To be a professional instrumental/orchestral composer in the western tradition (film or otherwise) you have to satisfy at least one of the following two requirements:
A) Your work has to be of professional standards, as those are recognized internationally,
and/or
B) You get paid regularly for your compositions.
A superlative sounding mock-up, one where nobody can tell whether those are real strings/brass/woodwind playing, is NOT - I repeat, is NOT an orchestral work of 'professional standards'. It is a work consisting of treated synthesized sounds. I want to see a score! Everybody will judge a score! That is where people will determine whether you are professional instrumental/orchestral composer or not. That is where they will determine your orthography, they will read your trombone lines (which a sampler will perform perfectly at any speed), and whether those are possible. That is where they will read your harp scoring and how possible that is in real life. That is where they will see how sensitive you are to the Eb Clarinet intonation issues, whether you know the trumpets' useful notes (which don't begin at the bottom of their range), horn scoring, approaches to different ranges, dynamics considerations, true balance among the sections (your mock-up probably consists of about 200 strings, 16 horns, etc.), the list is virtually endless...
,ow few measures it takes one that knows music to discern from an actual orchestrally recorded cue (not a mock-up) whether the composer of the cue knows music or not, even if the composer has made more money from that cue than most will ever see.
Bottom line of argument? If you want to be taken seriously, be serious.
Dear Errikos,
When I was creating scores for my acoustic music I took every pain to create scores that were up to current professional standards. I don't have particularly good handwriting or graphic skills so it was difficult for me. But as I became more and more committed to the virtual orchestra, I began to question why I was even creating scores at all. I realized there are other reasons to create a score that is not intended for live performance. Here's a a brief article I wrote on the subject if you are interested: https://www.jerrygerber.com/markings.htm
Your definition of serious orchestration is that you've defined (and perhaps limited) working in the virtual medium to being a "mock-up". Have you considered it possible that for some musicians it may be a legitimate and serious artistic medium in its own right, deserving of exploration, commitment and developing techniques that are indigenous to that medium?
Maybe I am misunderstanding what you've written, but it seems you've created an either/or situation: Either you're a trained orchestrator and write for live players, or you don't know the first thing about orchestration and work with sample libraries, sequencers, MIDI, etc. I see it as normal and possible to be both. For every technique a traditional orchestrator has to master, the musician working in the virtual medium also has an equivalent number of new techniques that need to be mastered. Synth programming itself is an art-form that one could do and spend a lifetime exploring the possibilities. Sequencing a melody that has expression, gesture, nuance, dynamics, the right attack and releases, the right kind of note connections--this is a time consuming and very detailed process that someone attempting to "mock-up" a piece probably won't engage in. Then there is mixing, mastering, maintaining a studio, troubleshooting--these are all related skills that go into producing recordings using relatively new tools. And this is in addition to one's knowledge of harmony, counterpoint, form and structure and composition. No wonder one lifetime is barely enough. No wonder I sometimes still feel like a complete beginner when I sit down to work.
Technology has given us new ways to make music, new ways to record music, new ways to edit music. There are some that are going to approach these new tools seriously, some will ignore them like the plague, and some will dabble in them from time to time. These differing approaches to new music technologies have nothing to do with one's knowledge of music, one's musicianship, or one's seriousness as a musician. Some excellent composers are simply not facile with technology; other than using Sibelius or Finale they are not interested in what computer-based instruments can do. That's fine, there's room in this world for every and any approach. Seriousness of intent is not determined by the tools we choose to make music with, that's how it appears to me.
