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

[fastlanephil]

I purchased Philharmonic Miroslav and am just starting to experiment with it. It looks to be really good for getting a big sound up quickly and the instruments are all placed for an orchestral setting. The playing on many of the samples are quite emotive. The full symphony patches do sound a bit synthy but are good for a quick orchestration or maybe live back up playing as it is stand alone also. It includes a very nice built in reverb that uses new technology.

Also picked up Art Vista's Virtual Grand Piano when it was $99 and was a great first piano. My problem is I spend too much time just playing it now because it sounds so good. I like the Keith Jarret preset for just playing.

I'm going to try the Synful demo pretty soon. From posts it looks like it still needs some work and is pretty expensive just for solo instruments but it is probaby the future of virtual instruments. It's hardware requirements are unbelievably low. I think it also has light copy protection.

I have found that virtual instruments can get pretty muddled if you try to use too many. It's a limitation of virtual vs real instruments though I have heard a piece that went back and forth from real to virtual and you couldn't really tell one from the other but who knows what trickes he used. But for me this isn't a goal, I just want to get a good sound. They sure have come a long way since the Roland and Emu synth modules but the copy protection sucks.