Hey All,
I was just in another thread where things became a little confused in talking about conventional doublings and the sound they produce. The specific subject and thread is not important to this post, but it brought up some thoughts in my head that I thought might provoke an interesting discussion.
What I've noticed since I started hanging out on this forum is that there's a tendency to take very literally the notion that a "Score" is actually the _sound_ of the music, as opposed to the manuscript used to direct the conductor/orchestra in producing that sound. I'm guessing, since most people here are working in film, that this is a confusion arising from the use of the term "Film Score" which colloquially refers to the music itself, not to the manuscript. This could be seen as an extension of the use of the term in the history of ballet, where a reference to "Stravinsky's score for Le Sacre du Printemps" generally referred to the sound of the music, and not necessarily the printed document. Obviously, neither is right or wrong, but they need to be clear in communication.
Now, in our digital/virtual orchestra times, this has become even more complex, since there are many for whom the paper score has been replace by a Logic/Cubase/Performer session -- with tracks corresponding to instruments, or sometimes single elements of instrumental performances, but not necessarily corresponding to the staves one would see if the work were "scored" (which, to me, means put to paper!).
What is interesting to me, in overhearing some of the discussions in this forum, is that I'm now realizing that there is, quite likely, a new mode of listening showing up among people doing this kind of work. Taking myself as an example of the "old" way of listening, when I hear a piece I immediately translate it to score -- paper score -- and imagine how the parts would be arranged on paper to produce the sound I'm hearing. So, if I hear a bass voice where the celli are doubled by basses, I don't even think twice about the doubling being 'at the octave', I simply picture the score with the Vcls and Cbs having an identical part printed on their respective staves. However, I don't think many today's younger composers (and I'm only 35!) are necessarily thinking that way. When they hear the same piece, they are immediately thinking of it as a single, "big sounding" line, then figuring out in VSL & Logic how to combine the correct samples to reproduce that sound. And further, the final combination in Logic may take up 4, 5, even 8 midi tracks! So, what I imagined on first hearing as musical notation appearing on two staves, another composer may have imagined, also on first hearing, as a midi session using 8 tracks!
Obviously, this is just progress and the consequent development of new ways of producing music -- and that's a great thing. But it does bring up some difficulties in communication, particularly when the basic term we're all using, "Score", remains the same. Ultimately, I would argue that this term still refers to the paper document, since that's what the players used to record the samples, and that's what most of the examples of orchestration we learn from used to guide their performance.
Now don't get the idea that I see a "right" or "wrong" here. I'm just interested in hearing other peoples' experiences with, and thoughts about, this mysterious term!
J.
I was just in another thread where things became a little confused in talking about conventional doublings and the sound they produce. The specific subject and thread is not important to this post, but it brought up some thoughts in my head that I thought might provoke an interesting discussion.
What I've noticed since I started hanging out on this forum is that there's a tendency to take very literally the notion that a "Score" is actually the _sound_ of the music, as opposed to the manuscript used to direct the conductor/orchestra in producing that sound. I'm guessing, since most people here are working in film, that this is a confusion arising from the use of the term "Film Score" which colloquially refers to the music itself, not to the manuscript. This could be seen as an extension of the use of the term in the history of ballet, where a reference to "Stravinsky's score for Le Sacre du Printemps" generally referred to the sound of the music, and not necessarily the printed document. Obviously, neither is right or wrong, but they need to be clear in communication.
Now, in our digital/virtual orchestra times, this has become even more complex, since there are many for whom the paper score has been replace by a Logic/Cubase/Performer session -- with tracks corresponding to instruments, or sometimes single elements of instrumental performances, but not necessarily corresponding to the staves one would see if the work were "scored" (which, to me, means put to paper!).
What is interesting to me, in overhearing some of the discussions in this forum, is that I'm now realizing that there is, quite likely, a new mode of listening showing up among people doing this kind of work. Taking myself as an example of the "old" way of listening, when I hear a piece I immediately translate it to score -- paper score -- and imagine how the parts would be arranged on paper to produce the sound I'm hearing. So, if I hear a bass voice where the celli are doubled by basses, I don't even think twice about the doubling being 'at the octave', I simply picture the score with the Vcls and Cbs having an identical part printed on their respective staves. However, I don't think many today's younger composers (and I'm only 35!) are necessarily thinking that way. When they hear the same piece, they are immediately thinking of it as a single, "big sounding" line, then figuring out in VSL & Logic how to combine the correct samples to reproduce that sound. And further, the final combination in Logic may take up 4, 5, even 8 midi tracks! So, what I imagined on first hearing as musical notation appearing on two staves, another composer may have imagined, also on first hearing, as a midi session using 8 tracks!
Obviously, this is just progress and the consequent development of new ways of producing music -- and that's a great thing. But it does bring up some difficulties in communication, particularly when the basic term we're all using, "Score", remains the same. Ultimately, I would argue that this term still refers to the paper document, since that's what the players used to record the samples, and that's what most of the examples of orchestration we learn from used to guide their performance.
Now don't get the idea that I see a "right" or "wrong" here. I'm just interested in hearing other peoples' experiences with, and thoughts about, this mysterious term!
J.