Harmony in orchestratioion question

Greetings comrades

I've been going through the Rimsky Korsakov orchestration course at northernsounds.com and I just got up to the harmony section, and I'm a little confused about a few things:

1. at the start of the "general observations" chapter (http://www.northernsounds.com/forum/showthread.php?t=46968), it talks about duplication of parts to get 5, 6, 7 or 8 part writing, which makes sense to me, but many of the examples of chords later in the chapter don't seem to fit into this "system", they don't seem to be (eg for widely spaced part writing) duplicating first the alto, then the soprano, above that and then the alto again above that. It seems more arbitrary than that. So is this duplication "system" just a guide then?

2. about widely spaced harmony, I don't quite get the whole doubling the bass bit:

Professor Belkin Comments: This is an important principle, often forgotten: While the bass may be doubled (rarely in more than ONE octave), if the higher octave crosses into the other middle parts, the bass line loses its clarity.

no music, since this kind of spacing is (necessarily) typical of piano writing.

3. at the very end of the "general observations" chapter, there are two "schematic examples" of progression in contrary motion. Are Rimsky and Belkin saying these examples are bad because voices are being added or subtracted? That wasn't very clear to me

OK, thats all for now, thanks very much in advance

I think that I can answer your second question.

First of all, they are considering the lowest notes that you have to be a bass line, so it's not really possible to double an octave down before that becomes the bass line with their wording.

So, what's happening is that, if you double the bass an octave up, the closer the doubled octave gets to the middle voices, it loses the qualities of a bass line and becomes less focused. If it crosses the middle voices, then you're sunk. So, basically, yes, it's just making sure that, when doing doubled bass in octaves, to make sure that the middle voices don't cross in the middle of them. It doesn't mean that you can't ever have something between octaves in the bass, but if you're looking for the reinforced bass doubled in octaves sound, then you'll lose it if a middle voice travels between them.

Thanks for the answer Calehay, I just want to get this straight: with these chords (in the jpeg) I could take chord 1 and double the bass, which would get me chord 2, and it would work, as far as bringing out the bass? Chord 3 however, would be very "unfocused", same as chord 5, becuase the both have notes between the bass and it's octave, whereas chord 4 would have the clearest bass of all.

Is that right?

Hey - Chord 4 is definitely spaced the best, and will therefore sound the strongest. As well as making the bass more prominent and clear, the whole chord will sound better than the others because all the lower parts are widely spaced. It's always better to keep the bass widely spaced and have any small intervals in the upper voices. One very important thing though, is that you don't double the third of the chord more than once - which is why nos.1 and 2 would sound very bad in context.

It puts a heavy and uncomfortable emphasis on the leading note, and will inevitable lead to consecutive octaves (the kind that you don't want)!

Thanks for the answer Calehay, I just want to get this straight: with these chords (in the jpeg) I could take chord 1 and double the bass, which would get me chord 2, and it would work, as far as bringing out the bass? Chord 3 however, would be very "unfocused", same as chord 5, becuase the both have notes between the bass and it's octave, whereas chord 4 would have the clearest bass of all.

Is that right?

Remember that there is context as well.

Since you are speaking about orchestration, the choice of instrumentation can have an impact on the clarity of the note relationships within a chord.

Also remember that a composer rarely orchestates a single chord, completely out of context. is it coming from somewhere, is it going somewhere.

You might actually WANT to have the 3rd of the chord as the bass note (1st inversion chord). In which case it becomes important to make sure you are emphasizing that aspect of the orchestration. If the 3rd of the chord is played by two bassoons in octaves, and is the lowest note, yet you have 5 trombones and 6 trumpets playing fortissimo the tonic.... well, I think you get my drift. Your 1st inversion chord loses a great deal of its identity.

I believe Professor Belkin mentions "context" elsewhere in his addenda to the Rimsky course.

I know he certainly emphasized it during his classes at university.

Thanks qccowboy, yeah I haven't really been thinknig about context yet, I'm still getting the hang of the basics but I will keep all that in mind.