Complexity Of A Concerto

[Ruro]

Lo all, I have a few nasty questions about composing! And hopefuly get your opinions on one or two things too ^_^;;

Being such a great fan of them, and being such a lover of music, I have planned for a while now (as a life long goal) to at some point begin working on a concerto. I have played the trumpet for a year when I was younger, and the piano is what I have now of course

But... first off, how familiar do I need to be with the instruments within a standard orchestra? I'm looking at a concerto score to find 15 Staffs (staves?) of a variety of instruments, many purely ONE note at a time. Makes sense, I don't understand how I could ever play 2 notes on a trumpet :/ Apparently the Fagotti (Sorry, Babelfish reels out no English translation) can play 2 notes at the same time?!

Aside from that, there's the capabilities of speed etc., I'm not even sure if my latest Piano composition is humanly possible, I can't exactly test it O_o

And the next question, I guess I'm asking how you store a piece in your mind really... you can real out tunes and develop it in some form just by whisteling, do you think recording yourself humming the tune is a reasonable way of 'creating the parts'? Then you can add more bits by using a sound editor? I might give this a shot anyway, because with my current piano piece I find I am very quickly moving through the sections from Andantino to Allegro etc.

Thanks for your time & suggestions, and maybe your criticism And apologies if this has arose before, I couldn't find any thread directly related.

[abell88]

But... first off, how familiar do I need to be with the instruments within a standard orchestra? I'm looking at a concerto score to find 15 Staffs (staves?) of a variety of instruments, many purely ONE note at a time. Makes sense, I don't understand how I could ever play 2 notes on a trumpet :/ Apparently the Fagotti (Sorry, Babelfish reels out no English translation) can play 2 notes at the same time?!

You need to be pretty familiar with the instruments in terms of their range and tonal capacity. Someone recently posted a link for either a website or a book that tell the ranges of the instruments, etc. And there are lots of books on orchestration, although it's not something I have studied, so I can't tell you which are the most useful.

I suspect the score you were looking at simply has a divisi; that is there are two bassoon (fagotti, but it's really better not to use that in an English language forum!) parts written on the same staff for two bassoonists to play at once. This is quite common.    (As far as I know, any wind instrument will normally only be producing one note at a time; strings can do more, although most commonly they also only do one.)

I think recording yourself humming or whistling is a good way to start...although you will probably need something more concrete to help with the harmonizing once you have a melody.  I prefer to work at the piano and jot things down (in very erasable pencil!) as I go, but there are other options...whatever works best for you.

[abell88]

https://www.pianostreet.com/smf/index.php/topic,15148.0.html

You might find this discussion useful.

[Ruro]

Thank you so much for the link Abell88 ^_^ Priceless information within it appears... and oh, you wrote the other reply too I read over it, and I see! It would save on many staves, the sheet music I am looking at only has 2 Violin Staves, not the number of actual violins (makes perfect sense, I can understand you may easily require 2 sets over-lapping).

I will investigate it further in the morning though, I just watched both Ju-On 1 & 2, and now I have to try and fall asleep

Thanks for your aid ^_^

[pianistimo]

here's a site with the ranges of instruments (just in case you don't have them)

www.8notes.com/articles/instrument_ranges.asp

most composers write the whole thing for piano (duet form? in some places) and then transfer the parts to instruments (i think).  rarely do we have access to a whole orchestra to immediately hear our music.  so the midi and software (Notion is one) that allows you to hear your music is probably the best idea to start. 

[Bob]

Two notes on one staff?  Probably in the conductor's score?  That's just taking a first and second or third and fourth part and writting them on the same staff to save space on the conductor's score.  If the actual performer's part is that way, it's divisi and one player plays the top note, the other plays the bottom. 

Fagotti are bassoons.

You need to have your stuff be playable.  The more you know about each instrument, the better.  There are orchestration books that describe the ranges and challenges of each instrument, but having someone actually play your stuff is better -- you get to hear how they sound and what they struggle with.

I don't know how composers store things in their mind.  Probably the melody/harmony/expression by sections would be my guess.

[Ruro]

Two notes on one staff?  Probably in the conductor's score?

I'd say your right about the Bassoons scores being Divisi, I'm actually looking at the first page of the Rach3, trying to get some insight behind an idea of orchestral usage. I read somewhere about "how to use the orchestra poorly"...

https://www.musique.umontreal.ca/personnel/Belkin/bk.o/o2.html#What%20is%20poor%20orchestration?

And frankly, despite it says it's "fairly hard to write really bad orchestration", I find the points mentioned are not easily... avoided, but writing for the first time on a larger scale can't be easy.

You need to have your stuff be playable

I hope Eighth notes at 128bpm is reasonable, this is what the violins are wading through ^_^;;

having someone actually play your stuff is better

As if my petty attempt so far at this concerto was worth there time

Honestly, I think now I'm just gonna crack on with it, and if at SOME point for some weird reason it is played, I will then find out where it's too hard, and adjust it ^_^ Having a Piano to work out the notes for the instruments made thing suprisingly easy, if anything I'm trapped with 1 note per instrument besides the piano, which I play, so on some level I can... well, get somewhere

[phil13]

Here's what I'm going through:

I would love to write a piano concerto, so this is my approach toward that goal: Write one or two pieces for piano and every other instrument- violin, cello, clarinet, flute, bassoon, trumpet, etc., then add them up slowly (piano trios, string quartets, woodwind quintets) before arriving at the final stage (Piano Concerto No.1  )

Learning about the different combinations through smaller pieces is, IMO, much better than jumping into something as dense, complex, and intricate as a concerto.

Good luck with your attempt, though!

Phil

[elspeth]

First off, good luck! A concerto is a brave thing to have a crack at... I used to be the manager of an orchestra as well as playing in several, so I hope the following helps!

It might be worth your while trying your nearest music library and seeing if it stocks orchestral material. Get any piece, not necessarily a concerto but preferably one you have a recording of, and just have a look through the parts, then you can compare the individual parts to the conductor's score and to the recording and see what things like those double notes actually mean to the individual musicians. You'll also see things like what cues are marked in the parts and so on... a lot of composers put bassoon/double bass cues in the piccolo part, it sounds mad but it makes sense, the piccolo is often used straight after the basses as contrast so if you have a long period of rests it helps to know what your cue is and who's playing it, then you stand less chance of getting lost!

For the record - as a flute/piccolo player - you can get harmonics out of flutes but they aren't generally used for orchestral purposes, just for solo material, as you can only really hear octaves and even then they come out pretty quietly.

Also, watch the transpositions for those instruments not tuned in C. Many are - but for instance, a piccolo is a transposing instrument in C, it's tuned an octave above the written pitch in treble clef, so if you don't know about it, it doesn't look at first glance at a score as if it is because it's an octave. Same thing goes for double bass, transposing in C an octave down in bass clef. Orchestral clarinets are usually tuned in A but you can also get variations in Bb, Eb, and a few others. If you want to use an alto flute it's tuned in F. Brass instruments aren't usually in C either, nor saxophones. Watch your clefs with bassoons, they can play in bass or tenor clef depending on the range (you change clefs for ease of the player's reading.) Same for cellos, and of course violas come in alto clef, but I imagine you can write for them in treble too for high passages.

Beyond pitch and clef issues, as long as you know what the instrument sounds like you probably can't write much that'll be unplayable even if it doesn't quite sound how you thought it would - although do bear in mind that woodwind/brass players do need places to breathe if you're taking an influence from Bach and writing pages and pages of quick semiquavers for them! Circular breathing is not a skill most amateurs will have...

Oh, and doubling instruments. Piccolo is often combined with the second or third flute part - you are allowed to write one part for two or three instruments of the same type (eg, picc/concert/alto flutes, or Bb/Eb/bass clarinets)so you can have a third flute to add harmony and a piccolo for highlights and range but you write an interesting part for one player with two instruments rather than two half- and therefore relatively dull parts for two players.

Once you've written it, go to your nearest university and investigate the student music society. If you ask nicely they might well spare some rehearsal time to play your orchestral parts for you to hear - and don't be afraid of asking for their comments on the presentation of the parts, the articulation you've marked and so on. There's nothing better than giving your music to someone who plays the right instrument and asking what they'd like marking in (or out! if you've accidentally managed to write articulation that isn't physically possible or something) for practical, playing purposes.

Just make sure you don't ask just before they have a concert coming up and are pressed for rehearsal time, and be prepared to offer a bit of a bribe or reward. I used to run a student orchestra, and we did this regularly, mostly for music students in the university but for anyone else who approached us. You can offer all sorts as bribes - a few bottles of wine, or some cakes or something - or offering to help out with a concert for them, putting up a few posters or writing some programme notes for them or something. Speaking as an ex-manager I used to accept any and all help people offered with concerts, they're a big job to organise and publicise, especially when you're a student outfit without a budget!

If you can find a soloist, if you do persuade an orchestra to help you, it'd be a nice gesture if you offer them the opportunity to play it in a forthcoming concert, you'd get to hear your masterpiece played in public and they'd get a lot of marketing mileage about staging a premier.

Good luck!

[Ruro]

Sorry to bring this thread back, I tried to reply yesterday, but then it wouldn't let me post, and then I couldn't even access the friggin site, I think it was just me though. Anyway, I saved my message, just need to thank some people and stuff, then you can let this thread fade again.


Yeeha! Thanks for your continued support/comments people ^_^

After reading the posts, I'm beginning to think I'm way over my head, or I'm just literally writing this music in the worst possible way, but I find it managable (atm...) O_o

I havn't actually worked on it in a while, I currently have 512MB DDR, and I can BARELY load the String instruments along side the Steinway Lite in GPO, so I don't wanna continue composing until I get more Memory so I can introduce the Brass/Woodwind etc.

I have continued to think about it's direction though, got some idea's lurking to put to paper. I was actually gonna post a link of what I have recorded so far, but it's in an ugly state (although sounding nice) ^_^;;

Elspeth... borrow the musicians of a professional orchestra to trial sections of my fourth ever musical composition? I very much doubt they would do that for me But the rest of your post is invaluable! I'm gonna have to start making notes or something... O_o

And please don't take that offensively Elspeth, but... I dunno, just borrowing some professional musicians seems far fetched for a peasant like myself ^_^;; lol

And phil13, thanks for your reply ^_^ And... I suddenly feel kinda excited about that prospect, being able to compose for ANY instrument! Sure, maybe it won't be good music, but it's cool having such freedom! Maybe some Solo Cello and Violin, it was Bach's BWV.1007 Cello Suite Prelude that got me into classical music

Bless Evangelion!

[elspeth]

I never suggested borrowing pros, I suggested borrowing amateurs - as I say, at one point I ran a student orchestra and we regularly tested music for people, mostly music students but anybody who asked nicely enough and offered a bit of a bribe!