Contemporary Orchestration Techniques

Every so often, a piece of music comes along that changes musical tastes (or at least forecasts them) for years to come.  Arguably, this was the case in 1824 with Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 and again in 1913 with Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring.

With one such piece coming along every 90 years or so, could the next revolutionary piece be right around the corner?  Or could it already exist?  While predicting future musical tastes is a dangerous game, in this blog I will point out an existing piece that I hope becomes a musical revolution for the 21st century…

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I’ve always found sets of six notes to be very interesting.  By definition, there exists an alternate set of six notes comprised of the remaining pitches from our 12-note chromatic system.  In many cases, these two sets can be used in conjunction with one another, alternating back and forth to create a logical harmonic movement.

One such example is the Petrushka chord and its “companion”, which I first blogged about here.

In this post, I will talk about another six-note set, its “companion set”, and use them in a musical example. (more…)

There’s no accounting for taste.  Or is there?

I recently embarked on what is probably a fool’s errand.  I thought I’d try to make a list of characteristics found in all the great orchestral music that I love.  The tricky part is…  I love a lot of orchestral music, from past classics like the Beethoven symphonies to recent compositions like the Rouse flute concerto.  Across that spectrum there are drastic differences in style, harmony, and compositional technique.  Yet, I thoroughly enjoy all of that music, so it would seem there has to be common characteristics that generate its appeal.

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One question I often get is how to notate two parts on a single staff.  This is often necessary in orchestral scores, most commonly when placing multiple wind player parts (such as two oboes) on a single staff.  It is also necessary in divisi string passages when the divisi parts are on a single staff.  In this post, I thought I’d go through a few examples showing this notation.

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Hi Everyone.

I’ve been posting a list, “Twelve Characteristics of Great Orchestral Music.”

Time for another addition, which is #12: (more…)

Over the years, I’ve heard the following sentence many times:  ”Orchestration is all about _________.”

The fill-in-the-blank has been filled by many things.  Orchestration is all about color. Orchestration is all about range. Orchestration is all about the variation of sound. And so on and so on…

What I’ve concluded from this is that orchestration is about a lot of things, and it’s hard to include everything in a single sentence.

So I thought I’d offer up my own opinion on how to fill in that blank—but fill it with a 12-point list. (more…)

I see a lot of notated scores (assignments and homework, mostly) that are in fact incomplete.  So I thought I’d post a “to-do” list for notated scores.  You can use it as a check list when notating scores on your own.
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It’s an age old question…

“Is parallel motion between two voices OK?”

This often takes the form of a heated discussion between a music teacher and a student.  Most likely, the teacher has said something along the lines of…

“Don’t use parallel fifths.”

This is followed by a Bach-style harmony assignment.  The student, somewhere in there, uses some parallel fifths and gets scolded.

The student then gets annoyed, walks up to the piano, and pounds out a few bars of his favorite rock song.  Parallel 5ths and octaves abound.

“See!  It sounds good!”

Somewhere, Bach rolls over in his grave and the teacher can sense his unsettled soul.

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One topic that garners quite a bit of confusion (and admittedly, a bit of tedious boredom) is the basic layout of a page of orchestral score.  For a moment, let’s look at a page of score—minus all of the notes—and look at the brackets, sub-brackets, braces, etc.

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