Workshop #264: Transient Glide by Mark Laukkanen

I think it’s a wonderful piece. One of the things that bugs me about orchestral or ‘cinematic’ pieces by digital composers is the inevitable ‘storm drum’, power moment or whatever. I liked the fact that this music is comfortable not being all drama and violence (not that there’s no place for that, I’m just bored of the cliche). I have no comments on the instrumentation (not qualified) but to say I was very impressed with the sounds from the EWQL library and will be looking at getting CCC some time when the pain from buying a new iMac wears off! Well done.

This is very good overall. Very musical, and it has a strong mood. I do think you have a few opportunities, though.

This is very similar to some pieces I have written that are orchestral but not traditionally “classical”. (Really I guess you would call them “Soundtrack” pieces.) I am not an expert at all and confess that I am 100% self-taught from books.

The first thing that came to mind while listening to this is an old interview I saw with Michael Kamen. He was talking about his work with Pink Floyd or Metallica (I can’t remember which), and he talked about how you never want to give orchestras “block chords”, where they are just playing half notes and whole notes of first inversion chords. “Orchestras hate that.” As a composer/conductor, he was aware of this. I always keep this in mind. “Am I really just using the orchestra like a string pad here?”

It feels to me that at times you have some of the “block chord” orchestra going on, where the parts are all just like a pad in the background playing half notes and whole notes as harmony to the melody. I think you could add some more movement in your non-melody parts. By that I mean, counter-melodies, ostinatos in the alto/tenor or more movement in the bass. Done well, you can have this kind of movement and not detract from the melody. (Kamen’s work on Pink Floyd’s “Comfortably Numb” is a great example of orchestral movement that complements the foreground melody without fighting it.)

The other thing I would pay attention to is your voice leading/part writing. Think of each section in the orchestra (except percussion) as having a soprano, alto, tenor and bass (SATB) voice. Just as with writing four part harmony, you generally want to avoid parallel motion in your voices, because it can make your orchestration feel thin and weak. In particular, I noticed a few spots where your bass and soprano voice seemed to be moving in the same direction by the same interval. Sometimes it’s nearly impossible to avoid parallel motion, but adding more movement to your voices will give you many more options.

You may do this already, but I always recommend that when writing big orchestral strings like this that you figure out the chord progression with a string pad (all voices). Once you have that, break it out based on how many players and parts you are trying to represent. If you have two viola lines, for example, load a new viola section patch and write a two note part with good voice leading that works with the rest of the string choir. Do the same for every part of every section. (This is exactly what a professional orchestrator does.)

Finally, I would look for some reference materials on doubling. The orchestra is huge, but there are usually a limited number of parts being played and they are just doubled in different octaves on different instruments to achieve particular sounds. You can get creative with doubling, but there are also hundreds of years of classical tradition that have given us doubling combinations that work really well and sound good. It’s not cheap, but “The Technique of Orchestration” by Kent Kennan, Donald Grantham is an excellent reference for this. (It is my favorite orchestration reference.)

Again, I am no expert, but these are some of the things I noticed and some of the solutions that I try to keep in mind as an amateur orchestrator. Hope something here is of use.