB, bone and a bassoon and you have a really dramatic pedal for the strings to "get big" on.  Who knew?

 

Last but not least is the handing off of melodic lines.  She will move between antecedents and conseqhences with members of the same family or between families.  Often she will start with strings and then use woodwinds (especially the clarinet) for consequence.  I can't even come close to pulling this off.  It's... frustrating.

 

Any thoughts on any of this would be greatly appreciated.  Anything that can be described in terms of scoring on paper would be lavishly appreciated.

 

-MJL

[Chris Alpiar]

Couple of thoughts on sample based orchestration

Firstly, never ever more than three concurrant ideas, limit your ideas to three things simultaneously and the clarity will pop out much greater

Second, dont do divisi in strings without owning LASS, it just never works. For down and dirty mockups that are only intended as mockups to prep your ear for a live orchestra, disregard of course ;-)

Lastly, try for some better orchestra libs than EastWest, there is a LOT more stuff available in VSL and other libs

Hope some of this is helpful!

[Ansgar Kreutz]

My two ways to learn orchestration are very individual: 1) 25 years conducting experiences in classical music and 2) to hear many pieces from the time between Beethoven and Benjamin Britten (or Karlheinz Stockhausen). I work with logic and sibelius, I write allways at first a "normal" score in sibelius and try later to "fil" it with sounds in logic, I try to you EWQLSO but the play edition does´nt realy work. For all questions if I make an instrumentation are read more and more the books of Berlioz-Strauss; Samuel Adler und the 24 (?) books of Hans Kunitz (i think only german Breitkopf and Härtel, but very good!)

[Ryan Brady]

Hi Michael - Writing for music libraries, I tend to drift between styles of whomever I am listening to any given week. I am working on some stuff that is trailer work for Family/Drama/Disney and wrote a little piano bit that reminded me of Rachel Portman...kind of folky with the orchestra etc. Anyway, I set about scoring it in a similar style...still tweaking it and I probably won't end up using the theme but it was a good exercise. Posted it on my page "Goin home." I too suffer greatly with my EWQL string patches and often find that I just don't write anything that requires quiet strings (vlns & vlas especially). Saving my pennies for LASS in the meantime. Cheers - Ryan

[Boneman]

Can you not find an orchestra nearby that would like to try your music? That way you get a much better idea on how it should sound. You can spend hours and hours trying to tweak samples but nothing compares to the real thing!