Orchestration: PART 1 (woodwinds) discussion

Originally Posted by Qccowboy

wonderful. yes.

I also added some phrase markings. they were purely subjective, so you might actually phrase the music differently.

and I REALLY liked your short music excerpt. it has a very personal style.

Most of the changes I made were to add to the smoothing of transitions. Sometimes a cadence requires that a note holds over in one instrument before dissappearing (this was the added flute note at the end of the initial phrase).

Ah, yes forgot to mention them. I noticed something I have not seen before and I don't know how it is played. It is the very first note in Flute I, it was two phrase markings.

Haha, don't flatter me so! Me, personal style, never knew I had any - always thought I was some really bad xerox of a handful composers.

Originally Posted by Saiming

Ah, yes forgot to mention them. I noticed something I have not seen before and I don't know how it is played. It is the very first note in Flute I, it was two phrase markings.

Ah, no, the short one is a tie, meaning the second "C" is not articulated (basically, it makes one long note the length of the combined tied notes).

The other is a phrase marking, meaning that the notes under the long slur are not tongued. It is important that you start considering the use of slurs for phrases.

Let me give you an example:

if you have the phrase: C - D - E - F - G, and there is no slur/phrase marking, each note as played by a woodwind player would be tongued, meaning a little "tuh" sound at the beginning of each note. If you place a slur/phrase marking over the phrase, then only the first note will have an "attack" and the subsequant notes will go smoothly one into the other.

Imagine singing a major scale.
Say "dah" on the first note, but continue the same sound (...ahhhh) all the way up that scale. THAT is the effect of a slurred phrase.

If you have no slur, then it is as if you are singing "dah, dah, dah, dah, dah... etc..." on each note. You are articulating each note and basically briefly cutting the sound off at each note.

With string instruments, when we get to them, the slur is called a bow marking, and indicates that the notes covered by the slur are to be played in one movement of the bow. Obviously, you cannot play indefinately all notes under the same bow, you have to change directions at SOME point. Writing bow markings is an art in itself. And rest assured that no matter how much work you put into writing those bow markings, the string players will screw around with them to suit their particular playing style ANYways!!!

Here's a quick idea of what string bowing would look like.

If you have Finale, I suggest you try notating thi example and listening to what it sounds like with and without the bowing indications.

it's not perfect, but it WILL give you an idea.

Oh, I understand

Ha, that I didn't notice that it was a tie, rather annoying

Thank you for explaining

I was studying the modifications and I noticed something I didn't really understand. After the climax when all instruments are to play diminuendo, that is what I thought, but when I looked at it again I noticed that the Oboe I had no such decrease, did you leave it out so that it would still carry the melody?

no, that might have been an oversight on my part.

Originally Posted by Qccowboy

no, that might have been an oversight on my part.

Oh, I see.

But can you achieve such an effect that you regulate the melody by having dim and cres. as I hypothesized in the previous post?

Originally Posted by Saiming

Oh, I see.

But can you achieve such an effect that you regulate the melody by having dim and cres. as I hypothesized in the previous post?

it can be done, it's not recommended. to really achieve the effect it is best to guage the entrances and exits of the instruments.

I have pondered a bit over the unofficial exercise, adding the horns.

So I made two alternatives, not very different frome ach other, it just that the 'II' has a bit more movement, just wanted to know if it was acceptable.

not too bad Matt.
my only concern is that the opening is very high (well, it's all high woodwinds) and that the horn entrance sounds a bit heavy at that point.
I don't think there's any way around the issue, however. The only other thing to do might be to add a few lower woodwinds to the opening phrase, but this would of course alter the "high woodwinds" feel of what you've written. So I think we can let it go at that.

I might have let the horn continue a bit longer... more into the part with the bassoons and clarinets.

the only other thing is that you've reversed the 1st/2nd horn order by placing the second horn higher than the 1st. with other instruments this isn't quite as important, but with horns, it's a bit more so. remember: horn 1 and 3 = high horn, horn 2 and 4 = low horn.

Okay, as I said, I might randomly decide to join so.... *joins in on the fun*

We've already discussed this, so in the attachment is exercise 4. The first time is done the way it should be, the second time is the harmonization I did before you told me, "Hey, no harmonization, bud. Just octaves and unisons."

Going to work on exercise 5 now. Should I do it with or without the horns first? *assumes without for now*

Question:

Originally Posted by Qccowboy

remember: horn 1 and 3 = high horn, horn 2 and 4 = low horn.

You were talking about Saiming's having reversed 1st and 2nd horn. What if there are only two horns? I only have experience with four. So if there are two, will it be more likely both will be high players, IE. is it safe to write two high parts, or will it usually be one high and one low? ( P.S. I think I would loosely consider written G4 to be the general dividing point between considering low and high horn parts. Would you agree or differ? )


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