Conference napalm::commusic_v1

It's funny you mention playing a mellow horn patch on a piano line.
They sound a lot a like.  In Gershwin's Concerto in F, there's a fabulous
moment when the piano fades away and a horn takes over, crescendo from nothing,
where it's hard to tell which is which for an instant there.
I used an SK-1 piano believe or not (the $90 sampler factory patch)
to play "Chopin's Pillows" at Mobius in Boston last December because they
have no piano, can't afford to rent one, and I have nothing better.
(I also had a organny synth than I built, 5 octaves, you can hit 60 notes at 
once).

The study of instrumentation is supposed to teach musicians to distinguish
between the sounds of difference instruments, and differents ranges of a
given isntrument, and orchestration should teach one to combine these
and select them effectively.  However, music in which the ideas are
imbedded in tonality, notes and rhythms, can be effectively transcribed.
Traditional orchestration highlights the relationships that are already
apparent in the notes.  Twentieth-century orchestration, however, is based
on a forming of ideas for instruments, not on piano or ina short score.
(Although movie composers seem to work that way still, the way they did
assignments at USC classes).  The test is to transcribe an orchtestral
work for piano and see how much is lost.
Tom

    
    I wouldn't necessarily call it "going out of my way", but I certainly
    try to match timbre with composition. I'm not a trained composer
    and I'm not familiar with the teaching, but at least when I compose
    I usually have a set sound in mind. For example, one of my pieces
    mimics a royal fanfare, with trumpets being the obvious instrument
    in mind. On my synth for this I used the trumpet preset.
    
    It's interesting that sometimes I do the reverse, ie. match the
    composition with timbre. Often when I come up with new sounds that
    don't imitate acoustic instruments, I try to come up with a composition
    to utilize the sound. I've had an idea for a piece called "Tabular
    Bells" to use all sorts of bell and gong sounds; maybe I'll get
    to it one day.
    
    I'd be interested in knowing this: Are composers trained to match
    timbre with composition?
    
    				-- Darryle
    

>    I'd be interested in knowing this: Are composers trained to match
>    timbre with composition?
>    
>    				-- Darryle
well, you're a composer.  Were you trained to do it?  I'm not sure what you
mean.  Orchestration is a discipline of contrasts rather than of exact
individual sounds.  Giving emphasis to a line by setting it apart in a 
different color and even a solo, adding accent with volume (adding several 
sources of the same color), emphasizing the start of a new section with 
a change in tone weight (the numbers of different colors on a line).
You could do the same contrasts with almost any ensemble.  Classical
attitudes about foreground/background or layering (alias 
melody/accompaniment/obbligato/latticework), emphasis and structure
can be expressed as long as there is sufficient range of color available.
But color is not just the result of the fourier series associated with a sound 
sample.
Articulation (staccatissimo/legatissimo/staccato/legato/tenuto-staccato)
or envelope is part of timbre, with color.   The way a tone color's harmonics
change during the envelope affects its application as a contrast as well.

Most importantly, the common use by amatuers of excessive chorusing makes me
ill.  Chorusing doth not a string ensemble make.

Matters that affect computer music little are of importance in instrumention
studies, including the technical statistics of the common instruments,
including how an oboe changes tone color more than it changes dynamics.
The more higher harmonics are present, the louder it seems by contrast
(of course the harmonics are louder, but the fundamental isn't by much).
A synthesist would probably fail to imitate this characteristic of an oboe,
and just send higher velocity values for a louder tone.  how fast can 
a flutist trill on a b and c on a B-foot French flute?  Not fast, like
4 a second at most.  A synthesist can trill very fast (my old synthesis
program could alternate individual wave fronts of the two frequencies;
I dare your midi program to do that).

And string players are always sharp and so synthesized strings sound 
dull and flat by comparison.

Go get books out of the library.  I posted a bibliograph for orchestration
a couple years ago here or in the old conference.
Tom

    
    Sorry for any confusion I may have caused. What I mean is that I
    write music as a hobby, but have not had any formal instruction
    in either composition or orchestration. What I wanted  to know was
    if trained composers write music with specific instruments in mind?
    (As opposed to writing general music and deciding later on what
    instruments to use). My guess is that they do the former.
    
    Darryle
    

Both.  The training is to orchestrate piano pieces, which is what
movie composers do.  They write a piano piece (or short score) 
and orchestrate it.  Of course some snatches will be associated with
very particular instruments and combinations as they go.  The Rite of 
Spring was composed as a piano duet first (and played with Ravel at
the first hearing in a little room with a piano).  Igor also changed some
notes and rhythms as it was being orchestrated, as the published duet
and score differ.  Obviously, depending, the effect desired and probably
most of the orchestration will be in mind during the composition of the
short score.  My orchestra pieces were like this.  And they sounded
mostly as I expected.  
Tom

I think it's perfectly obvious you can use midi setups to teach harmony,
counterpoint, ear training, but mostly ear treaingin, keyboard proficiency 
for non pianists, and how to use MIDI.

However, is it reasonable to teach instrumentation/orchestration with MIDI?
How expensive a setup would you need to get good enough orchestral
instrument imitations to teach how to hear the instruments in combination?
Or maybe not as a final word but as an indication of what you did.
Of course MIDI would never point up that you wouldn't hear a flute in
the low range under trumpets above it because most synths would probably
make everything have the same voltage amplitude, or does your synth
have a flute patch that is quieter on the same note than a trumpet patch?

So what synths would you need to have good orchestral imitation and
teach instrumentation?

I'm not saying it is MIDIs goal in life to inmitate traditional instruments.
Tom

    Regarding the "flute buried under the trumpets" issue...
    
    This is not the case. Modern synths allow you to control the amplitude
    of the patch independently of any mix-down or amplification functions.
    If instrument A is supposed to be quieter than B, you have the option
    of making it such *or* changing it without changing it's timbre.
    I'd venture most multi-synth midiots (including moi) take care of
    this at the mixer.
    
    How much will it cost? What do you want out of it? Exact timbres?
    Reasonably close? A $300 Fb01 will let you run 8 independent mono
    instruments. Throw in a used controller (MKB-200 for ?$300?) and
    a cheap-o sequencer (QX-7 $150) and you're in business for $750.
    
    ...of course, you can spend a little more and get a Fairlight.
    
    Edd

>SIVA::FULTYN                                         22 lines  17-AUG-1987 22:40
>    I would be interested if any of you out there with multi-timbral
>    synthesizers find and play music written for, say, horn or string
>    ensembles.

You bet ! Recently I've been working on doing some orchestrations for
Handel's 'Water Music', using only a piano score. Lots of things to learn
about arranging for brass. 

>    I wonder if anyone goes out of their way to match timbers with the
>    appropriate compositions. I would indeed be interested in all your
>    replies.

One of the problems I have in choosing timbres for my own compositions is
that of 'overchoice'.. between my several synth/sample modules I've got
more than five hundred (500) sounds ranging from good acoustic samples
to outrageous electronic sounds. The phrasing seems to request a certain 
family of timbre. From there on, only uh, taste and training and/or 
experience light the way.
    
ANGORA::JANZEN "Tom LMO2/O23 2965421"                22 lines  18-AUG-1987 08:50
>The test is to transcribe an orchtestral work for piano and see how 
>much is lost.

YES! Whenever I hear a lushly orchestrated piece of music, there's
a certain 'data reduction' process my mind does.. I listen to the piece
as if it were being performed on the piano.. kind of reducing it to its
skeleton to see what it REALLY sounds like.. and I guess the piano is
indeed the bottom line for me.

>Go get books out of the library.  I posted a bibliograph for orchestration
>a couple years ago here or in the old conference.

Fortunately or unfortunately, your replies have all been expunged.

k moeller

    Regarding the question of using synths to teach "orchestration":
    
    Are there any principles of orchestration that are independent
    of a specific set of instruments (e.g., the "traditional" orchestra)?
    
    I would conjecture that such a set of principles could as easily
    be applied to a wide variety of synthesized sounds as well.  Most
    recording producers and engineers have an at least intuitive notion
    of what kinds of sounds can be stacked without "stepping on" one another,
    or that blend effectively.
    
    Note also that distinguishing instrumental sounds has as much to
    do with their temporal and spatial relationships as much as it does
    their spectral or timbral relationships.
    
    len.
    

Principles of orchestration are not highly developed as a theory.
Many books called "Orchestration" are merely instrumention manuals
with statistics about the individual instruments, perhaps with guidance
about writing for choirs (all brass, all strings, all winds (although
winds contrast sharply with one another).

However, there are some principles, which I have begun to see repeated
in keyboard magazine and such.  However however, many orchestration
principles are really historical style in disguise, i.e., how to sound
like Brahms, how to sound like Mahler, or Stravinsky, etc.  A problem
with theory is accentuated in these attempts: inspired eccentricity
in the orchestrators of history are ignored, while their more routine
practices are emphasized, so the student gets the impression that Bach
never used parallel 5ths in a choral, or that Mendelssohn wouldn't
have a Bb and B natural at the same instant in an a capella work
(they did these things) etc., and ignore the sudden sequence of
solo notes in the first movement of Beethoven's 5th. (4 winds in
8ves, I think).

Choir principles include the wide spacing of perfect intervals in the
bass, preserving close major/minor intervals for higher parts.  This is
well known by all of you.  But then Stravinsky violated this in
Symphonies of Wind instruments with the tromboni.

Mixture principles include recognition of the aural illusion of masking.
But composers have mixed almost any set of instruments in any way.
Even Harrison's (?) grotesque multiple octaves in Pacific-liek
tunes, which any student would be failed for, have a certain power.

The reason movie composers are "good" orchestrators is that they have the
historical styles orchestration (also in classical and pop music)
down pat; they have to; they are called upon to imitate all styles.

Tom

    re (.8 re .3) and it having been expunged.	I have a hard copy of
    what I think Tom is refering to.  It was in Music notes as #270.73.
    I just checked there, but that's the "Drummer with Fangs" note,
    so I would guess that it was in the previous Music notes file and
    may still be archived.  Or was that before conversion to Vax_notes
    ?, dunno but if so then there may be another source for retrieval.
    If it helps Tom to find his original text of it, the entry date is
    8-Aug-1985, from node PIPA::JANZEN.  I *REALLY* don't want to type it
    all in and wouldn't without permission anyway, since Tom had deleted
    it. 
    
    	Reg	(Who still hasn't read all of them, of course)
    

    That V1 of Music, long since archived.
    
    len.
    

    re .12	This keeps happening to me, mostly in other
    lives/conferences.  How *DOES* one request a resurection of an archived
    conference ?  I suppose there are directions somewhere in vax_notes
    notes on notes, but I don't_have/won't_make the time to go wading
    through there.  If anyone ( a moderator, perhaps) has the qwik_tip
    please post it here ?
    
    	Reg