Orchestration, Tips and Tricks for composers. Options

[jesshmusic]

Hello All!

I thought it would be good to have a topic devoted to the art of orchestration. Great things can be accomplished when composers put their brains together.

Especially in orchestration... certainly the most difficult aspect (and most rewarding) of composition.

Feel free to get it rolling. Here are a few tricks I have learned in my days:

1. Less is more. Don't be afraid to have smaller parts of the ensemble playing. I'm sure everyone know's this.. An orchestra playing with every instrument at full force the entire piece is boring.

2. Know instrument's limitations. The bassoons, for instance, will not be heard very well in loud sections of the orchestration with a lot of instruments playing, but they can still make for good filler. During the big choral part in Beethoven's Ninth, they are playing the fast ostinato pattern with the strings.

3. Listen to as much music as possible... especially modern. Analyze scores and see what the masters did. Research.

These are vague things. I hope many different composers will post specific tips and tricks they have picked up over the years. Instrumentalists can also use this topic to tell us composers what not to do. We sometimes can make life hard on you guys. (Especially Horn in F players!)


Jess Hendricks
Composer & Arranger

[BlazingMagnum]

I think it's partly a case of showing some discretion when using virtual or synthetic instruments. To pull off a convincing (traditional) piece of music when using electronic means - I find that it's usually best to stick to certain instruments for the lead sections, and use pads & synth'd sounds for the subtler & more ethereal parts.

Piano samples, xylophones, koto's etc, all work very well, however I've still never EVER heard a particularly convincing individual guitar sample - in any studio or package - aside from directly sampled licks, which I personally regard as recorded sections of audio rather than useable notes.

I think that using inappropriate instruments - simply because there is a cheap sample included in the software or hardware you happen to be using - only serves to weaken your compositions, and serves only to make otherwise interesting pieces sound like those dreadful free 'Movie Score' CDs available on the fronts of magazines - which usually contain good scores, re-performed by someone with bad taste.