Dear Bob,
I was meaning that you should expect in general to have more parts playing at the same time - I was not commenting about which register they should play in. The beauty of stringed instruments is their range. You cannot go lower than their lowest note (without detuning), but you can go almost as high as you like, and some of the most effective music literature does this. In terms of contrapuntal work, you've hit the nail on the head in your description - parts should be moving around (not for the sake of it, but following their own independent lines).
Incidentally, panning in Logic is fine (altiverb is quite expensive) - but use the dirmixer plugin for panning, rather than the logic pan widget - this is a balance control and only raises or lowers the left or right channel, rather than summing and moving output of both channels.
Kind Regards,
Nick.
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Do you recommend scores specifically to learn from? Do you know where I can buy affordable orchestral scores that are a bit cheaper than 100$ each? Also, do you recommend any books on counterpoint, harmony or orchestration? Thanks again! Bob
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Regards writing for orchestra,check out Rimsky-Korsakov's book "The principals of Orchestration" Garritan have a forum which goes through the steps described in his book. check the link....Garritan-Korsakov guide
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Do you recommend scores specifically to learn from? Do you know where I can buy affordable orchestral scores that are a bit cheaper than 100$ each? Also, do you recommend any books on counterpoint, harmony or orchestration?
Answers to all those questions, and more, can be found here.
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Hi Nick,
Secondly, I have a really solid understanding of chords and melody as well as harmony, but I really dont know what contrapuntal means... Are you kind of saying that parts must be able to weave in and out of eachother while maintaining harmony and melody without interfering or being overbearing on each other?Bob
That's fairly close to what I meant - as Nick points out - that's about right.
Contrapuntally based writing is probably very much the norm for most orchestral writers I would guess.
Why should music be contrapuntal? - It doesn't have to be anything actually. It can be very blocky if required. For example, a really good filmscore writer called Miklos Rozsa could write tremendously good 'blocked' brass fanfares when required - in other words, just big chords with no other orchestral movement going on above or underneath (much). Try to get the DVD of Ben Hur when you get the chance and just listen to the enormous range of orchestral writing going on in there. Strings are one of Rosza's speciality.
Two or more melody lines going on at the same time - usually in harmony (as opposed to noise) is contrapuntal. Reason generally? - It keeps the listener interested and at the same time, occupied with that interest, also bearing in mind that the writer is ALSO a listener of his or her own work. Doesn't make it any good unfortunately.
Another old as the hills form of writing, especially in films, is the fairly simple theme on the top (the bit everyone hums and not necessarily contrapuntal) - but the massive energetic writing and orchestration underneath. For example - get the DVD of The Magnificent Seven and listen to Elmer Bernstein's fantastic writing. And then after you've done that - get the DVD of To Kill a Mockingbird and just listen and watch the opening title sequence - again by Elmer Bernstein.
Counterpoint has very set rules and is a slightly different ball game. The greatest exponent of counterpoint (in fact the greatest exponent of everything probably) was J S Bach with G F Handel coming up on the rails.
If you think of harmonious moving parts within a musical piece, generally you're writing contrapuntally, which is a good thing to have in your locker - but is only one part of any style of writing. After all, Baroque simply means movement.
I would also recommend that you watch and listen to two films - namely Psycho and Vertigo with music by Bernard Herrmann - one of the greatest writers of any music in the 20th century. The visuals are an added bonus.
Therefore, while others here quite rightly lead you to study orchestral scores by the old masters, I would also recommend the other side - filmscore work.
Tim, that midi file doesn't seem to download for some reason. I am strapped for time and wish I could have said some thing useful.
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If you go to my myspace music page and click on my top friend R Kaye-composer,he has studied the great composers and has a book out (check his links) that could give you an insight into styles and idioms.Also check the blog on my page :"baroque-idioms and styles" for an overview of counterpoint.mypsace page
if the link doesnt work heres the url: myspace.com/dreamthemes1
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Thank you so much, the forum posts about scores to study was extremely helpful... Thank you Paul as well, I found it really helpful how you explained to me what is meant by contrapuntal.... I am a guitarist and we quite frequently double the harmonies in thirds, octaves etc and I do have a good understanding of chords, theory and melody so it should make sense to me how this orchestration works, but I think alot of the problems are the terms that are used that I dont understand... What you said makes total sense.... I was wondering, as a follow up question, Does everyone on here basically recommend appasionata and also, when you do midi mockups, do you do like a seperate solo violin like 25 times to make a violin section or do you just use 1 orchestra patch with maybe a chamber patch? How do people structure that? Thanks again! Bob
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Dear Bob,
You would not be able to use a single articulation 25 times - you would encounter very bad phasing, and it would still sound like a single violin. To get multiple single instruments you could try using different articulations, or the pitchwheel trick (search on the forum for that one), but not to get up to 25 violins. You would need to use the groups - orchestral violins, chamber violins, solo violin and layer them as necessary.
In terms of organisation, everybody does it differently. But essentially, you are adding another line for the additional virtual instrument. You could also try layering using the parallel cells feature of the virtual instrument.
Kind Regards,
Nick.
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Counterpoint books:
I can recommend you "Kontrapunkt" (counterpoint) of a german writer/composer called Diether de la Motte.
As far as I know it has been translated into many languages as it was a big success due to it's innovation in teaching music theory!
It's for experts that are interested in writting original style-copies. I will give you a little summery of it's content:
It starts with the "beginning" of counterpoint thinking and goes chronological through history. The gothic periode, there's the so called "Notre Dame era" and the composer Perotin (and also some others) who have started to write polyphonic music, which means that every voice has the same importance. Before (in medieval music) there was the main melody that was moved in parallel fifths. Or later the famous organum compositions with a superior melody and below accompanying sustained notes.
After the Note Dame epoche happened a lote in the early renaissance periode. Composers like Dufay, Marchaut, Ockeghem, etc.
De la Motte also speaks about those two epoches a little and it is very interesting how it changed and he also explains how music was notated at these times (rhythmically, etc...)
Then the most important chapter in the book is the renaissance composer Josquin Desprez. As he has revolutionized counterpoint writting that was a "standard" for later masters like Palestrina or even Bach!
The Josquin chapter tells everything about cointerpoint rules how and also about how music has been written at this time (notation, rhythmical, possible harmonies and keys, etc.) with the aim to learn how to write a "perfect" style copy with all it's typical and stereotypical aspects.
After Josquin comes a short chapter about Palestrina, it's more about what little has changed from Josquin to Palestrina, for example that Palestrina expands the harmonies (for example new harmonies are possible like E major, or harmonies with more sharps) and for Palestrina the typical "multi-choral" writting. 5 or 6 voices mininum, 2 choirs, etc... instead Josquin makes a lot of use of ony two voices! And that's a fantastic technique how to start. If you can write perfect two voices then the expansion to three or four voices is not a big deal at all.
After Palestrina comes a Bach chapter that shows the difference of the meaning of "counterpoint". When "counterpoint" in the renaissance was more on the linear, melodic part and chords and harmonies where not imporant or happend just by "chance" and the tonality in general was "modal", in baroque (Bach's) counterpoint the harmony has a very imporant role. Often it's called "harmonic counterpoint". You can also hear the difference if you just compare a piece of Josquin and a Bach Fuga, what's different? The strict rules of Josquin/Palestrina are not so strict at all anymore but other things become more important (modulations, sequences, and many more...)
Then there are a couple of other interesting chapters, Haydn/Beethoven and their "motivic composing", Schumann/Brahms and their "inner voices", etc. Wagners "network-technique" how it seems that it's a 11-part composition, but the truth is that they are only 2 or 3 parts transfered on 11 (or more) instruments that switch between the voices (for example the viola takes 2, 3 notes together with the clarinet and then goes for 3, 4 notes with the horn, but rhythmically always a little different and shifted, etc...) it looks very complex and gives a great counterpunctual texture.
And then there's a chapter about counterpoint in music of the 20th century (Ligeti, etc.).
It's really a fantastic book with lots of ideas for practicing. For me the methode of De la Motte's books (also other ones like "Harmonielehre") worked very well and makes really sense! His philosophy is (he writes that at the beginnig of the book) that you don't learn only rules and "dry, boring exercises", you start "MAKING MUSIC" from the first page, the first example and exercise on. It makes really fun! I'm sure it exists also in english.
De la motte is a real "star" of music theory books here in Germany/Austria (he was teaching in Hamburg and Vienna). He still lives but is very old now. He was the teacher of my theory/counterpoint teacher so that's why I'm a little more informed about those books :-)
Have fun!
All the best,
Andie
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