Crescendo Help

More great advice, thanks QC!

Here's what I have now:



One thing that had me paranoid was taking the flute out and then bringing it back in.

Can someone just reassure me that this is a perfectly normal thing to do.

Isn't it?

why take it out?

remember the idea is to "build" your crescendo.
to do so, you add the instruments gradually. there's no need to remove them.

by the way, I see two bassoons and a staff for contrabassoon, but only one flute, one oboe, and one clarinet... any reason for this?

if you are going to answer "they're playing in unison"... don't.
go immediately to my masterclass on orchestration, lesson 1 on woodwinds, and don't come back until you've read the whole thing.

I'd suggest that your woodwind chord should be fuller, and involve notes a bit higher than you have here.

(this is why I never have instruments sharing a staff)

Originally Posted by QcCowboy

go immediately to my masterclass on orchestration, lesson 1 on woodwinds, and don't come back until you've read the whole thing.

Better do what he says! The man means business!!

why take it out?

You said that to not give the next part away too soon you'd get rid of the high A on the flute. So I got rid of but couldn't think of anything to replace it with. I tried going down to D for a quarter then back up to E for a quarter (following Violins 1) but it didn't sound as good.

I realise I might get another relying-on-GPO-playback bitchslap here, but I felt that this was a time when I could trust the way it sounded.

Will play around with more flute ideas tomorrow. I do want to keep it in for the sake of "completeness" or whatever.

by the way, I see two bassoons and a staff for contrabassoon, but only one flute, one oboe, and one clarinet... any reason for this?

There is no unison doubling in similar instruments. The reason the bassoons are sharing a staff was to save on playback slots in GPO (working with 512MB RAM here) but I think I might change this to save the hassle of inputting different voices in Sibelius, a few more instruments shouldn't hurt.

The reason for the contrabassoon staff is that a contrabassoon plays right at the start of the piece. I discovered that if a contrabassoon plays an F then an A it sounds like a foghorn, and that was the inspiration for the whole piece.

I'd suggest that your woodwind chord should be fuller, and involve notes a bit higher than you have here.

Thanks, I'll have a play around with this tomorrow. I guess I should have considered that as far as loudness goes, this section is probably going to be the peak of the piece.

I think I was reluctant to put them at first because before I had a crescendo that part was like getting hit in the face with a brick made of woodwinds.

how about this?

Hey, thanks for that.

It's not the sound I'm looking for but a great example nonetheless. I'm gonna experiment with bringing more of the woodwinds in before measure 13.

The idea was to show that some instruments can double on important lines, particularly when you mix certain timbres (like horn or woodwind with strings), to bring out that particular line.

Also that you don't have to treat each pair of instruments identically.

Originally Posted by QcCowboy

The idea was to show that some instruments can double on important lines, particularly when you mix certain timbres (like horn or woodwind with strings), to bring out that particular line.

Also that you don't have to treat each pair of instruments identically.

My brain is having a hard time with what you just said, any chance you could explain these principles with examples from the score?

Cheers.

if you examine the lines of the various instruments in the example I posted, you can see where some instruments double the viola/cello line.

also, how some pairs of instruments (for example teh flutes) don't come in "as a pair" of instruments, but function as individuals.

there is also a way of dealing with the isntrumetns with their different registers as though they were completely different instruments (for example a bassoon in the low register is a completely different isntruments from a high bassoon).