A couple of months ago I took a quick break from psychology to pursue another interest of mine - music composition. I'd always been interested in writing music since studying it at A-level though, as a pianist, most of the music I composed focused mainly on piano with some simple accompaniment (such as this, for example). While I fancied myself as a bit of a songwriter, I was really just interested in writing memorable or 'catchy' themes (such as the theme tune to a TV show pilot I composed a few years ago). However, most of these arrangements were written for about 10 instruments - writing a piece of music for a full orchestra had always been a big aspiration of mine.
I had an idea for a piece of music about a year ago. Again, I'd originally composed it as a piano solo. While it worked quite nicely on the piano, I felt myself trying to cram in more harmonies and counter-melodies and couldn't help imagining certain parts being played by full woodwind, strings and brass sections. Because of all this, this piece seemed a good candidate to convert into a an orchestral composition, so I set to work...
You can listen to the finished piece here. The story behind creating it all is below:
Preparation
Before transcribing even a single note, I had a lot of studying to do on music theory. I spent a few days learning about each of the instruments in an orchestra in detail. For instance, what were the musical ranges, agility and dynamic capabilities of each instrument? What can the instruments physically play? What keys were they pitched in? Even after finding out the answer to all of these, there was a lot of 'music etiquette' to go along with this: Which instruments accompany each other well? Which instruments typically carry the melody while others provide backing? Which instruments drown others out?
To find the answer to these, I listened to a few of my favourite modern orchestral performances over and over, and visited a couple of music shops to buy orchestral arrangements. This helped me get an idea of how each instrument in an orchestra was scored and the level of complexity needed in my arrangement. After finding the answers to all these questions, I felt ready to tackle the main composition.
Transcribing
The first section I composed (0:38-1:06) was pretty straightforward. In this part, the string section provides the backing while the Cor Anglais (English horn) carries the main melody. Like most of the individual parts, I originally composed the strings on the piano, assigning each finger to a section of the strings (i.e. my left little finger played the double bass part; my left thumb was the cello part; right thumb, violas; and right middle and little fingers, first and second violins).
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| Some of my scrawl on paper. I frantically scribbled out parts like this so I didn't forget them! |
For other sections, such as the opening (0:00-0:38) I did things a little differently. Here, I scored the single-line melody for an instrument (the flute) and gradually 'padded' this out with other instruments (clarinet, oboe) to provide the harmony as and when I thought appropriate. Throughout the whole piece, my main strategy was to assign the melody to one section (string, woodwind or brass) while the other two would accompany this (filling in the pauses in the melody or providing the 'response' of a 'call and response' portion of the melody). As the arrangement became more advanced, I became a bit more ambitious and blended sections together (for instance, the strings and brass share the lead in the final section).
Recording
I used Cubase 5.0 to arrange the piece (as I was familiar with this during my A-level Music Tech days). Of course, I also used a PC as I needed something as practical as possible (above something shiny with a picture of an apple on it).
I was determined not to use any electronic or synthesized sounds as I only wanted real instruments to play it. (Typically, electronic keyboards and sound-cards are loaded with 'voices' for all instruments, though these are usually created by studying the sound-waves of real instruments playing and generating these electronically - giving recognisable, but not realistic sounds).
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| Here's the Cubase screen I spent way too long looking at. The green parts are the woodwind, yellow are brass, blue is percussion and orange are strings. The lighter colours play the melody. |
For the instrument sounds, I used the 'Halion Symphonic Orchestra' pack by Steinberg. The boffins at Steinberg have gone through the painstaking process of getting a flautist to play every single note in a flute's range, and repeat this whole process for all the different dynamics (loud and soft) across all methods of playing (legato, staccato) as well as extra methods of playing (trills). This has then been repeated for every single instrument in the orchestra, individually and for instruments that usually play in groups (i.e. 8 violins playing together).
The net result is an incredibly huge library of different voices for every possible method of playing. As I had this at my fingertips, it meant I could create any sound from an orchestral instrument possible. For instance, for the flutes, I had 4 different channels -'piano (softly) legato', normal legato, 'forte (loud) legato' and 'trill'. I had to assign the flute part to one of these channels as they played in the appropriate style. I then repeated this for all instruments. In the end, I used about 40 individual channels (or 'voices').
Cleaning up
I played in every section on a piano. When doing this, it's very tempting to adjust (or 'quantise') each of the notes to make sure they're all played perfectly on the beat. However, this can make the recording sound a bit 'electronic'. In reality, even professional musicians won't be able to hit the note exactly right and may miss a beat by a fraction of a second. To make sure my composition sounded as realistic as possible, I made sure to keep my original performance.
Just because I could play each part on the piano was no guarantee that the instrument itself could actually play it. Of course, you can just whack any part through a computer (and it'll play anything you throw at it) but whether it is actually physically possible to play by a human is another issue. I had some pretty complicated runs for the violins and flutes, but to know whether the instruments were capable of playing them, I needed to speak with professionals. Luckily, I was friends with a few grade-8 musicians who informed me of the limits for their respective instruments. (For instance, flutes, as it turns out, are very 'agile' - they can play quick runs of notes very quickly, but only when each of these notes are placed within a few semitones of each other.)
Scoring
To prepare the sheet music, I used Sibelius (the industry standard for music notation). As I didn't play each note perfectly on the beat (see above), the original score looked pretty shocking. I spent about a day tidying everything up and making sure everything was in the right place so the score looked tidy.
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| An extract from Sibelius. The final score has 24 staves for 54 instruments. |
Finished Version
When I finished the composition, I deliberately didn't listen to it for a couple of days so I could come back to it with a fresh set of ears. When I listened to it again, I could spot a few little things I could do improve which I had missed. After spending another night away from it, I listened again and had something I was very happy with.
The final version is written for a 54 piece orchestra:
Woodwind: 2 Flutes / Piccolo; Oboe; English horn; 2 Clarinets; Bass Clarinet; Bassoon
Brass: 4 Horns; 3 Trumpets; 3 Trombones; Tuba
Percussion: (Timpani, Cymbal, Snare)
Strings: Harp; 16 Violins; 8 Violas; 4 Cellos; 4 Double Basses.
Listen to the final version on YouTube
Listen to the final version on SoundCloud
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