Orchestral Composition

[legionserial]

I have always been a fan of orchestras, and I love classical music. But since I started screwing around with strings, horns etc, it's opened up a whole new world to me. Everytime I hear a well orchesrated piece of work now, it completely mesmerizes me. It hit me last night, when we had a movie on with a big orchestral score. I wasn't watching the film, I had my eyes shut, listening to the music, trying to imagine where everything was. Amazed how every instrument is complementary to the tune, rather than the tune being driven by one fundamental instrument. I have never paid so much attention to every detail of a piece of music. It absolutely fascinates me. Especially how much there is going on. It baffles me as to where you would start writing a piece like that.

So I guess this question is for those of you who are talented enough to be able to do this. Where do you start? Is it a case of hearing something in your head and getting it down on paper. Or do you start with a melody line and build on it.

I'm not really asking for advice here neccessarily. I'm just interested, nay, fascinated.

Cheers

 

[cello_pudding]

its good to listen to classical, and start singing your own parts that go along with it.

many of the old composers studied and copied previous music to look at how everything works together. probably all of modern composers have studied music composition and did very similar things. i write stuff that is a combination of classical and folk. i usually start with a chord progression and then find a melody, but you can do it with melody first.

i wish i still had a loop pedal. i would layer strings and guitar parts together, and i found my own style of grouping parts together and letting them interchange.

i also have taken music i like and created arrangements for them.

a good look into a music theory book is helpful, and exposing yourself to a certain style can really help. even if you only know how to make a major and minor triad, if you listen to complex chord structure and movement, you can ear out interesting things.

so just jump into it and start trying. record something and layer over it. even if it's just melodies on your guitar, or sung melodies. start creating and then critique why it's not good, why it doesn't hold your attention, why parts don't mesh together...and also think about what is good, does hold your attention and what does mesh together.

then listen to music and critique it in the same way.

i like to listen to nick drake, debussy, astor piazzolla, stravinsky, sufjan stevens, damien rice, joanna newsom, andrew bird...and of course the beatles.

listen to what these people do so right, and develope your ear to create, and you'll get better at it.

 

[mshilarious]

A fair number of classical composers had their students do their orchestrations. Often they'd write, often on a keyboard (piano/harpsichord), so there was melody, harmony, counterpoint to start with, and orchestration was a matter of splitting out the parts to the instruments. Orchestration was taking more seriously starting around the time of the Impressionists. The Romantics did a bit with it, but most orchestrations then are still fairly predictable. The Classical mold was generally simple; violins state subject, winds repeat it, cellos play the answer, then there is a tutti section, etc.

Get a book on it and have a read.

 

[chazba]

A good place to start reading ....The Enjoyment of Music by Machlis. If you can read music there are several books on orchestration around. A guy can learn a lot because of the availability of CD's containing the examples cited in the books. There is no substitute for actually hearing the orchestra. It must have been very dificult to gain exposure to the orchestra before the advent of the phonograph/tape/CD.


chazba

 

[Whatmysay]

Essential Dictionary of Orchestration – Dave Black, Tom Gerou
Alfred – ISBN 0-7390-0021-7

Great resource tells you the playing range and octave character of all orchestra instruments (include percussion). Books on harmony or history of how it evolved are also very informative – always good to check out required reading listed for music courses.

HTH

 

[sonicpsyops]

So I guess this question is for those of you who are talented enough to be able to do this. Where do you start? Is it a case of hearing something in your head and getting it down on paper. Or do you start with a melody line and build on it.

Short answer:
I start with melody and work from there.
Long Answer:
One thing that I get a lot of enjoyment out of is reading a full musical score as I hear it being performed. Reading scores as they are performed, I think, adds to the overall experience and enjoyment of listening to a good piece of music. It's also interesting to read a score as you listen to the tape/CD/MP3/ etc. It's fascinating to hear how radical different interpretations of the same piece of music can be. I'm mostly a self taught musician who learned how to create the wonderful effects I was hearing in orchestrated music by reading the score while hearing it. If you are not a conservatory trained musician but can, at least read music, this is a good place to start. If anything, it can give you ideas for arranging your own melodies. I know of one book written on this subject, called Score Reading (can't remember the author) and it's pretty good.

I think the real magic in orchestrated music is not so much the melody but the arrangements. It's one thing to sit down and compose melodies, but it's another to arrange and orchestrate those melodies. I believe that the film scores of Danny Elfman are arranged by his orchestrator Steve Bartek who used to play guitar and flute in Danny's rock band Oingo Boingo. Arranging is an art form all its own, especially for film and TV scores. Incidentally, neither Danny Elfman nor Steve Bartek are conservatory trained musicians either.