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Importance of Register?

Discussion in 'Tips, Tricks & Talk' started by Noam Levy, Nov 7, 2017.

  1. #1 Noam Levy, Nov 7, 2017
    Last edited: Nov 20, 2017
    Hi @Mike Verta & everyone else

    This is somewhat inspired by Mike's "Orchestration III" seminar.

    I'm trying to develop a shorthand language for orchestration and one of the elements I think is very important to encode is register.

    All the orchestration manuals agree that woodwind registers are fairly distinct in tone color & have important differences in how well they blend, stand out, get covered etc. These considerations also apply slightly to the brass and, even as a string player, I can tell you that the cello has SOMEWHAT distinct tone-registers despite its smoothness of sound throughout the range.

    However, every orchestration book seems to have a different breakdown of where woodwind registers start and stop... and as a non woodwind player I have no idea who's authoritative.

    Right now I'm working on a concordance of tone-registers based on consulting every orchestration text I can find (Adler, Piston, Forsyth, the Spectratone chart, Korsakov, and Kennan are all sitting on my desk right now...). I'm also going to be able to survey a professional orchestra or 2 before Christmas. This is what I have so far -

    Shhh ;)

    Everything is placed "as written" because I'm going to use this chart while score reading.

    I'm sure lots of juicy WW details will be covered in Orchestration IV ;) but I welcome anyone's thoughts about what are the best ways to consider distinct woodwind registers when score reading and when orchestrating?
     
    Michael Antrum, Sean Barrett, Krzysztof Fokow and 2 others like this.
  2. #2 Alexander Schiborr, Nov 7, 2017
    First of all, great work on that chart. Reminds me a little on the spectrotone chart, but yours looks clearer and to the point and not so packed with trillions of colors..

    To your question, I am not sure if I get that right: So you mean what is the best way to know how to write effectively to the strongs of the instrument? If so..I would say: Get to know the timbre characteristics of the instrument or section. I do that in playing solo lines a lot in all registers and all available dynamic timbres. Another thing is that I mock up with samples famous pieces with help of a live reference and I look up why certain blends work and how they sound. I try with that way to deconstruct the things with samples which helps me to learn how the colors blend. Sure for that you should have some descent sampled libraries. The best thing would be to work with live orchestra / musicians..as this teaches you other things you can´t see or learn with samples, but as for the midi composer guy like me, I find help in such procedures.
     
    Noam Levy likes this.
  3. #3 Noam Levy, Nov 7, 2017
    Yes somewhat... that's not exactly what I'm working on, but similar.

    What I'm trying to do is create a shorthand language for orchestration, to condense any orchestration "moment" into a brief string of code. While score reading I'll gradually build up a database of moments, and then I can use that database to look up particular usages of instruments and try to "discover" new rules & guidelines.

    Right now I have a great pile of scores to go through, my main stumbling block is creating the shorthand language. For this purpose I think it's very important to have an accurate and useful picture of woodwind registers and where they stop and start. So that when I shorthand a particular orchestration moment I can say "Low flute" or "Mid flute" or "High flute" and have those be tonally meaningful distinctions.
     
    Rohann van Rensburg likes this.
  4. #4 Paul T McGraw, Nov 7, 2017
    Interesting project @Noam Levy. Thank you for being willing to share this with us. I am reminded of Rimsky-Korsakov, who wrote one of the seminal books on orchestration. Rimsky spent several years doing research for the book, with his intent being to create something like what you are describing. Eventually, he sort of gave up, and vastly simplified his text. It is still an awesome book on orchestration. So perhaps you can end up with your own orchestration text.
     
    Alexander Schiborr and Rohann van Rensburg like this.
  5. #5 Sean Barrett, Nov 7, 2017
    I love the chart. I hope you'll share the final version because I'm sure it will be a great resource. I am no expert on woodwinds so I don't have much to add, but I think the results can vary depending on the player, the instrument, the dynamics, the context, etc. which is why all the orchestration books have different opinions.
     
  6. #6 Rohann van Rensburg, Nov 8, 2017
    I'd buy this when complete, for the record.
     
  7. #7 Noam Levy, Nov 9, 2017
    Well you won't be able to... because it'll be free ;) probably available before Christmas, it depends how many orchestras I'll get in contact with.

    I'll probably have a paid blog/seminar/patreon/whatever thing to share my insights after completing this project, but that will be a long way away. I like the idea of video better than a book (despite I'm a terrible presenter); the main problem with books is they're always like "go read that score" or at best "listen to example 7-C on the accompanying CD."
     
    Rohann van Rensburg and Lucas Orthmann like this.
  8. #8 Rohann van Rensburg, Nov 9, 2017
    I love books, but for material like what's being discussed here, it's exponentially more streamlined to contain examples within a video and address them directly.

    Thanks for doing this!
     
  9. #9 Noam Levy, Nov 16, 2017
    Last edited: Nov 20, 2017
    New version... It's coming along!
    Shhh ;)

    But I have a long list of chamber music & concertos to listen to. Got my first set of surveys back from professional musicians! But didn't have time to put everything in the chart yet. However, I like the new graphic design as I got feedback from almost every woodwind and brass player that registers should be overlapping/blurred.

    Basses are strictly speaking wrong of course! But for what I'm going to use this chart for I figured the overriding factor was to have their registers the same as the cellos an octave lower. It will make shorthanding a lot easier. Not a lot of double bass solos in film scores...
     
    Paul Shapiro, Sean Barrett, Matt Varone and 3 others like this.
  10. #10 Alexander Schiborr, Nov 16, 2017
    That looks really Great, Noam. As I said in my earlier post, much more pleasent to look at than this spectrotone..thing. Great job..
     
  11. #11 Patrick McClanahan, Nov 16, 2017
    Looks really nice. Great job!
     
  12. #12 Rohann van Rensburg, Nov 17, 2017
    I didn't like the "being centered around Staff C" concept at first but it's growing on me.
     
  13. #13 Sean Barrett, Nov 17, 2017
    This is exactly what I was imagining. Looks great!
     
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