Do yourself a favor, discover Anne-Kathrin Dern if you haven't already. Composer expenses and income 2024.
- Thread starter SlHarder
- Start date
b_elliott
A work in progress.
Watched and was surprised at how pedal tones lept off a full score I have recently been following/listening.
After I got thru Ms Dern's show and tell, it was vividly clear from the score's intro (Bluebeard's Castle) pedal tones start in the strings, then switch to the winds, along with melodies then counterpoint 'tween vox, clarinet, oboe, then ostinato (broken pedals) in low strings = bad ass.
A new viewpoint for me-- dare I say how a conductor might view 20+ bar-deep scores? I am grateful for Dern and for your vi posting. Mucho gracias...
b_elliott
A work in progress.
So I watched Dern's Orchestration Books video.
tl;dr There's some useful stuff in the Piston Orchestration book.
===============
After searching online for orchestration books I found a pdf for Piston's Orchestration.
I gave the Piston a run thru today while listening to Mozart, Piano Concerto No. 22 in E flat with score.
Piston on Orchestration: [Book Forward]
Orchestration definition: the process of writing music for orchestra, using principles of instrumental combination ... [found] operating in the scores of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven.
Piston brings up an interesting point: "...almost every recording produces sounds that do not exist in the score."
I found this to be true as I followed the Mozart score, especially with a few piano flourishes; or, some missing string lines -- likely buried due to poor recording tech.
Skip to Ch 19 Types of Texture, Type 1 Orchestral Unison:
Main Purpose: Discover how the orch gets used to convey the composer's thought.
Vital: Do not make a meal of the analysis (i.e., overthinking it.) Simply look to see why & how the composer did certain things. Sometimes, it is by luck, or no good reason.)
Tip 1: First follow one inst. through the score to see/hear its role.
Tip 2: Choose a familiar work as a starting point.
Tip 3: Hear in your head what you see in the score.* Use a piano to help orient to the pitch.
[* I have since discovered, Adler's Study of Orchestration acknowledges Piston for stressing this facility.]
Tip 4: closely look at the separate elements in shorter segments. Opt to skip over problematic areas until one is more skilled.
1st step: MUSIC TEXTURE: Where are the melodies, harmonic background, pedal tones, counterpoint, rhythmic elements in the score? Recognize the elements + textures.
2nd step: What Instrument groups are used: strings, winds, brass, perc, etc. (Example: Varese uses tons more perc than a normal classical score.)
3rd step: compare how contrasting elements and inst. distributions appear. I.e., a melody moving from strings to the woodwinds (canon); any soloed instruments(s); solo inst moves to tutti orch or solo piano to string accompaniment; any ensemble combos (piano and strings or woodwinds...).
4th step: look at each element separately; examples: how pedal tones are used -- octave doubling? or some other interval?; part writing for string section or amongst the winds; tuttis.
Part 2 to follow.
Best, Bill
tl;dr There's some useful stuff in the Piston Orchestration book.
===============
After searching online for orchestration books I found a pdf for Piston's Orchestration.
I gave the Piston a run thru today while listening to Mozart, Piano Concerto No. 22 in E flat with score.
Piston on Orchestration: [Book Forward]
Orchestration definition: the process of writing music for orchestra, using principles of instrumental combination ... [found] operating in the scores of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven.
Piston brings up an interesting point: "...almost every recording produces sounds that do not exist in the score."
I found this to be true as I followed the Mozart score, especially with a few piano flourishes; or, some missing string lines -- likely buried due to poor recording tech.
Skip to Ch 19 Types of Texture, Type 1 Orchestral Unison:
Main Purpose: Discover how the orch gets used to convey the composer's thought.
Vital: Do not make a meal of the analysis (i.e., overthinking it.) Simply look to see why & how the composer did certain things. Sometimes, it is by luck, or no good reason.)
Tip 1: First follow one inst. through the score to see/hear its role.
Tip 2: Choose a familiar work as a starting point.
Tip 3: Hear in your head what you see in the score.* Use a piano to help orient to the pitch.
[* I have since discovered, Adler's Study of Orchestration acknowledges Piston for stressing this facility.]
Tip 4: closely look at the separate elements in shorter segments. Opt to skip over problematic areas until one is more skilled.
1st step: MUSIC TEXTURE: Where are the melodies, harmonic background, pedal tones, counterpoint, rhythmic elements in the score? Recognize the elements + textures.
2nd step: What Instrument groups are used: strings, winds, brass, perc, etc. (Example: Varese uses tons more perc than a normal classical score.)
3rd step: compare how contrasting elements and inst. distributions appear. I.e., a melody moving from strings to the woodwinds (canon); any soloed instruments(s); solo inst moves to tutti orch or solo piano to string accompaniment; any ensemble combos (piano and strings or woodwinds...).
4th step: look at each element separately; examples: how pedal tones are used -- octave doubling? or some other interval?; part writing for string section or amongst the winds; tuttis.
Part 2 to follow.
Best, Bill
Last edited:
b_elliott
A work in progress.
Part 2:
First listen + score study Mozart's Piano Concerto No 22 in Eb: I followed the piano part.
After initial playthrough it was clear Mozart featured his piano using several orchestral elements:
- no piano until 2 1/2 min in (= admirable restraint);
Solos for piano, also briefly in the woodwinds, and for strings;
Duets: pno + strings
pno + ww
strings + ww
Tuttis: Intro, also after the first piano solo.
------------------------------
Take-away: Since I am not planning to write orchestral or film music any time soon, I'd refine orchestration study for hobby needs:
- hear the score in my head while looking thru the score;
- fast fwd to a section I want to zero in on;
- quick analysis that gleans some useful insight;
- go back to my own project to implement the insight.
Hope this helps another orchestration aspirant. Cheers,
Bill
First listen + score study Mozart's Piano Concerto No 22 in Eb: I followed the piano part.
After initial playthrough it was clear Mozart featured his piano using several orchestral elements:
- no piano until 2 1/2 min in (= admirable restraint);
Solos for piano, also briefly in the woodwinds, and for strings;
Duets: pno + strings
pno + ww
strings + ww
Tuttis: Intro, also after the first piano solo.
------------------------------
Take-away: Since I am not planning to write orchestral or film music any time soon, I'd refine orchestration study for hobby needs:
- hear the score in my head while looking thru the score;
- fast fwd to a section I want to zero in on;
- quick analysis that gleans some useful insight;
- go back to my own project to implement the insight.
Hope this helps another orchestration aspirant. Cheers,
Bill
Last edited:
ALittleNightMusic
Professional Amateur
Nice in-depth video on orchestration
Bee_Abney
How long have I been out?
This was a live stream, which is a great way of doing it. I could only catch a few minutes live, though.
Germain B
Senior Member
Actually, it was a premiere on YouTube with the chat activated. AKD was also there, answering questions in the chat.
At first glance I also thought it was a live stream as I thought Ann was reading the chat while explaining her orchestration's choices.
Bee_Abney
How long have I been out?
Oh, I see! That makes a lot of sense. I thought it was live, but I dropped in quite early and when I saw some comments by her, I figured they had been made before she got started. But, yes, if she wants to interact with people, having a premier with chat is a good idea too.
KEM
The TENET Guy
Loved this video!! Always happy to get some in depth behind the scenes stuff, anytime I can actually see what’s on a composers screen I get excited
Definitely awesome getting this behind the scenes. Really cool creating definition to a choir with actual singers and backing them with samples. The synth sound design was out of this world. I also saw plenty of use of zebra, CSS, and LAMP in there. It's really cool after only doing this for a year to see the tools professional composers actually use and you realize you have access to all the same libraries / plugins to make amazing music as well. The only thing limiting our own musical journey is creativity and practice.
Reminds me to stop the GAS for a while and go make some awesome music
.
Robin Thompson
Active Member
Back with more great content!
