Tutorial No.1.
Orchestration with scales on different
instruments, in unison or an octave
or two apart.
The great composers obtain richness and variety of sound timbre from
the symphony orchestra in several ways. Of course, each individual instrument
has its own distinctive sound. Then a mass of violins in unison makes a totally
different sound from a solo violin. Another useful technique is to blend
together the sounds of different instruments, playing in unison or an octave or
two apart.
In this tutorial, we will discover how we can obtain a new timbre by blending
massed violins with a horn, a favourite timbre for the melodic line in many
romantic compositions, such as the Blue Danube by Johann
Strauss. (Listen to this on Musical Discovery).
- Open the Diatonic and Chromatic Scale Generator from the main
MENU
Create -> Scales and
Passages -> Scales and Arpeggios.
- Under Key, set the drop-down box to D, and leave the option button
at Major, as out key will be D major.
- Under Instrument Family set the drop-down box to String Family,
then set the instrument to Strings.
- Set Octave to 5.
- Leave all the other settings at their default values (tempo=allegro,
time-signature=4/4, How many octaves = 1, starting on 1st degree).
- Click the green button Play
Scale at the foot of the screen, to hear this scale on massed
violins.
- Click the orange button Save
as fragment for use in composing board.
- A fragment name dialog box will appear, filled with "ScaleD
major". Type a 1 at the end of this, (because all saved fragments must
have unique names), and type "Massed High Violins" in
the description, then click OK.
- Repeat steps 2 to 8, except in step 3 set instrument family to brass and
instrument to French Horn, in step 4 set the octave to 4, and in step 8,
name it as ScaleD major2, with description= "French Horn".
- Open the Musical Discovery Composing Board from the main MENU :-
Create -> Compositions -> Composing Board.
There should be two icons at the foot of the screen with your descriptions
of massed violins and French Horn. Listen to each fragment separately,
by right-clicking each icon to bring up a dialog box with information
about the fragment, then click the green
button Play fragment (all tracks).
- Drag the violins icon into the first square on the top row, which is
track 1, then drag the French Horn icon below it into track 2.
- Click the orange button Assemble
fragments on the board into a new tune.
- Click the Play button to hear the blended effect.
A similar procedure can be used to experiment with other combinations of
instruments, such as the following suggestions:-
String/woodwind pairs that go well together:-
- Violins + flute - in unison at octave 4 or 5. Mozart
uses this combination for the theme of his Magic Flute Overture, bars 39-41.
(Listen to this on Musical Discovery)
- Violas + cor anglais or english horn in unison at octave 4
- Cellos + clarinet, cellos in octave 3, clarinet in octave 4.
Brass/Woodwind pairs that blend well when played pp (because the woodwind reinforces the
higher harmonics of the brass):-
- Trumpet + flute an octave higher, for example, trumpet at octave 4, flute at octave 5
- Horn + oboe an octave higher, for example horn in ocatve 3, oboe in octave 4
An orchestral tutti involving most instruments
of Brass, Woodwind and Strings, uses all the following together.
- Flute in octave 6
- At octave 5, unison of flute, violins, oboes and clarinets
- At octave 4, unison of violas, oboes, clarinets, horns and trumpets.
- At octave 3, unison of cellos, bassoons, horns, trumpets
- At octave 2, the double basses (and perhaps the timpani)
This above orchestration is employed by Beethoven
in his 9th Symphony ("The Choral") at the dramatic opening of the
first movement. Note that there are no "chords", only octaves. (Listen
to this on Musical Discovery)